If an expert is defined as someone with a lot of experience and skill in a certain subject, Lily Gaskin definitely qualifies.
The 17-year-old daughter of Amy and Wes Gaskin of Summit, she has been experimenting with art in various forms for 10 years. For the last six years she has been selling her work under the name Lily Faith Designs.
“I’ve always loved doing arts and crafts since I was really, really little,” Gaskin said, “I used to paint at my grandmother’s house a lot, so I wanted to find an outlet to do it more often.”
About two years ago, Gaskin found a way to do just that. Southwest Vendors Upscale Market in Summit had a booth available and welcomed its youngest member into its community.
“It just kind of worked out,” Gaskin said. “It does work out. I always make more than what my rent is per month. You just have to find what you love to paint and what other people want to buy, and when you find the right crowd for your art, that’s like a really good thing for artists to have.”
Along with her booth in the vendor’s market, Gaskin has displayed her work at the Summit Fall Festival, where she sells many of her paintings.
“Lily began creating things out of her own mind,” her mother Amy said. “She’s had no professional training. She’s completely self taught.”
Gaskin’s painting style focuses on minimalism and texture. She finds a balance between what she loves to paint and what actually sells. In this aspect she resembles her parents, who are both entrepreneurs.
“My husband used to own an electrical contracting business that started in 2005,” Amy Gaskin said. “Now he manages 25-30 rental properties we have, and for the last five years I’ve had a health coaching business called Southern and Healthy Coaching.”
Lily has developed different kinds of paintings that have become staples in her business. Floral canvases are one of her specialties, and seasonal pieces like Easter bunnies, pumpkins and Nativity scenes are constantly displayed in her booth space.
“Around October or November is when it picks up a lot,” Gaskin said of her sales. “People usually buy my paintings to give them as gifts around Christmas time.”
Along with the paintings in her booth, Gaskin periodically accepts commissions.
“It really depends on what they want done,” she said. “If I’m not comfortable doing it, I won’t do it.”
pic
Three of Lily Gaskin’s paintings were on display in September at Southwest Vendors Mall. (Photo by Natali Moore. Copyright 2024, Emmerich Newspapers, Inc.)
Portraits are something Gaskin has dabbled in, but she doesn’t create many now, saying they’re not her specialty. In the future, as she experiments with different designs, Gaskin hopes to keep her artistic style while continuing to expand the different varieties of paintings she has available.
“I want to pick up landscapes a little bit more,” she said.
Depending on the size of the work and what she’s painting, Gaskin’s paintings can take from 15 minutes to two and a half hours to finish.
For some of her works, she’ll texture the canvas with a mix of baking soda, Mod Podge (a type of glue for arts and crafts) and white paint, then let it dry overnight before she goes back over the canvas with acrylic paint.
“After I’ve done the texture, color doesn’t take a lot of time,” she said.
Before Gaskin started Lily Faith Designs, she created art along with her sisters Bella and Katie.
Back then, painting was not her only art. For 14 years she danced with her sisters at Rejoice Dance Academy in McComb, and they traveled to Disneyland and Universal Studios to perform.
In 2018, Gaskin and her sisters started Crafty Corner, a craft and art business, to help raise money to offset the cost of traveling to New York City for a dance trip.
“I started painting bricks,” Gaskin explained. “They were bricks from the old streets of Summit, before they put asphalt over it.”
Many of the bricks came from her grandfather’s shop, Gaskin said, but once people heard what she was doing, friends and family donated more old bricks from the streets of Summit.
“After Hurricane Katrina, Wes’ dad got a bunch of them,” said Amy Gaskin. “They came from Robb Street.”
In Crafty Corner, all three sisters contributed to paint the bricks and sell them. During the holidays, they painted Nativity scenes and nutcrackers, and then they expanded into Mardi Gras-themed bricks in the spring.
The painted brick fundraiser helped Gaskin and her sisters travel to New York, where they danced in Times Square to the song “Party Rock Anthem,” and performed on a Broadway stage.
“It paid for their dance trip, and after that they stuck to it.” Amy Gaskin said.
During the years that Gaskin and her sisters managed Crafty Corner, Gaskin took a deeper interest in painting. At the age of 11, Gaskin started her own business and named it Lily Faith Designs after her first and middle name.
Along with her paintings, Gaskin creates jewelry pieces that she displays in her booth at the Vendor's Market. The rings, necklaces and bracelets that she makes all follow simple and elegant designs that are Gaskin's signature in all of her creations.
Lily Gaskin, second from left, with family members. From left are her sister Bella, mother Amy and sister Katie. (Photo courtesy of Gaskin family.)
When she first started Lily Faith Designs, Amy Gaskin would post her daughter’s creations on her own Facebook page. Friends and family could comment on what they liked or wanted to buy, but this became cumbersome with all the different things Gaskin was creating.
“She was making so many things, it was hard to keep up on Facebook,” said Amy.
The booth at Southwest Vendors allowed Gaskin to expand and create without restriction.
“She goes in and changes the paintings up frequently,” Amy Gaskin said. “I’ve been really proud of her for doing that.”
Gaskin graduated high school a year early this past May, after being homeschooled since kindergarten.
“Lily went to North Pike for a couple months in kindergarten,” Amy Gaskin said. “But then we decided to start homeschooling. We just felt like that’s what God wanted us to do.”
Gaskin is now enrolled at Southwest Mississippi Community College and is majoring in general studies. She said she has a few ideas of what careers she might choose, but emphasized that she is testing the waters for now.
No matter what career she decides to pursue, Gaskin wants to continue painting. She’s looking forward to expanding her business and supplying her art to more stores in the future.
“Like someplace in McComb or Brookhaven,” she said. “I would like to always do my art, even just as a hobby.”
