RRIP Mag is the place for videos, images, digital experiments, and writing including features, interviews, reviews, critiques, and personal essays about the creative scenes of Northwest Arkansas. RRIP Mag is content for and by all and any creators residing in the Ozarks and surrounding areas. While this magazine is starting as a fluid and nimble online format, we hope to also publish editions in the future.
Original essays and ideas for the structure of this online ‘zine came from Parlor magazine, which developed diverse online content as well as one published booklet starting in 2018 as a collaboration between editor Samantha Sigmon and designer Dana Holroyd. Parlor encouraged readers to come sit a spell with ideas and images from the community and to respond. Parlor was a place for the arts to gather/together, to welcome a little bit of everything showcasing the doers and the thinkers, and to start a continued, respectful, meaningful conversation on what our creative culture is undergoing today in the Northwest Arkansas region.
RRIP Mag extends Parlor’s goals and visions under this new iteration that fully unites design and content—hoping to help elevate the hard work for those in the cultural and business sectors in ways that celebrate teamwork, collaboration, community, thought, discussion, and support. We welcome all, and we are unafraid of big ideas and important conversations.
We want to be inspired by you! Visit our connect page today with an idea if you’d like to write for us or highlight a specific place or person in NWA. All ideas welcome.
- Samantha Sigmon (writer, editor, content developer)
- Ashlyn Gulbranson (visual and art director)
Stephanie Petet’s Punk-rock Paintings: A Creative Process that Talks Back
This interview ends with four women—several that had just met or started talking in earnest that night—sitting on the ground outside of Stephanie Petet’s home studio. It was an early fall evening, and we were continuously flailing our arms at the motion sensor to keep the garage light lit as we candidly and passionately talked about Northwest Arkansas music and art, and dreamt up events to highlight artists we loved.
by Samantha Sigmon
The West and the South Have More in Common Than Either of Them Thinks
“You’re moving where? Why would you want to do that?”
“I got a good job offer doing exactly what I want to be doing with a great starting salary.”
“You know you’re gonna get murdered by hill billies, right?”
by Brigit Rollins
Building a Stronger Community Through Criticism
Here in the Ozarks, our art communities are small but strong. Collaboration is abundant, space is relatively affordable, and the general public are enthusiastic about art-based events. A major difficulty, though, is allowing for healthy growth and dialogue through criticism.
by Danny R.W. Baskin
Nature’s Nation – An Eco-Critique of American Art
There might be no better stop for the traveling exhibition Nature’s Nation: American Art and Environment than at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, a museum that in many ways became a catalyst for the rapidly developing landscape in Northwest Arkansas.
by Margaret H. Adams
“A PLACE THAT DRAWS YOU IN”: An Interview About the Impact of Fayetteville, Trauma, and Transformation with Boomland Auther John Englehardt
John Englehardt’s first novel Bloomland, released in September 2019, centers around the perspectives of three loosely-connected people struggling to reinvent themselves and find contentment at a southern university as they deal with their own trauma, psychological isolation, and dissatisfaction.
by Samantha Sigmon
Knowledge is Necessary: Parlor Interviews Ashley Holland, Art Bridges’ Assistant Curator
I met Ashley Holland through my job, sort of. She works in the same building as Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, but her position is adjacent to the institution as Assistant Curator for Art Bridges, a foundation started by Alice Walton with the mission to make art available to everyone.
by Samantha Sigmon
Notes on a Music Scene
When you’re talking about the elements of a music scene—say in a no-longer-sleepy, mid-sized college town—it’s tempting to try to find a beginning: like the first time the booking entity that has become On the Map became a thought to Roger Barrett in the winter of 2015 as he and Samantha Sigmon were cooking up an idea to bring a festival of bands to town.
by Leigh Wood
Passing the Salt: Activism and Food an Interview with Nate Walls
People have been giving to those in need for thousands of years, willing to “Pass the Salt” in their communities. Today in Fayetteville, Arkansas, a community and a man on fire are following suit.
by Etan Sllaw
No More/Know More
Over the past year, in an attempt to put myself on an information diet, I have unsubscribed from newsletters, unfollowed most of my social media, not owned a television, not had a Netflix account (whether my own account or “borrowed”). I’m trying to re-train my lizard brain to focus.
by Marianne Williams
Our Shared Spaces a Sort-of-Critique
The art world of Northwest Arkansas is evolving. It grows with each year into a more dominant force and has been built into a source of pride for most of us in the area. Art walks, fresh galleries, and collaborative exhibitions abound from Bentonville on down.
by Danny R.W. Baskin
Coming Home
I’m many miles in the air somewhere between Dallas and New Orleans listening to the track “Big Fun” by Inner City (from their 1989 LP Paradise) on the compilation The Motor City: Detroit House & Techno put together by Jay-Z’s music streaming software TIDAL.
by Allison Glenn
Precious Memories: An Old Couch, A Contemporary Hotel
Encased in a vitrine on the second-floor guest rooms of 21c Museum Hotel Bentonville is a tender display by Elise Raborg—one that imbues objects with the significance of relics, ultimately tugging at heartstrings.
by K. Samantha Sigmon