Meet Our Summer Intern! Take Five with Skiles Roberts-Salvador
Skiles Roberts-SalvadorSkiles Roberts-Salvador, a rising senior at Middlebury College, is joining the Vermont Arts Council this summer as a part of Middlebury’s MiddWorks for Vermont Summer Internship Program. As communications intern, Skiles will be writing features about Vermont artists and arts and cultural happenings across the state. We asked Skiles five questions to get to know her better.
Q. Your major is Creative Writing with a minor in Studio Art. How did you become interested in this course of study?
Writing has always been very central to who I am. I remember filling journals with stories about elves and fairies in third and fourth grade and deciding I wanted to be an author by fifth. Over time and through my education I have increasingly found myself drawn to the graphic novel form, which combines this passion for writing with the visual arts. I feel lucky to be able to practice both my writing and artistic skills through my studies at Middlebury and look forward to combining what I have learned while pursuing both my minor and major in my upcoming graphic novel senior thesis.
Q. What has been your favorite part of your college experience thus far?
My friends convinced me to host a show at Middlebury’s college radio station, WRMC 91.1, my sophomore spring, which quickly became my favorite extracurricular on campus. Not only do I enjoy hosting a weekly show and curating playlists, but I am fortunate enough to have been granted the position of the station’s creative director in both my junior year and my upcoming senior year. In this role I have enjoyed using my visual art skills to create posters for upcoming events/concerts, spearheading the station zine publication “FM-phasis,” and overall having access to an extremely creative, musical, inclusive community on campus.
Q. What are you interested in pursuing after college?
Right now my biggest goal is to become a published graphic novelist and/or author. I hope to attend grad school after graduation to pursue a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing and continue to produce work.
Q. What are you most looking forward to during the internship?
I am thrilled to be able to explore and report on the artistic events and people of Vermont. I find that being surrounded by art and interacting with creative people who are passionate about what they do is such a rewarding and inspiring experience, and I look forward to writing profiles based on these interactions. Additionally, I am truly excited to see more of Vermont outside of Middlebury and Burlington, and getting to know a place through its arts is a wonderful way to become acquainted with a community!
Q. Favorite art discipline?
While comics/cartoons are my obvious answer, I also really enjoy portraiture. Capturing the likeness of someone on paper is a really magical process, one that I particularly enjoyed in high school, so I am excited to return to the discipline this fall by taking the course “Painting the Human Face.”