Since September, every Tuesday at 12:15, a group of Bernie Sanders supporters has stood together on a street corner with signs. Just standing with signs, the group attracts so many honking supporters that it recently moved locations from the center of Main Street to a bit further out of downtown workers’ earshot.
Eleanor Inskip, owner of Creative Regalia and all-around Moab maven, would like to do something more eccentric. They are, after all, a self-proclaimed flash mob. But she’s happy to be there with her fellow community members, making a difference just by taking a stand.
“I don’t think of it as volunteering,” she said. “It’s just community service.”
Raised in rural Missouri, she credits lifelong participation in 4-H with helping develop confidence in her own human capacities. After moving to Salt Lake City and graduating from the University of Utah, among many work and volunteer experiences, she served as a VISTA volunteer in the Southwest. In Salt Lake City, she helped form food cooperatives before a position as director of the Canyonlands National History Association brought her to Moab in 1973.
Over the ensuing decades, Inskip has sought opportunities to serve and create with her community, and has become established as an important creative force in this town. It is no surprise that the Moab Information Center exists as a direct result of her vision and leadership, built to provide guidance to the millions of visitors who swell the community population every season.
Today, she continues to share her talents, teaching fabric arts classes through the local 4-H program, and supporting and contributing to community arts programming. She has served on the boards of WabiSabi and the Youth Garden Project. The first female member of the Moab Rotary Club, she served twice as its president and, though no longer a member, she continues to help with fundraising and activities in whatever capacity needed.
WabiSabi Program Director Mandy Turner has looked to Inskip as a friend and mentor since their first meeting, when Turner was just dipping her toe in the arts scene here as a model for the Recycled Fashion show benefiting WabiSabi.
“I was really super-nervous, kind of new to town,” Turner said.
Everyone was supportive, but Inskip’s cheering from the balcony as Turner stepped onto the runway is what lit her up that day.
“It was this feeling of being embraced by the community in this recycled arts venue, just this amazing sense of belonging,” she said. “And Eleanor was really instrumental in that.”
Without community, she could be of no service, because the personality, talent, creativity and energy of the people around her are both her muse and her pallet, Inskip said.
“That has probably been my motivation my whole life.”
This profile was made possible by the generous support of Rocky Mountain Power.
This Week: Eleanor Inskip
