Skirt October 2014

Augusta, Aiken & Columbia

“Promise me you’ll always remember:

You’re braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.”

A.A. Milne

The thing about sparks is that you might

have to sit in the dark to see them, but

when you do—boy-oh-boy–do they ever

shine. Sparks start revolutions. They glow

like crazy diamonds in our pounding

hearts. Everything is possible. Once ignit-

ed, we can shine on and on and, blinding

the world with our brilliance. We don’t

sweat, we sparkle. We gleam, shimmer

and shine. Lightning and rocket fuel are

nothing compared to the sparks of “I can”

and “I will.” Create, innovate, nurture.

The day wakes up a little brighter. A spark

of kindness rises from ash and we bask in

the glow. A spark of curiosity dazzles and

we follow the brilliance. A spark of hope

has healing powers. That thing about not

hiding your light? Don’t forget it. Tend the

kindling, fan the �ames, look for the light.

You’re combustible, you’re an inferno, you

burn with love and light beyond anything

you could have imagined.

october

F R E E

E s c a p e t h e o r d i n a r y .

Cover Art: Ali Douglass

2014 OCT COLA MARKET.indd 1 9/23/14 11:20:40 AM

4 october 2014 www.skirt.com

october2014

This month, we’re honored to include a particularly strong woman on these pag-

es—a two-time Olympic gold medalist, former WNBA star, respected college bas-

ketball coach—and a breast cancer survivor. Nikki McCray has spent her life taking

on challenges and working as part of a team. These days, she coaches some of the

country’s most talented female basketball players. For the last year, those young

women, along with her fellow coaches, have rallied around her as she juggled a

new baby, a demanding career, and a grueling round of cancer treatment. October

is a month for national breast cancer awareness and on October 18 at Columbia’s

Finlay Park, McCray will lead a different kind of team in the Walk for Life. Team

“Pay 4 McCray” is raising money to annihilate a tough opponent. You’re welcome

to join Nikki and thousands of other walkers and runners,

either by donating or getting out there in your sneak-

ers on Palmetto Health Foundation’s walk day. You’ll

find information at WalkForLifeColumbia.org—and a

photo of Nikki in her pink boxing gloves, ready to

put up a fight.

[email protected]

SKIRT! THIS MONTH

Like to see your ad in skirt! Magazine? 706.823.3702

“You can’t use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have.”Maya Angelou

I S S U E

About the Cover Artist Ali Douglass lives in Asheville, North Carolina. Her award-winning work has been used by clients including MasterCard, American Girl, Georgia-Pacific, The Wall Street Journal and more. alidouglass.com

S PA R K

ISSUE

FounderNikki Hardin

Creative Director Caitilin McPhillips

[email protected]

Market ManagerKate Cooper Metts

[email protected]

Contributing Editors Jenny Maxwell

[email protected]

Gracie Shepherd [email protected]

Sales DirectorLisa Dorn

[email protected]

Sales ExecutivesDoressa Hawes

[email protected]

Lisa Taylor [email protected]

Maidi McMurtrie Thompson [email protected]

Mary Porter Vann [email protected]

CirculationJessica Seigler

[email protected]

PhotographyJ.M. Sullivan

Molly Harrell

AdvertisingSales: 706.823.3702

Fax: 706.823.6061 1.800.622.6358

skirt! is published monthly and distributed free throughout the greater Augusta, Aiken &

Columbia area. skirt! reserves the right to refuse to sell space for any advertisement the staff deems

inappropriate for the publication. All content of this magazine,

including without limitation the design, advertisements, art, photos

and editorial content, as well as the selection, coordination and

arrangement thereof, is Copyright © 2014, Morris Publishing Group, LLC.

All Rights Reserved. No portion of this magazine may be copied

or reprinted without the express written permission of the publisher.

SKIRT!® is a registered trademark of Morris Publishing Group, LLC.

Features

Living The Hollywood Life In North Carolina Nancy Rapp .........................................8

The Accidental Immigrant Reba Kochersperger .........................9

In Every Issue

Letter from the Editor .....................4

He’s So Original ...............................25

Skirt of the Month ...........................16

Product ...............................................14

Meet ....................................................26

Typewriter .........................................30

www.skirt.com october 2014 5

www.skirt.com september 2014 7



Diane Boyd | Anointed Hands

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Carpentry, floral arranging, sewing, painting: you name the creative hobby, Diane has taught herself how to do it. They were all just hobbies until she stumbled upon

a jewelry display at a craft show in 2007, and she couldn’t draw her eyes away from the beads. “I thought to myself, man, I could do that,” she says. She bought

supplies and started making and selling at local arts festivals such as Arts in the Heart and Aiken’s Makin’, but was amazed to find people loved her creations. “I

think we’re all our own worst critics,” she says. Diane’s business name, Anointed Hands Adorn, has a deeply personal meaning. She was born with a birth defect

that altered the formation of her right hand, but she didn’t let that stop her from building and creating. “I grew up with people being very cruel,” she says. After

starting her own business, Diane had a friend who referred to her jewelry as works of “anointed hands.” When she heard that, the name just fit. “I began to see

the glory of it all.”

october2014



Diane Boyd | Anointed Hands

Pho

to b

y J.

M. S

ulliv

an

Carpentry, floral arranging, sewing, painting: you name the creative hobby, Diane has taught herself how to do it. They were all just hobbies until she stumbled upon

a jewelry display at a craft show in 2007, and she couldn’t draw her eyes away from the beads. “I thought to myself, man, I could do that,” she says. She bought

supplies and started making and selling at local arts festivals such as Arts in the Heart and Aiken’s Makin’, but was amazed to find people loved her creations. “I

think we’re all our own worst critics,” she says. Diane’s business name, Anointed Hands Adorn, has a deeply personal meaning. She was born with a birth defect

that altered the formation of her right hand, but she didn’t let that stop her from building and creating. “I grew up with people being very cruel,” she says. After

starting her own business, Diane had a friend who referred to her jewelry as works of “anointed hands.” When she heard that, the name just fit. “I began to see

the glory of it all.”

october2014


HESAID“WHAT WOULD

LIFE BE IF WE HAD NO COURAGE TO ATTEMPT

ANYTHING?” VINCENT VAN GOGH

SHESAID“THE MOST

COURAGEOUS ACT IS STILL TO THINK FOR

YOURSELF. ALOUD.”

COCO CHANEL


HESAID“WHAT WOULD

LIFE BE IF WE HAD NO COURAGE TO ATTEMPT

ANYTHING?” VINCENT VAN GOGH

SHESAID“THE MOST

COURAGEOUS ACT IS STILL TO THINK FOR

YOURSELF. ALOUD.”

COCO CHANEL


october2014

Kate Spade neon notebooksOne.453 Highland AvenueAugusta706.869.2254

Portraits of the RenaissanceFolly116 Laurens Street SWAiken803.226.0550

makeit!

Table Topics conversation startersGibson’s on DevineColumbia803.771.4520

A PA

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Neatography curates a

monthly subscription service ($27 a month)

and sends packages full of creative inspiration—

notebooks, letterpress cards, paper templates,

and more. Neatography.com.



Illus

tratio

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Mon

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d D

esig

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indesign.etsy.com

Roberto Cavalli hand-painted silk skirtGrande Finale Boutique2850 Devine StreetColumbia803.799.3000grande�naleboutique.com

I dreamed I packed my skirt,

and danced under the harvest moon.

WHEREWill Your Skirt

take younext?




Ashleigh Brilliant

what’s uncommon are people who’ll work hard enough to bring

them about.

T H E S P A R K A W A R D S


M o r e A m a z i n g

This new iteration of

Frank Baum’s The Wonder-

ful Wizard of Oz features

the illustrations of Olimpia

Zagnoli, a quirky Italian

artist who often collabo-

rates with The New York

Times, The New Yorker, Rolling

Stone, Taschen and many

others. She lives in Milan in

a house with kaleidoscopic

floors. We love this new

spin on a classic tale!

The Rockport Classics

Reimagined version of

The Wonderful Wizard

of Oz is available at QBook-

Shop.com for $25.

M o r e H u m a n

Leave it to one of our

favorite quirky creatives to

invent an app that incen-

tivizes interaction instead

of the other way around!

Miranda July announced

the release of her new app

at the Venice Film Festival

last month, along with lots

of buzz. Once downloaded,

the Somebody app sends

your message not to its

intended recipient, but to

the closest Somebody

user nearby. Built-in actions

like [hug] and directives

like [cry] encourage the

messengers to really add

feeling to their performance.

M o r e B e a u t i f u l Birchbox co-founders Hayley Barna and Katia Beauchamp

met at Harvard Business School. With inspiration from Hayley’s beauty editor best

friend Mollie Chen, they created Birchbox to help consumers cut through the clut-

ter of the retail world to find products that really work for them. Since the box’s

launch in September of 2010, our hearts beat a little faster every month when we

see the trademark pink box in the mail! Subscriptions are $10 a month; Birchbox.com.

B e t t e r P r e p a r e d Another Kickstarter-funded project—that raised a record-breaking

$100K in 24 hours—is Hello Ruby, a children’s book by tech pioneer Linda Liukas. She spent

the last three years teaching programming and making the world of technology more ap-

proachable through her non-profit, RailsGirls.com and working at Codecademy. Motto: Teach

them young and often! Hardcover and e-book versions available from $20 at HelloRuby.com.


More Secure For Female Athletes. When 43-year-old Cheryl Kellond couldn’t find a

GPS fitness tracker that worked for women, she launched a Kickstarter Inc. campaign

to make them and raised $408,000 in 2012 for Bia Sport Inc., which shipped its first

3,000 multi-sport GPS watches this spring. The watch features a unique SOS safety

alert (late night and early morning runners will love it) and a lightweight, sleek design.

We love the fun colors, like “Believe I Am Purple” and “Fierce Heart Pink.”

$279 at Store-Bia-Sport.com.

t h r e e

SomebodyApp.com.

f o u r

Get

ty Im

ages


M o r e A m a z i n g

This new iteration of

Frank Baum’s The Wonder-

ful Wizard of Oz features

the illustrations of Olimpia

Zagnoli, a quirky Italian

artist who often collabo-

rates with The New York

Times, The New Yorker, Rolling

Stone, Taschen and many

others. She lives in Milan in

a house with kaleidoscopic

floors. We love this new

spin on a classic tale!

The Rockport Classics

Reimagined version of

The Wonderful Wizard

of Oz is available at QBook-

Shop.com for $25.

M o r e H u m a n

Leave it to one of our

favorite quirky creatives to

invent an app that incen-

tivizes interaction instead

of the other way around!

Miranda July announced

the release of her new app

at the Venice Film Festival

last month, along with lots

of buzz. Once downloaded,

the Somebody app sends

your message not to its

intended recipient, but to

the closest Somebody

user nearby. Built-in actions

like [hug] and directives

like [cry] encourage the

messengers to really add

feeling to their performance.

M o r e B e a u t i f u l Birchbox co-founders Hayley Barna and Katia Beauchamp

met at Harvard Business School. With inspiration from Hayley’s beauty editor best

friend Mollie Chen, they created Birchbox to help consumers cut through the clut-

ter of the retail world to find products that really work for them. Since the box’s

launch in September of 2010, our hearts beat a little faster every month when we

see the trademark pink box in the mail! Subscriptions are $10 a month; Birchbox.com.

B e t t e r P r e p a r e d Another Kickstarter-funded project—that raised a record-breaking

$100K in 24 hours—is Hello Ruby, a children’s book by tech pioneer Linda Liukas. She spent

the last three years teaching programming and making the world of technology more ap-

proachable through her non-profit, RailsGirls.com and working at Codecademy. Motto: Teach

them young and often! Hardcover and e-book versions available from $20 at HelloRuby.com.


More Secure For Female Athletes. When 43-year-old Cheryl Kellond couldn’t find a

GPS fitness tracker that worked for women, she launched a Kickstarter Inc. campaign

to make them and raised $408,000 in 2012 for Bia Sport Inc., which shipped its first

3,000 multi-sport GPS watches this spring. The watch features a unique SOS safety

alert (late night and early morning runners will love it) and a lightweight, sleek design.

We love the fun colors, like “Believe I Am Purple” and “Fierce Heart Pink.”

$279 at Store-Bia-Sport.com.

t h r e e

SomebodyApp.com.

f o u r

Get

ty Im

ages



Pho

to b

y M

olly

Har

rell

Maria Fabrizio | Headline Artist

In early 2013, Maria challenged herself to illustrate one news story every day and post it on a blog. Twenty-two months later, Wordless News has proven to

be good news for her career as an illustrator and graphic artist. “It’s really helped my business. I’ve seen a lot of personal growth in my process. And it’s been

a good way for me to learn about the world,” Maria says. Her work day starts early at her home in Columbia, where she scans the headlines for inspiration.

“Every morning, it’s a gamble for sure,” she says. One of the ways it’s paid off is in her new base of national clients, which includes NPR. After doing a story

about her, NPR hired Maria to create illustrations to accompany its news. Her blog, in the meantime, has expanded from a handful of followers to thousands.

You can �nd her work at wordlessnews.com.

october2014



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Kristen Smith | Space of Her Own

“Since I was very little, I knew I wanted to do something artistic,” Kristen says. She taught herself illustration by drawing her favorite comic book characters

over and over as a kid, and took every graphic design and art class available in high school. “I was lucky enough to be exposed to a lot of mediums that other

kids were not,” she says. Now at 28 years old, Kristen has built a successful graphic design business creating just about anything design-related, specializing in

illustration and stationery. She loves how design rewards her for inventing and imagining inside her own head, and can’t imagine doing anything different. “It’s so

much a part of who I am,” she says. Her work is available at kris10smith.com, and she’s part of the Minted.com online design community. Locally, Kristen has been

a part of efforts to connect local makers and build community within a predominantly freelance �eld, opening the Flourish workspace at 1141 Broad Street

downtown with several other creatives. “There’s an amazing creative community here, and I feel really fortunate to have that,” she says. “I feel beyond grateful,

every single day.”

october2014



Pho

to b

y J.

M. S

ulliv

an

Kristen Smith | Space of Her Own

“Since I was very little, I knew I wanted to do something artistic,” Kristen says. She taught herself illustration by drawing her favorite comic book characters

over and over as a kid, and took every graphic design and art class available in high school. “I was lucky enough to be exposed to a lot of mediums that other

kids were not,” she says. Now at 28 years old, Kristen has built a successful graphic design business creating just about anything design-related, specializing in

illustration and stationery. She loves how design rewards her for inventing and imagining inside her own head, and can’t imagine doing anything different. “It’s so

much a part of who I am,” she says. Her work is available at kris10smith.com, and she’s part of the Minted.com online design community. Locally, Kristen has been

a part of efforts to connect local makers and build community within a predominantly freelance �eld, opening the Flourish workspace at 1141 Broad Street

downtown with several other creatives. “There’s an amazing creative community here, and I feel really fortunate to have that,” she says. “I feel beyond grateful,

every single day.”

october2014


HE’S SO ORIGINAL

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Georgia Regents University sophomore Rickey Jones wants to be a global fashion name someday, but for now he’s happy bringing fashion to his hometown. At GRU

he has founded Fashion Forward, a student organization aimed at bringing fashion to a more diverse audience in an inclusive way. “Fashion is not some pretentious

thing, it’s for everyone,” Rickey says. He found his love of all things fashion at 16 when his grandmother insisted on teaching him how to sew. He wound up loving it,

and dove head-first into the world of fashion and designers and couture. Now he writes on his blog TheModPrep.com as well as designing and creating clothing for

friends, family and customers. “It does something really, really good to my heart to see someone wearing something I designed,” he says. After college, Rickey plans on

further launching himself as a brand. After that, the sky is the limit. “My dream would be to get that call from Anna Wintour, and be included in the September Vogue.”

october2014

Rickey Jones | The Mod Prep



“Three things you can control: Your attitude, how you treat people, and how hard you work!”

Pho

to b

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olly

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rell

october

Nikki McCray-PensonBasketball Coach, Olympic Gold Medalist,

Former WNBA Star, Columbia, SC

5 Favorite Things:5 Things That Describe Me:

1. Disciplined

2. High Energy

3. Cancer Survivor

4. Team Player

5. Giver

1. Singing

2. Ice Skating

3. Four-leaf Clovers

4. My Faith

5. Being a Mom





Carry a Moleskine, preferably black.

Wear a scarf at all times.

Stare off into space. Often.

Silently judge email fonts.

Work. That. Messy. Updo.

Get a word tattoo. In Latin.

Shop: All Etsy, all the time.

Only black coffee.

Daydream, a lot.

Short nails, dark nail polish.

Pin magazine tear-outs to your bulletin board.

Warby Parker frames, even if you have 20/20 vision.

Name drop your “work in progress.”

Change “experience” on your resume to “body of work.”

Blackwing pencils are so retro cool.

Suffer (theoretically) for your art.

Spark Notes for

Non Creative Types.

october2014


Skirt October 2014

Documents

nikki mccray

youre braver

youre welcome

youre combustible

octoberf r e ee s c

photo of nikki

breast cancer survivor

spark of hope