The Appalachian Designer

Jill LaFear

Owner, Ackenpucky

Superpower: Tuning out the naysayers

Jill LaFear believes that, with the right group of people, anything is possible. It’s a theme she’s embraced throughout her life and one that carried her through the inception of her creative design firm, Ackenpucky, in Huntington. She chose “ackenpucky,” an Appalachian colloquialism meaning a meal composed of unspecified ingredients, often stew, as the name for her design firm because, like with the meal, “the variety of individual projects and challenges mutually influence every creative task,” and the ingredients may change from day to day.

“If I take into account the negative way in which many people spoke about the vision I had for Ackenpucky at its inception, then it seems that starting and being able to maintain a creative business for over a decade in West Virginia is an accomplishment in and of itself. But then again, I don’t listen to those people.”

“We design and build custom cabinetry, furniture, and lighting; create custom art, sculpture, and murals; design custom graphics for logos and signage, build custom signs, do production and set design—and that is not even the entire menu.”

In addition to her innovative creative design work, LaFear devotes time to growing the region’s art scene at a grassroots level, believing that “embracing Appalachian culture and developing communities through regional art” is essential work for West Virginia.

Written by Tara Wine-queen

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