Lily Woods

For 11-year-old Lily Woods, art and high fashion are just part of daily life. We caught up with this School for Creative & Performing Arts fifth-grader to find out about her favorite music, her latest art obsessions, and where she gets her inspiration.

Sweet haircut. I like the way that it sticks up and is spiky. I like to floof it up by running my hands through it and pulling it up. It overpowers gravity! Lots of girls like girly hairstyles,
but I like to have a different look.

What do you wear to school? I wear these awesome tights that are black with Indian bunny rabbits on them. They’re yellow, orange, and gold bunny rabbits. And I wear a taco cat shirt. So it’s a shirt with outer space, and then it has two tacos with cat faces sticking out of them.

Describe your style. Funky, crazy…if you’ve ever heard of Skrillex. Skrillex is dubstep. It’s really crazy.

What other bands do you like? I also like Daft Punk. La Roux, Walk the Moon, Sleigh Bells. My dad gets music, and then I’m obsessed with it, and then he gets more music and I hear it and I’m obsessed with it.

So you’re an artist, right? My art is graphic and abstract, sort of. I used to do anatomy over the summer; I was learning it from books. I liked the foot bone a lot—the skeleton of the foot. I really enjoyed drawing the foot, the ear, and the eye. Right now I’m drawing cats. Only cats.

What do you like about art? I just like what I can do with it. I can make something. It’s pen and ink and it came from my hand. It’s not a photo. It’s not a digital thing.

Favorite things besides taco cat? I like really gaudy things. I like Betsey Johnson stuff. I like when she has really long chains with really big things at the bottom. There was this one necklace, a golden chain with a little skeleton at the bottom. I don’t like socks at all. If it’s crazy sock day at school I’ll wear socks, [but] I only wear knee-high socks. I love tights. And I really, really like jewelry. I wear this sterling silver cat ring that looks like the cat is hugging your finger. It’s from my mom.