SILK HAND PAINTINGS S/S
BY RONNITA WHIPPLE
Ronnita was recently honored at the Susan G. Komen charity organization for creating a dress completely out of sparkle paper towels Sponsored by Georgia Pacific that she hand painted and dyed pink, helping them raise $77,000 in the fight towards breast cancer.
Ronnita Whipple graduated from the Savannah College of Art & Design (SCAD) in Atlanta in May 2018 with a B.F.A. degree in Fashion Design. She was recently honored by Georgia Pacific and the Susan G. Komen Foundation for creating a dress completely out of sparkly paper towels that she hand painted and dyed pink, helping them raise $77,000 in the fight towards breast cancer. She also was selected as an Emerging Designer by the National Black Arts Festival with her original design displayed in the entrance window at Neiman Marcus at Lenox Square in Atlanta.
One day recently, Ronnita Whipple sat in a second-floor conference room at Atlanta’s Savannah College of Art and Design remembering the moment her dream of attending the elite university came to her.
She was heading God knows where with her friend and mentor Katherine Hutto, who mentioned the school as a possible place for her after graduation and, well, it stuck in the back of Whipple’s mind.
She was heading God knows where with her friend and mentor Katherine Hutto, who mentioned the school as a possible place for her after graduation and, well, it stuck in the back of Whipple’s mind.
“I don’t think she realized it resonated with me,” she said. “From that moment on, it became my dream.”
In reality, it seemed an improbable if not impossible dream.
Whenever doubt creeps in or she feels the urge to quit what she’s doing, she need only look at her bedroom wall at some of the quotes she’s read and heard over the years.
“Anything worth doing is worth doing well,” reads one, written in black paint on her pink bedroom door. “When you want to succeed as bad as you want to sleep, then you’ll see success. ... Doubt kills more dreams than failure ever will!”
It’s that spirit of perseverance that drove Whipple to spend more than 400 hours to create a prom dress and tuxedo out of 90 rolls of duct tape as part of the 2014 Duck brand Stuck at Prom Scholarship Contest.
