We were lucky to catch up with Sydney Gruber recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Sydney, thanks for joining us today. Can you take us back in time to the first dollar you earned as a creative – how did it happen? What’s the story?

I create because it gives me time for a breath, and it connects me with society. ‘First dollars’ happen at every show. The first sale at a show still hits me differently, and while I create to suck the nectar out of life—that validation of connecting with someone through my practice is a joy. Dollar signs look like lifeblood. Having been very lucky to enjoy some commercial success, they also look like the freedom to monetize my passion and call it a living while keeping the creative process sacred.

My first solo exhibition was called, “Life in Color,” and debuted in Memphis, Tennessee. I remember feeling relief that people even came to the gallery to see my art, and I buzzed around feeling overstimulated being the center of attention in this capacity. This was a new world, and all of my emotions were right under the surface.

A gentleman in real estate that I did not know approached me early in the evening, introduced himself, and said, “I’ll take that one, that one, and that one,” pointing at three original works of mine. That sale alone paid my rent at the time for two months. Leading with graciousness, I facilitated the sale as if that sort of exchange happened all the time. Outwardly, I was calm. Inwardly, my heart rate was jacked—it was such a natural high.

The composite of moments like this in my art journey gave me an idea that it was possible to finance my life with my imagination, and those inklings of ideas proved important and encouraged bravery. Life often feels surreal, and the novelty has not worn off.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

My name is Sydney Gruber, and I have creative hands with a poet’s tongue and a truck driver’s soul. I create focal point paintings that pull people towards the incandescent pulse of life in color. For a decade, I have been a full-time artist growing my small business by seeking and finding myself in the paint. The world is my studio, the highway is an office, and life experience is the raw material.

I consider myself a visual storyteller and spend a lot of time exploring the edges of myself in my collection of abstract work. Most mirrors we set our gaze on, we are looking for confirmation—for reassurance. Abstract art is a different mirror—it’s subtle and true—and possesses the ability to foster a different dialogue and connectivity. We look at the art and we see ourselves.

My art pilgrimage has been chiefly self-directed and an embodiment of an independent study apart from some artist residencies and apprenticeships. My first love was language, and my degrees are in English and Psychology. Language exists to promote the clarity of expression. I love finding the right words—they matter. And I fell in love with abstract art because it challenges the given and opens a critical eye in all who choose to be with it—really perceiving the frontiers of freedom on canvas. In a world driven by popular consensus, it gives permission to everyone to enjoy without compromise.

What I find when people are buying my art and putting my creations into their spaces is that they are having an emotional response to my expression. I love it when the art pulls the room together, but what I really want is to capture something most elusive in a studio flow state—like a flash in a pan—while creating something of lasting value.

Have you ever had to pivot?

For a while now, I’ve been doing it my way—following my footsteps towards an intuitive True North. Before relocating my base to Austin, Texas, the beginning of my career is rooted in Alabama. Although not a native, Alabama was a gift to me when etching out a foundational artistic identity and gave me a home that granted me focus. Free from distraction during this critical window, I found my creative voice and became obsessed with getting better. I was tramping my journey—and every interruption and setback I encountered also undeniably contributed to my refinement and redirection making me a better artist in a richer story.

When I had a strong, cohesive body of work, I needed channels to move the art through. I began courting galleries and boutiques for representation. When I wanted more favorable profit margins, I started exhibiting in juried fine art festivals all over the lower forty-eight. When the world changed and everyone closed their doors, I built an online storefront for collectors to shop virtually. And when I began touring again to expand into new markets, I married the road to sell art, to fill my creative well with the travel, and to collect new palettes by seeing the world up close. This is when I met a proverbial character—The Client.

The Client was one I encountered in every city at every show. Many pieces would find homes with collectors in the village we artists built out of identical white tents and optimism. The Client was unique and helped me to see the show as an audition. The Client liked my work—they liked supporting independent artists at festivals—but they needed to see and appreciate the art in their residence. As a professional roadrunner, I took this responsibility to heart and began to optimize my business to reach them. The traveling showroom was born.

The traveling showroom is a mobile gallery straight out of my imagination. Building her out was fueled by a steady drip of adrenaline and dopamine until I had proof of concept. The slat wall storage housing my work allows me to bring my paintings to my collectors’ front doors and walk them inside. Alternatively, the showroom is equipped with heating + cooling and adjustable lighting all powered by solar—you can see the entire art collection if I drop the ramp on location. My labor of love has made The Client one of my favorites to encounter because their interest offers me the opportunity to forge that extra personal connection and play designer. I live for that.

Are there any books, videos or other content that you feel have meaningfully impacted your thinking?

When a fellow creative put Joseph Campbell and The Hero with a Thousand Faces on my radar, I went deep down the rabbit hole and became fascinated by the profoundly unifying teachings of the Hero’s Journey. Once you see this common thread and began pulling at it, you begin to recognize the map in all stories and myths across cultures—including in our own lives. Consequently, this bleeds the mystical into the ordinary.

There are two worlds—the known and the unknown—for all of us. There’s a call to adventure that finds you and asks that you leave your quotidian reality. If you refuse the call, it will keep presenting itself until you answer. Along your journey, you encounter mentors, obstacles, initiations, personal powers. There’s a quest that begins when you follow your bliss and a threshold that must be crossed. There awaits a test—an ordeal—where you harvest a reward, a lesson, and a story to bring home. The road back to the known world is imperative—it’s the return—and it closes the circle of the journey before the next one begins.

I am seeking the connection to something beyond. In seeking myself, I have found all of you. Here’s the honey—the real substance comes from pursuing the call, connecting earnestly, and living in the discovery.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.sydneygruber.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/seekingsydneygruber
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/seekingsydneygruber
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sydneygruber

Image Credits

Photography Credits by Dulce Mac & Hannah Sharrie