We sat down with Sheila Darcey, also known as SketchPoetic to get some insight on this artist and author. Her follow-up collection with remx launches on December 8th. Keep reading for some of the conversation highlights and watch the full interview below. Click here for the Genesis Gold collection.
remx: Thank you so much for joining us. Super excited to take a deep dive on who SketchPoetic is. I would love it if you can just tell us a little bit more about your background. Is being an artist your full-time career or would you say that this is more of a passion of yours, a side project? Do you see them aligning?
Sheila Darcey: It’s funny you ask that Taylor, people ask me this question all the time because outside looking in, it looks like I’m a full-time artist, but I’m not. I have a day job and have been in the tech, digital consulting agency space for over 20 years. I wouldn’t call it a side hustle, nor would I call it a passion. It’s my purpose and because it’s my purpose, it actually permeates everything I do. Arts and healing is in every touchpoint that I do, whether it’s through work, how I lead teams or through clients. Obviously in my book, I wrote a book about it and even through the NFT community, I always lead with arts and healing. So yeah, day job, purpose is all integrated, all connected.
remx: Most definitely. Tell us a little bit more about your day job. What do you do in your career? Does it align with the arts world? I know you mentioned tech.
Sheila Darcey: It’s so interesting because I have such a belief that I’m on a spiritual path and so it’s so fascinating that my work life integrated with my personal life. I work for a company called WHIM. It’s a digital canvas company, but we’re all about experiences. Taking the digital life that’s in your pocket and giving you experiences in the home. I’ve been with the company almost six years, then suddenly the NFT space came about and it gave us renewed sense of purpose for the product because originally it was only meant to be in the home, but since it’s now in galleries, it’s at Quantum, Superchief and obviously you’ve experienced the WHIM canvas. I lead the innovation team with a partner, Miguel, and we’re kind of the jack of all trades, that’s how it goes with entrepreneurship and startups. I do a little bit of everything. So yes, it overlaps my art life. A hundred percent.
remx: Yeah. That’s amazing. It’s kind of crazy. I didn’t realize that you had been with them for that long.
Sheila Darcey: Yeah, I think some people thought I started as part of the NFT. Now I would’ve been with them for almost six years.
remx: Wow, that’s incredible. It’s also really cool that it kind of just so happened to align perfectly. What are the odds really?
Sheila Darcey: It was divine intervention. I will say though, I joined WHIM because it was all about the creators. It was a creator led platform. We really believe that people, especially digital artists, back in the day, again, this was six years ago, digital artists weren’t getting their dues. And then the NFT space came, Web3 came and everything led to it. So I’m just fortunate that I was already in the space.
remx: What was it like before the NFT space? Yeah. I feel like that was ahead of its time almost in the sense because I had never really thought of digital canvases at home and that’s what you were focused on. So how did that transition?
Sheila Darcey: Yeah, I think that’s the interesting thing. When you work for innovation or you work in any sort of environment where innovation is what you’re leading with, you go with the flow. So as the market shifts were happening, as the audiences were shifting, you just kind of course correct. We just have an incredible team. We have a team in Montreal, in New York and we’re always seeing what’s happening in the space. When I got into Clubhouse, I was hearing all about these NFTs and I actually started joining the NFT space because of my job, not as an artist. I thought, well this is cool tech innovation. And then I fell in love with the community. I met you there. I’ve met so many incredible people there. And so what keeps me there is the culture and the community for sure. A hundred percent.
remx: You’ve been an active member here in the community, since the NFT boom. Yeah. I was gonna ask you how you found it and how that maybe changed your art career at all. Did it change how you created artwork at all? Because you’re a physical artist and you’re drawing, and that’s all digital. So you just led me right into that question.
Sheila Darcey: How could it not change me as an artist? Mostly because I connected with so many other creators and I started collaborating, co-creating. Just the energy of being in these spaces with all the creators. You know how it is; it inspires you. Interestingly though, my art right now… I’m gonna change that, I’m gonna go bigger. It’s currently in a sketchbook format. And so when I see it big, it makes me uncomfortable to be honest, because I’m not used to seeing it that big. I’m used to seeing it in this little container. So in that sense, I have had to think bigger because I do want it to look good on a big screen.
Secondly, I’m a tactile person. I’m not used to seeing things digitally when I’m all about touching the watercolor paper. So for me, I think it’s been a bit of an adjustment for me as an artist. But from a foundational inspiration, it’s a hundred percent the same. I’ve always been inspired by other creators and just being tapped into so many more. There’s not a day that goes by that I’m not inspired by the NFT community.
remx: Yeah. Have you done any collaborations or anything? Because you’ve mentioned community a few times now and yeah, a big thing with the NFT community, it has been creating that collaboration aspect and also with IRL events and things like that. How has the NFT space kind of changed that for you?
Sheila Darcey: On Sunday I hosted my first event and it was art, tech, and wellness. Yay, woo. And that had been my dream for about a year and a bit. I’d been in the NFT space for a year at that point, gone to NFTNYC and I was missing this type of event that integrated everything I loved. I’d been to art events and I’d been to tech events and I’d been to wellness events, but I didn’t feel like I saw examples of where all three were integrated. Not surprisingly, it also is my life. I have an artist’s self. I have my day job self, and then I also have wellness practice. I am selfishly solving for me, but also solving it for the community. The answer is I’m constantly looking for ways to integrate all of my worlds because it matters, right? It matters that I’m not trying to balance all these plates and I’m trying to make sure I have equal time with everything. By integrating it all, it’s a win-win for everyone. Not only for me, but for the community. I really did it to give back to all of you because it matters that we have that time for ourselves.
remx: I love that. I think that it’s really cool and I think that that’s something that the NFT space offers. I’ve seen it come from so many artists and so many creatives where they feel like they actually got to be themselves and express themselves in a way that they have never had the opportunity before, even if they were working in the art world. Sounds true. Photographers saying they’ve always been building based off of clients and they’re creating for the client versus creating as an artist. We’ve seen it across the board. So it’s cool that you’ve kind of gotten to experience that yourself as well.
Sheila Darcey: And then the other thing is, it was my first time as a curator and a collector. I’ve collected art, but I think most of us buy pieces for our wall. But I have become an avid collector in the NFT space. Everything that I have sold has been put back to the community. I’m not saying that everyone should do that, I just have the privilege to do that. So yeah, my NFT collection is quite big. I’m so happy and proud of it.
remx: I think it’s cool too because it’s given us all an opportunity to support one another as well. And not just in buying their work, but going to shows and also curating together, right? So being able to bring in artists that we’ve been building with since day one, that we’ve collected their artwork in the NFT space and then now we’re coming together attending these events.,
Sheila Darcey: I believe if you came to the NFT space for the creative community, you’re only met with genuine, warm, generous people. I mean, you hear about the noise of the whales and the people that flip from money. That’s not the community. I run with this community, the people that are all about the creators, their own sovereignty, uplifting each other, helping each other. That’s the only experience I’ve ever had. And that’s what I want more people to experience. So the event that I hosted with Neosutras, we wanted it to be Web2 and Web3 for that reason. So that Web2 people could experience us in that environment. A lot of people walked away saying, I had no idea this is what Web3 was about. I’m like, exactly… I can’t talk about it. You have to experience it.
remx: Yeah, most definitely. So on another note, because you’re a collaboration of different types of artists because you also have written a book, “Sketch by Sketch — The Creative Path to Emotional Healing and Transformation” I kind of wanna tap into that, too. What inspired you to write it where?
Sheila Darcey: Well, I just got body chills because anytime I talk about my book, I know I’m talking to a like-minded person. That was divinely guided. And I mean that wholeheartedly. I never set out to write a book. It was never on my bucket list. All I know is I made a commitment to sketch daily and it transformed my life. I had sketched daily because I was having a mental health crisis. I was hitting a wall as an entrepreneur. I wasn’t present at all. I was so in my head, ten steps ahead every single moment in my life. And I needed to come back to that point of presence and stillness. And so I started sketching daily. There’s a lot more to that story. But when I started sketching, my body started to calm down, my brain started to quiet.
And I swear to God, Taylor, I had a moment, I’d say about three weeks into it, I said, do people know art heals? Like I said it out loud because I didn’t know it could heal. I didn’t truly… in that simplistic way. And so I started doing workshops because that was my background and then the pandemic hit. I started doing global workshops and Zoom, and then I realized I can’t do enough zooms. These people wanted it so badly. And that’s how the book came to be. It was my way to scale what I was doing and to help others understand that this is a tool and that you could be intentional about art as a healing tool. A lot of people don’t know that you can heal through art and in all of its forms, like dancing, music, all of those things, spoken word. I’m an advocate for all of it.
remx: I love that. I love that so much. A lot of artists’ styles will change based off of emotion and things like that. So it’s really cool to push and get others to tap into that as a healing source. I don’t think that it’s talked about enough.
Sheila Darcey: It’s not. And I wanna comment on what you just said, Taylor, art is intuitively a mode of self-expression or some sort of expression. That’s not what I’m talking about. What I’m talking about is: did you know that when you create, pay attention to your breath, did you know when you create, pay attention to how your body is tingling in different places or activated? It’s actually, for me, it was the body connection that was helping me heal because I had been disconnected and disassociated with my body for so long. It was really paying attention to how when I create what was happening to my body, and then of course the spiritual part of that came through as well, because then you realize, oh, I’m a witness to all of it, so I become an observer. That’s the whole Michael Singer book. The “Surrender Experiment’’ talks about it.
remx: That’s incredible. I really have never thought about it that way. And I think it’s having that intention when you go to create, that can change drastically. It’s making me inspired. I’m like, I need to start it. It’s been in my head a lot recently because if you wanna be an artist and you’re not creating every day, how are you ever going to get there? But at the same time, using that to heal is a beautiful concept. So it’s like killing two birds with one stone.
Sheila Darcey: It really is. And my intention was very different than most artists. And I put artists in quotes because I didn’t even call myself an artist until recently. I was actually very intentional. You had asked me an earlier question of how did it affect me as an artist being in the NFT community. The NFT space was really the first place I started selling my art in a way outside of commissions. I did commissions in the physical world, I did murals, but I felt like I was in a safe environment to explore and to kind of test it out, truly just give it a go, try different platforms. I was on three different platforms and I really liked the lack of pressure. I didn’t feel like I had to find a gallery that would accept me. And there’s all these artist barriers of feeling accepted as an artist. I never felt that in the NFT space. I just immediately felt accepted.
remx: I think the NFT space definitely does that for a lot of people. And I think for a lot of artists, it opens them up to so many new opportunities that you kind of overcome that hump of, I’m not good enough. Because you started having these collaborations and other people that were interested in what you’re doing and finding your group of creators. I feel like a lot of times, I know for myself being a creative, I was the only creative in my circle. It was like everything came to me to be the creative. So as everyone always coming to me versus having other people to bounce ideas off of or collaborate with. And the NFT space really did create that.
Sheila Darcey: I don’t wanna dismiss the mental health component, because like you said initially I felt really accepted and then as the mass market started to come in, as the influencers started to come in, I didn’t feel this. I definitely know as a person that held spaces that I heard it a lot from people that it was triggering their mental health issues and more importantly, the things that they were experiencing in the physical world being an artist, that started to come up again. So I do feel like as Web3 evolved, the very things that we were battling in the physical world as an artist were starting to really lead into the Web3 space. And it’s still happening, but I think the fact that we’re all supporting each other and being so open and vulnerable about it in such a big way, you don’t feel alone in it. I think that helps people.
remx: Most definitely. I think that it can be an issue still. It’s human nature for us to feel that way in a sense. So it’s really about leaning into one another and why are you here to make money? Or are you here for the connections? Are you here to heal? What is it that you’re doing? What is your why for being here? Yeah. I do wanna ask you a little bit about the collection that you recently launched with us. Super excited to have you as a remix artist. And one of the first, for that matter, the art that you used was actually repurposed and kind of given a second life by using the remx design tool. Yes. What was the original inspiration and what made you choose this as your remx Genesis collection?
Sheila Darcey: First of all, I love remx. I love the platform. It was so easy to use. I will plug that because I’m a product person at heart. And the fact that it was so easy to use, I think that’s important to mention. But I have always envisioned my art on fashion and because of the word healing. The reality is when we think of fashion, we think of it as a form of expression. The duality and the darker side of it is, it’s also a form of armor. We can protect ourselves in many ways by projecting a certain identity. So when I think about putting my art and repurposing it for fashion, it’s with the purpose to say, look, here is who I am, but maybe I don’t want you to see the deeper side of me, but let me show you through the art.
And so somebody that wears my jacket with my SketchPoetic on it, or somebody that buys the puffer jacket that I just recently dropped, I would love them to be able to go through the metaverse and be in those experiences and somebody engages with that, with, wow, that’s a really cool print that you have. What is that about? And so it engages connection, but more importantly, it is a form of expression of the inside out. And I wanted it to be, like I said, a cape, a superhero cape that says here, this is who I am. But it’s also a great way to spark dialogue. That’s why I created it that way.
remx: I love that. Was that your original thought? Did you think when you were creating that print, that was the wow?
Sheila Darcey: Yes. The back story. It’s so interesting. The backstory of that pattern was it was on a helmet. My friend got in a motorcycle accident and he had to retire from bikes. It was a really bad accident and it devastated him. And so he retired his helmet and he said, Sheila, it would be an honor if you put your art on my helmet. And he used it as a piece of art. His name is Doug and I had him in my mind. I really put all of that energy into the helmet. When I thought of a pattern to put with remx, I thought, that’s the perfect pattern. It happened to be black and gold, so it looks really freaking cool. But I love the symbolism of somebody physically healing from their accident, but was also heartbroken because he was giving up his passion. That’s so symbolic. So when somebody buys my remix jacket, know that that’s layered into it. That deeper meaning is important to me.
remx: Yeah, that is absolutely incredible. It’s crazy, the alignment of how that all came together. I’m excited for that drop. The collection is absolutely beautiful. And hope to have more coming
Sheila Darcey: Oh yeah, we got some pants coming soon, <laugh>.
remx: Is there anything that you have in the future to come? Any releases that you’re doing for Sketch Poetic? Any events? Are you doing a puzzle? What do you have going on? What’s up your sleeve?
Sheila Darcey: Well, it’s so interesting because I surrender to the process. It’s gonna change every week, but in the immediate future, it’s holiday season, so you’ll see me more actively reminding people about my book because I do want it to continue to be part of something that I lead with. But I do have a couple of holiday events where I will be doing my SketchPoetic workshops. I’m still doing workshops to help people heal. I’m working with an underserved community to do arts and healing workshops. But then the bigger thing is, for 2023, Taylor, I really wanna double down on my artist’s self. I really believe that I’ve spent a lot of focus and energy in being in service to the greater good. And it’s great and I will always be, but I often think that my artist’s self takes a back seat. So what I hope you hear from me in 2023 is more art stuff from me, like an art show, more art collaborations, being at Art Basel next year, all of those things. That’s my hope.
remx: Do you still do sketches every day
Sheila Darcey: I do. And sometimes it’s getting 10 minutes and I do it just to do it. It’s like exercising. So I don’t get outta the habit. But yeah, I do it every day.
remx: So it’s like that practice and leaning into more of those events. I don’t think it’s a hope. I think it’ll happen itself. Yeah, I’m excited to see everything else that you have to come in 2023. I will keep an ear out for sure of all of the events and maybe I can make it to one of them.
Sheila Darcey: For sure.
remx: I think that would be absolutely amazing. But I just wanna say thank you so much for joining us and taking the time to speak with us and tell us more about who you are as an artist and your artist journey. It’s always amazing to get to know a little bit more about you. So thank you so much. Thank you.
Sheila Darcey: Thanks Taylor. And thanks for using your platform to support me and other artists. I’m so grateful for you. Thank you very much.
Watch the full video:
Stay up to date on the Sheila Darcey release on her website: https://www.sheiladarcey.com/
Find her book, “Sketch by Sketch,” available here.
Or follow along on her journey on Twitter and Instagram.
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