America’s Happiest Skateboarder
If you follow the female skateboarding scene on Instagram, you’ve probably seen Sierra Prescott winding her way down a long stretch of smooth Los Angeles blacktop. Or doing a boneless.
Dressed head to toe in 70s-inspired fashion, her social media feeds are a jumble of sunshine, colour and a radiating sense of positivity.
“I’ve been skateboarding and taking pictures since I was about ten years old,” Sierra says. “They’re my two favourite things to do. Ever.”
She’s perched in front of a webcam in her bedroom, wearing a red and cream borg jacket and blue sweatpants. An assortment of cameras and crystals sit on the table next to her.
From the beginning, she’s infectiously happy and energetic, injecting enthusiasm into every sentence, despite having likely been asked the same questions a thousand times before.
“So this is my main shape,” Sierra says, holding up a sealed deck (her current board is in the car). On the bottom, a colourful graphic of leaves covers the wood in blue, purple and pink, and a message in the centre reads: “EVER RAD”.
Hopping back off her seat, she digs out a second deck.
“This is like my cruiser shape, so it’s a little similar but it’s smaller. It’s made to go real fast.” Plain wood on the bottom is interrupted by red lettering that spells “LIFE IS RAD”.
“This is my baby,” Sierra says. “This one’s super fun.”
“You can still kickflip on this. I have a music video where I did a kickflip on this and still, to this day, I’m like: ‘How did I even do that on command?’” she laughs.
Sierra spends her time working on various things at once.
“An average day is definitely a juggle of skateboarding, photography, emails, health, personal — anything I need to do,” she says. In the tangled web of projects, appointments and errands, skateboarding is a welcome break — a chance to focus on one thing and enjoy the time.
“School, work, family, whatever — as long as you can be by yourself, get on your skateboard and have your moment, it’s not that bad, right?”
Of course, it isn’t always that simple. The skateboarding community can be just as hostile and exhausting as everything else at times, and sexism aimed at female skaters is still an issue.
“If we go back to the 70s, you can think of people just cruising and then also going really fast,” Sierra says.
“And then it gets a little more aggressive in the 80s. Once we got to the 90s, people were getting drunk until they blacked out and then ollieing a 16-stair and throwing up all over the camera.
“And I think, when skateboarding got that vibe is when a lot of people were in that realm of ‘this is my thing that I want to do — you can’t do it,’” she says.
Her relaxed demeanour, it turns out, is also her way of pushing back against the toxic masculinity that still plagues parts of the skate scene.
“I think for me, it’s showing people that other people do do it,” Sierra says. “Not just putting the extreme sports out there. Showing someone skating simply, showing someone just pushing.”
At her core, she believes the community is making progress. “We’re getting closer,” she emphasises.
“I’m really hoping that, as we keep moving forward, women, kids, girls, transgender people — whoever — can skate, and feel like they’re allowed, and feel like they’re a part of something, and feel like they’re not alone. I think that’s important,” she says.
Her strategy for dealing with negative people? Simple. “Let it go in one ear and then fly out the other and just keep skating. Literally.”
“That kind of goes back to why I felt it was important to share a book on all women skateboarding and all girls on all levels, all different styles, all different skill levels,” she says.
That book is Shredders: Girls Who Skate, which Sierra wrote and produced the photography for. It showcases a variety of female skateboarders, from those just starting out to those doing it for a living.
“It’s basically a skater’s look into the world of female skateboarding,” Sierra says, holding up a copy of the book, visibly proud.
On top of unique photography and interviews with each skater, there are also sections designed for beginners, with how-to guides and slang translations.
It’s a refreshing piece of skate media, focused on an area of the community that can still go overlooked all too often.
But visibility is improving. And each sun-drenched skateboarding photo Sierra publishes is a testament to that.
