Sean Dollete

First Year Integrative Seminar I

Professor Rory O’Dea

2 October 2015

Biographical Portrait of a Peer as an Artist/Designer

Skylar Kearney

 

The most vital piece of someone’s story, I believe, is their lowest, darkest moment. To truly experience the highest highs of life, one must undergo the lowest lows. To be the brightest light, one must encounter the pitch black darkness. When speaking with Skylar, I asked her an array of varying questions from her favorite color to her pet peeves, and although all these details contribute to who she is, what truly created and shaped her was the moment where she felt most vulnerable. Skylar believes in those two voices on your shoulders: the one with the horns and the one with the halo. And for the longest time, she has been feeding into the bad voices in her head allowing them to take over her life. The most dangerous thing one can do is listen to the snare of the devil and neglect the voice that truly knows and wants the best for you. Ultimately, just like Eve and the apple, just like Pandora and the box, the bad voices had tempted her and drove her to rock bottom.

The thing with being in that dark place is that it takes a miracle to get out of. Many take the easy route and just give up. You need a strength that you simply do not possess. She was there. In that moment. Ready. No more pain. No more suffering. It will finally be quiet. Then suddenly, she shifted her focus. With one tilt of her head, she was looking at the other voice. The one who has had her best interest this entire time. She looked and she listened. She felt relief. She felt lifted. She stood up, and walked out of that bathroom.

I think Skylar choosing to put the pills down and stand up and away from that bathroom is a true testament to her strength and her faith. In that moment, she finally was able to face her demons, something she has been trying to keep fiction in her head since she was a child. And in doing so, she was able to turn the opposite way, and devote herself to God and her religion. Because of that moment, she got baptized and uses God as her motivator, her reason to live, her light. She got accepted into her dream school, which was a bit of a financial stretch, but she didn’t let that discourage her. She started a college fundraiser because Skylar is the kind of girl that doesn’t give up. The greatest thing about her, I believe, is that one does not need to know her all too well, for a long period of time to know that she is one of the most hardest working, ambitious, driven, passionate, and amazingly talented people you will ever meet. It’s in the way she talks. It’s in the way she dresses. It’s in the way she presents herself. It’s in the way she expresses herself. My favorite moments with her are when I hear her speak, when we talk because it’s so difficult to not be inspired to work harder and be a better person. When you meet her for the first time, she greets you like you’re an absolute privilege to talk to, but being in her presence is a privilege. Talking to her is like feeling the rays of the sun for the first time. It’s her warmth, and charming aura. Although she believes otherwise, her emotions and her passion and her heart are her greatest assets. It what draws people in. Skylar has an authenticity and an honesty that is so hard to find these days in people. Being someone who shares a similar story and struggle, I will never forget when she said to me, “ Sean, if you ever leave this world, I will come and find you, even if it’s in the afterlife, and whoop your ass !”. To hear someone say that, to hear someone who you haven’t known all that long care about you like they have known you forever is the most touching thing. She didn’t become a victim of her struggles, but instead a product. Skylar, not only an inspiration, is also a talented and wise designer and business woman. Skylar built a successful brand and a business, Ralyks, from the ground up. Her clothing is, “bold sophistication that delivers the prideful style of a fearless woman”. Ralyks takes beauty and redefines it in a way that reacts to the natural instinct of a woman who embraces her strengths in an effortless way. Her business is a true reflection of who Skylar is: bold, sophisticated, prideful, strong, and fearless.