Erin Simons is an artist and educator from a family of Appalachian makers— her father a woodworker, her grandmother a watercolorist. Her childhood home in Rural Retreat, Virginia was filled with artisans and craftsmen, from canners to knitters, quilters to bakers.
Erin picked up fine art for herself at a young age when her grandmother introduced her to watercolors, her medium of choice as an artist for years. She went to college to become an elementary school teacher, and quickly declared a concentration in fine art after realizing that being an art teacher was an option. After graduating, Erin moved around some before settling in the “big city” 10 miles outside of her hometown—Wytheville, Virginia. She married her high school sweetheart, and they are raising their three daughters (15, 13, 11) and son (9) next door to her father in a house that he built.
Erin found broom making only a few years ago while attending the Arrowmont School's Legacy Program, a program for educators to build skills in Appalachian crafts in Gatlinburg, Tennessee. While visiting all of the workshops during her week there, Erin ran into broom making for the first time— a craft that she instantly knew she needed to try. Traditional Appalachian broom making is not a craft that can be learned alone— with limited online tutorials, Erin has turned to the broom makers in her local community to share the craft with her. She has spent the last year defining her style in the medium. Her brooms include everything from the wood in her backyard to discarded crochet sticks, putting her own artistic spin on a traditional craft.
Today, Erin spends her weeks in the classroom with her high school students. Teaching traditional crafts, like broom making, in her classroom is one of the ways that Erin connects her students to their local traditions. She encourages her students to find whatever medium of art speaks to them—ceramics, painting, and traditional crafts are all things that they experiment with. Erin believes that there is a method of creating out there for all of her students, they just have to take the time to find it.
