We were lucky to catch up with Brittany Gabey recently and have shared our conversation below.
Brittany, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Earning a full time living from one’s creative career can be incredibly difficult. Have you been able to do so and if so, can you share some of the key parts of your journey and any important advice or lessons that might help creatives who haven’t been able to yet?
I am often asked how I earn a living as a fully self employed artist. The answer may be surprising, as one may expect it to be along the lines of having the most superlative portfolio or being the best at a particular style or unique rendering effect. When I first decided to pursue a career in the visual arts, this is what I thought too. Now that I’ve been relying on my art for revenue for a few years, I’ve found that the answer, speaking for myself, is diversification of income and having a strong social network.
There is no singular stream of income for me. This is the aspect of my career that seems to be the most dizzying from an outside perspective. However, to me it’s as vital as the very art I make and not just to put bread on my table. I made a decision to become very serious about my art as a career after a tragic event in my life, so there was no ramping up into this career for me, it was a very pronounced start. Having such an abrupt start, I eased the shock of that decision by writing a sort of manifesto, or a set or principles for myself. First and foremost, I decided my art had to be accessible to as many people as possible who may want to own it. I struggle to afford art for my home above a certain price point, so I felt hypocritical making work that I myself couldn’t afford. Printmaking, which I had loved in college and continued to pursue for pleasure, lent itself well to this principle as I can still make art by hand, but by nature of being multiple iterations of the image in an edition can be priced very affordably. I also explore apparel printing and design, stickers, small goods and more. To this day I can still hear my painting professors reeling in the back of my mind, how pedestrian this use of my talent is, how this isn’t “serious” art, but it is in practice how the majority of my patrons access my work!
For all of that said, I do continue to create paintings and elaborate drawings for galleries and private patrons in the traditional sense. I will answer open calls at different galleries, I’ve ben invited to various shows, I am currently planning a solo show for 2025 and working on another concept I would love to show that same year or later. I also take a lot of client work which typically includes private commissions, editorial illustration, visual identity (branding) and creative concept development. In addition to all of that, I find I occasionally get approached for mural work and that is an offering I am developing more since I’ve been approached by enough interested people. I nearly forgot to add that I also teach one class a quarter at Miami Ad School and have facilitated drawing, illustration and printmaking workshops throughout my career.
The way in which I have been able to find all of these opportunities is fairly simple in description but not the easiest practice. I had to get over my own shyness, an introverted and pessimistic nature, and become a people person. Work won’t come if no one knows about you, and the best way to make yourself known is to take the social risk of literally putting yourself out there (I am entirely aware of how cheesy that sounds.) More importantly, you will also find so many kindred spirits and incredible individuals in your community you never knew were so close to you. The social nature of being an artist has not only benefited me in a practical sense, but I have made real friendships and met and worked with wonderful, memorable people. My life has genuinely improved in this regard throughout my career and I actually love this aspect of my work even more than the art itself. Part of making my living is taking full ownership of my role and identity as an artist. It’s not the same as most other jobs, you can’t put it down when you go out on the weekend, you can’t just sign off from it, but by embodying my practice, I make my talents available for any opportunity that may arise, whether it’s for new work, engaging conversation or new friendships.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
I am an artist based out of Atlanta, Georgia known for elaborately detailed rendering, a “storybook” like style and sometimes dark, sometimes fanciful, Magical Realism. Both of my grandmothers were artists (although it was a practice they mostly kept to themselves to prioritize other aspects of their lives) and my parents, especially my mom, fostered my artistic talents and love of drawing from as early as I can remember. Growing up I always came back to wanting to be an artist in some form, although I’ve always had a love of ecology and wildlife biology that to this day makes me wonder “what if I had majored in,,,” I hate to admit it, but even in high school and college I feared the financial risk that I at the time felt came with being a full time artist, so I started as a k-12 art teacher. I knew that although I wouldn’t be make great money as a teacher, I did enjoy teaching and at least it would be come form of stable income. However, I graduated and began working right at the beginning of the 2008 recession. It was extremely difficult to find a job as art programs were being cut left and right. When I did find a teaching position I had 35-40+ students per class with no support and no budget, the teachers were furloughed multiple times, our pay was frozen and morale was extremely low. I’m ashamed to admit, this was too much for me, so I went back to school to study graphic and conceptual design at The Portfolio Center. PC is best described as a graduate like finishing program. Coming from a very academic background, going to a school like PC freaked me out at first, but I quickly found I was immersed in a rich community of designers, photographers, writers and thinkers. After that program I worked as a graphic designer at design firms across Atlanta for a few years. It was engaging but I often yearned for greater creative and personal fulfillment, hated feeling chained to a desk and often felt too exhausted after working a ten to twelve hour day with an hour long commute to work on my own art.
in 2015 I was married, working as a designer I just described, and my husband and I decided it was time to start a family. I was very ready to be a mother and was thrilled to have an easy, textbook pregnancy until twenty three weeks, when I began having very abrupt and weird symptoms. I felt absolutely exhausted, my entire body hurt, I became very bloated and gained a lot of weight very suddenly and my mind felt totally clouded (much more than just “pregnancy brain”) In short, I had developed a life threatening version of pre-eclampsia earlier in pregnancy than most anyone in the hospital had seen, no underlying cause to be identified for its happening, and without delivering my baby at the literal “line of viability” both I and my son would die. I was having grand mal seizures and my blood pressure was so high, no one understood how I wasn’t having a stroke. My son, Michael, was delivered by emergency c-section and passed away minutes after. My survival wasn’t guaranteed for weeks after. In the inky haze of grief and illness, I had the same thought come to mind at least once a day, “If I die now, one of my biggest regrets is that I didn’t really make much art in the time I was given. My family expected that of me, I expected that of myself when I was a child, if I survive this, if I’m given a second chance, I need to make art in some way.”
Suffice to say, my world, I, was completely changed in the years of grief and healing that followed losing Michael. In those first couple of months back home, my family and close friends took incredible care of me, and used shared art projects, going to the High Museum, and encouraging me to make something, even small, to help me experience something other than the deepest sadness each day. I certainly didn’t forget that recurring thought I had about the brevity of life and the lack of attention I had given my talents and vision. I began keeping a sketchbook and after a few months started making more formal drawings. Developing a daily art practice, therapy and my close relationships proved to be my path back to reality. I began working as a designer again as a freelancer and then as a full time Art Director, but I continued prioritizing and making my art. As I continued to do so, I met more people in the Atlanta art community and more opportunities presented themself through those relationships. After working as an artist full time, freelancing as a graphic designer and working full time as an art director for seven years, I finally felt it was the right time to work entirely for myself as an artist. The path to where I am today has been anything but even, full of diversions and difficulties, but I have never felt more fulfilled or grateful in my life.
In my career I’ve talked about the relationships that have influenced my work, but I often keep my personal influences to myself. This seems as good a time as any to finally share them! My earliest artistic influences included animated movies produced by Topcraft, a Japanese animation house that would become Studio Ghibli. These movies included The Hobbit, Return of the King, The Flight of the Dragons and most importantly, The Last Unicorn. As a kid I tried as hard as I could to mimic that textural, line rich drawing style I saw in those movies. That early love of line led me to get into comics. I was a huge fan of the Uncanny X-Men, but I also loved The Adventures of Tin-Tin and through Hergé I got to Moebius and other Franco-Belgian comic artists. In middle and high-school I began developing a love of art history and wildlife biology. I began collecting books of illustrations by Audubon, medieval engravings, impressionist paintings, and wildlife photography. I nearly cried when I saw an Albrecht Dürer engraving in person for the first time and I became the one dragging my mom to each new exhibit at The High Museum. I started painting as a teenager, experimenting with portraiture and tried to discover my personal style. Honestly, I felt like a bit of a shut in, globbing paint onto canvas panels in my room while playing movies like Taxi Driver, Eraserhead, Aliens, Edward Scissorhands and at the time my favorite, the BBC adaptation of Gormenghast, in the background on my tiny box of a Quasar tv.
By college I began finding the influences and style that color my current work. Being a student at University of Georgia, I had the privilege of participating in their study abroad program in Italy. Although it was incredible to observe some of the greatest Renaissance work in the world, what left a lasting impression on me were the medieval Catholic icons, reliquaries, the Roman Capuchin crypt build entirely from the bones of monks, Etruscan and pre-Christian archeological sites, and the dramatic natural landscape. My love of comics also continued, and I discovered illustrators like Charles Burns, Robert Crumb and Gary Dumm. I also fell in love with the work of Kiki Smith, Kara Walker, Cindy Sherman, Jenny Holzer and Jenny Saville. I also began studying Tibetan Buddhism at that time and my understanding of the faith, philosophies and people of the Himalayas was a very visual one. I sought out collections of Thangkas in New York and made road trips to visit monasteries and temples up and down the East Coast. My studies at Portfolio Center introduced me to an entirely new world of illustration and design. I can say that I learned composition from studying Swiss graphic design from the mid twentieth century. I developed an understanding and love of typography, photography and I entirely changed the way I approach color. Most of all, my time at PC taught me how to work more efficiently and self manage my creative work.
My work is heavily reliant on line, texture and often, symmetrical composition. My imagery often contains spiritual or religious overtones, mythical female figures, disembodied hands, animals used as metaphors, forests and overgrown structures, symbols of grief and scenes of death. I love color, although I usually tend to use it selectively I love getting a project where I get to use a rich palette. By virtue of studying art education, I’ve worked in many mediums. However, printmaking, drawing and painting are my loves and by that I mean at any scale. To create art that is accessible to a wider audience to take home, I make small editioned prints that I pull by hand on a super basic DIY screen printing press in my basement studio. I’m also just as happy to paint giant public murals, or elaborate drawings and paintings for galleries. I also still like to create illustration heavy visual identity systems, posters, editorial illustrations and album art thanks to my experience as a graphic designer. Before I begin to sketch, I do a lot of research into the given subject matter or even communications strategy if that is called for. I feel that is part of my approach that influences the philosophy of elaboration I have. I love to give my clients and patrons the richest interpretation of their ideas and experiences I can give them, to fully tell a story in every beautiful minute detail. I feel a piece, whether personal or commission work, is most successful when it is a visual environment, containing what could be several other independent vignettes within it.
When I look through my portfolio I can definitely see my childhood love of fantasy animations like The Last Unicorn alongside the bone crypt in the middle of Rome I spent four hours inside of during my study abroad program in college. The grief of losing my son and my life turning entirely inside out into something new is not only the generative story behind my practice but also is present in my imagery of sadness and death that always have a nod to the light on the other side. My family and friends are the basis for the figurative protagonists that often feature in my work. It’s hard for me to say what, if anything, I am specifically proud of. I feel at this point in my life art is obviously what I am supposed to be doing. When I complete a work, it feels less like an accomplishment and more like, oh, of course, this image was supposed to exist, and now it’s here and I can move on to the next thing. I think beyond the excitement of making art, what I truly love about my career is the life it affords me. It’s not always the most financially stable, sometimes the labor required throws my work and life out of balance, but it’s given me so many experiences and relationships I treasure above anything else.
What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?
I had to unlearn the idea that no one would want to help me or even be interested in my work unless it was absolutely and undisputedly “the best.” I know that sounds very dramatic and pessimistic, but I came up in a very “pull yourself up by the bootstraps”, highly competitive, merit based environment. That wasn’t an entirely bad thing, it made me a hard worker, but as a young person I developed an alienated/alienating attitude about my creative work and myself. I’m still “unlearning” that to this day.
There have been many instances that have shown me this simply isn’t true. I distinctly remember the first time my high school art teacher sat down with me and told me I had an amazing talent, I was shocked. I wasn’t the best artist in my school, yet she was singling me out as having potential?! Later, in AP art, I struggled to finish a few of my pieces as I had started completely over. I was making these complicated mixed media pieces and rather than watching me stress out, she asked some of my other teachers if I could stay in the art room for the next couple of periods and finish some of my tasks, to which they emphatically said yes. I was in shock. I expected everyone to be upset with me for needing more time, for working on art, but as it turned out I had more trust and support than I realized.
This same kind of story would repeat itself a few times in my career. Most recently, I wanted to step away from my full time position as an Art Director at a marketing firm because I was also working full time on my art and came to a place in my life where I had to choose which aspect of my career to focus on singularly or I was going to work myself to death. When I met with my Creative Directors, I expected disappointment, maybe anger. Instead they were extremely supportive, if not a little sad to not work side by side all of the time. We actually still work together on projects where my illustration style could be appropriate. Not only did this again disprove that the world is an unsupportive place, but also taught me that there are few real goodbyes. One of the partners at this same firm, Mary Tveit, also opened up a coffee shop in downtown Decatur, GA with Kristen Radcliffe and hired me to paint the 400+sqft mural outside the shop. Not in a million years did I expect that outcome and I am beyond grateful for it.
When people see you working with your gifts and you are unafraid to share them, more of the world will see you than you can know. I am still shocked anyone else likes me art because I personally know so many incredible local artists, but it’s not a game in which only the best is chosen. We all have specific idiosyncrasies, we’re often connected to others in ways we don’t see; in my experience, being a working artist is less about competition and more about interdependency.
Any resources you can share with us that might be helpful to other creatives?
Absolutely. When I was younger, I felt like I had no idea how to “break into” the arts community much less make money as an artist. I had a restrictively formal understanding of how to be or be seen as an artist. What I know now is that your primary resources are fairly accessible and it’s entirely ok to reach out to venues where you may be shown despite the risk of rejection (which by the way, isn’t forever.)
If I were talking to myself as a younger artist, or what I would say to anyone early in their journey, is to get on your feet and explore in addition to putting in the productive work. Visit galleries, go to openings, go to neighborhood festivals, go to public art events and talk to people. Don’t overtly evangelize yourself, but ask questions, ask dumb questions even, learn what the point of entry is. Sometimes you’ll be talking to a curator and not even realize it. Even more importantly, become friends with and work alongside other creatives. This can be really hard, sometimes creative work requires working alone for hours at a time, but you will learn so much more about your chosen craft, concepts and especially opportunities through spending time with other artists. Volunteering is also an awesome way to make connections. We have a big mural event in Atlanta called Forward Warrior, and I have met quite a few young people, especially artists, who volunteer at that event and now I’m seeing pop in galleries and other events alongside myself.
Contact Info:
- Website: gabeaux.net
- Instagram: @gabeaux
Image Credits
All images are Brittany Gabey