User:Kalista Simmons/sandbox

Kalista Alycia-Marie Simmons ([kuh-lē-sta] Greek; [uh-le-si-a] German; [mer-ē] French; [sim-mûns] German; Born December 2, 1992) is a poet, artist, photographer, model, designer, philanthropist, activist, and writer. She was born in Raton, New Mexico to Mitchell Simmons and Veronica Sandoval. At the age of 25, Veronica passed away to suicide. Kalista was then left in her father's care. Mitchell was a sales representative for the potato chip company Frito-Lay. His job required him to work 12 hour shifts or more a day. Because of this, Mitchell was unable to provide young Kalista the attention she required. So a few months after her mother's passing, Kalista went to live with her paternal grandparents Billie "Wanye" and Alice Simmons in a small farming community of Ordway, Colorado.



Simmons' art venture started in her high school beginners art class. Her art ranged from sketchings of still life to chalk pastels of the skeleton to eventually reaching oil and acrylic paintings in early college. Paintings of still life images of her dog and flowers helped Kalista further develop her own ideas for pursuing abstract pieces with still life. This eventually lead Kalista to photography as means to creating still life abstract art from her own lens. What she photographed she also wanted to see on canvas through a virtual art world. Here, Simmons was able to create her own voice of sarcasm and humor in pictures of her dog using his laser eye power to set off atomic bombs on the moon. Through this new graphic art, Kalista reached out to her audience whom enjoy psychedelic art. It opened up a world of infinite artistic pleasure to her and allowed her some time in front of the camera to model her art as a way for her to reach her audience.

Writing was always an outlet for Kalista to escape reality and create her own. In elementary school, she was inspired by the Captain Underpants series to write her own heroic comics. The inspiration continues today as she writes a children's book dedicated to her beloved dog, Max and little brother, Kaleb. In the eleventh grade, Kalista published her first poem in the Celebrate! Young Authors annual poetry book.

In late 2015, Kalsta wanted to create her own stylish expressions. She used anything from soda can tabs to broken jewelry to create her own necklaces and bracelets. This then led to the purchase of a new sewing machine for her to make her own designs and create them to her liking as fashion. Since her heart and soul was passionate about fashion from a young age, she appropriately named her brand Passion. She is also working to create a sexy side named Midnight Passion for lingerie.