We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Gabi Brown a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Gabi, appreciate you joining us today. Do you wish you had started sooner?

Absolutely! I do wish I had begun sooner, but then again, I believe things do come about at their proper time. I suppose that belief extends itself to knowing I probably wasn’t ready before now, hadn’t gathered the necessary life experiences or perspectives that have served to enrich the season of creativity in which I’m in now and produce the work I do.

I came from hard-working, self-sacrificing, immigrant parents. Their life experiences necessitated them to uphold the idea of a sustainable career as the benchmark for success. When I was young, I remember telling my parents I wanted to be a writer and an artist and study literature. The idea of studying the literary tradition, writing books, and painting pictures all day sounded like the most magical and enchanting way to live a life. They clearly didn’t see through the same lens as I did, nor could they really, as I had been given opportunities they simply hadn’t been provided. I was discouraged from the artist’s life and encouraged to go into teaching.

I became a bilingual elementary teacher, a curriculum coordinator, and later an elementary principal. The older I got and the more career success I had, the more discontented and aimless my life seemed. Suppressing my innate, God-given creativity (which I believe lives in each of us) was preventing me from uncovering my purpose.

I left the education realm to start a family and to this day, can say becoming a mother and staying home to cultivate a a deeply-rooted place, has been the greatest canvas on which I’ve painted. It was through homeschooling my son and re-attuning my own education alongside his, that I came to nature study and ultimately watercolor. I began a garden in those early mothering years and found both life lessons and inspiration embedded in the growing cycles of flowers and vegetables. As I observed my growing garden and painted what I saw, I found a restful, mindful, slowing down of life that had been waiting for me. My creativity had found its home in the line and wash of my paintings, reflecting my garden, mirroring my Creator when I touched paint to paper.

Attention is holy, which is why everyone fights for it. Giving our attention to the beauty in our world is thought to be a wasteful pursuit these days. It seems as though if it doesn’t make money, it isn’t worth it. There’s also so much noise in our world, competing for our attention. I contend that not only will pursuing beauty realign our sensibilities, but it’ll awaken in us a faith that allows our innate creativity to spill out for the benefit of ourselves and others. A hurting world needs our creative acts to bring healing and mending.

I don’t think I could have started my creative career sooner, although there are times I wish I had. I think it came at the proper time, as most everything does. I may not have been a good steward of it earlier. It’s taken the ups and downs of life to make me value it all the more.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I’m a mother, wife, widow, pianist, artist, writer, and encourager. I’m deeply moved by creation and am most inspired by the life of my garden, most specifically flowers. My little heart patters at the movement of color bleeding across a puddle of water on my canvas–I paint botanicals in a loose, flowy, impressionistic style of watercolor called line and wash. I think it’s so beautiful!

I believe every single person is made in the image of God. The Lord is a Creator first, and as we are made in His image, we also are creative beings. We each have an innate, God-given creativity within us. I understand not everyone is made to be a watercolor artist–or even like watercolor painting–but I do believe we each were created to make. We were created to make beautiful things, be it baking, gardening, sculpting, cooking–there is artistry waiting in almost every domain of life. Our creativity is meant as a hospitality, both to ourselves as well as others and is just as crucial now as every before. With a world that seems more divided and contentious by the day, our creativity is needed to bring about mending, healing, and unity.

My work aims to not only re-attune eyes to beauty, but to invite participation in the real. I offer workshops, courses, a membership community, and original artwork so as to be a guide for others to reconnect with their innate creativity and be an active maker in their sphere of influence. My hope and aim is to awaken attention and encourage a slowing down, an opting out, and a re-attuning to the beauty in the world.

In your view, what can society to do to best support artists, creatives and a thriving creative ecosystem?

Recognize that beauty matters. We were created to pursue beauty. Artists point to the real and take us out of ourselves (which is usually the problem) and point us outward. What is outward–life and divinity–that which we can taste and see and touch and smell, and even the unseen realm of faith–is what contributes to our inner richness.

I think if we shifted the eyes of our culture away from pursuing more, (as it continues to make the marker of success an abundance of material goods), we could begin to connect with what has been inviting us to reunite all along. Our creativity can heal and we can find restoration in the every day.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

My beautiful husband was diagnosed with a brain tumor several years ago. After suffering for 3 1/2 years, he passed away. I was left widowed, a single mother to a young child. The disorientation of my world was epic and I felt untethered and alone, navigating the loss of my partner and companion as well as my sense of identity. It was during this time that my innate creativity brought mending to my life. I painted, slowly and mindfully, not needing to figure out what was going to happen the next day, but staying in the moment of that day alone, as it was really the only thing I could do to survive.

I made to mend, to remind myself of my Creator, to find rest and respite from the grief. It brought me hope in a dark season of my life and helped turn my eyes upward.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.gabibrownart.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gabibrownart
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/gabibrownart
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@gabibrownart

Image Credits

Pear and Grace Photography