Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Marjorie Gaber. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Alright, Marjorie thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. We’d love to hear about when you first realized that you wanted to pursue a creative path professionally.

When I was in high school; I was a creative kid and definitely loved art, but didn’t think about what an art career could actually look like. For a little while I wanted to go into sociology and social work, but I wasn’t sure I had the stomach for it. But growing up on the tumblr art scene and being able to go to “early college” art programs as a teen really helped me realize that I had the skills and the determination to actually grow this thing I loved into a career.

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

I’m an independent cartoonist and illustrator as well as a library maker space technician and craftsperson! By day I work with patrons looking to explore their creative sides accomplish their goals, while also doing creative work for the library; in between all of that I take commissions, keep an etsy shop, and work on creating comics to debut at local/regional comics fests.

It’s definitely rewarding to have a day job that allows me to explore my creativity in new and exciting ways. Through my work as a maker space technician, I’m able to pursue my artistic passions and find new ones, too. We have a lot of amazing machinery in the lab, I’m often giving myself projects just to teach myself how to use each new tool. Through my work I’ve discovered a love of machine embroidery, sewing, laser cutting, and more; tools and passions that would otherwise be inaccessible to me. Being able to explore those passions and in turn facilitate patrons to pursue their passions as well is a dream come true.

Having that ability to explore myself artistically in my day job has definitely inspired my independent work as well. The extra bit of creative fulfillment I get outside of my maker space work gives me more room to explore my comics and illustration work in a new way; for instance my newest zine will be about work that I’ve made in the maker space and how it’s changed the kind of work I want to be making.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

One of the biggest things I had to unlearn as an artist was that I should only stick to mediums I’m “good” at and that everything else was secondary. I studied at the Stamps School of Art and Design, and my freshman year I had to take an Intro to 3D art class that I was totally disinterested in. I did my work for the class just fine but I really was not connecting to the projects or materials at all, I considered myself solidly a 2D artist and I didn’t feel comfortable trying to fit myself to the medium in the way offered by my program. Our final project was a laser cut interlocking model that I didn’t like making and didn’t end up fitting together at all. I was pretty resigned by the experience, but I was surprised when I came into class and saw my peers interpreting the prompt in really incredible ways that didn’t fit what I thought 3D art should look like. It kind of hit me right away that final class that I could’ve been approaching this whole thing in an entirely different way: I was too busy separating myself from the medium that I didn’t try to make the medium fit me, fit what I really wanted to be making in that class. Now whenever I discover a new medium I’d like to try or even one that intimidates me, I try to think of the ways I can make something that I really want to make using the tools of the trade. It really helped me change my perspective on art and open myself up to totally new art making experiences.

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

I think the best thing society can do to support artists is to well, pay them first of all, and secondly give them institutional/community support in the form of, well, paying them and protecting them. Art is desired but often not respected as a craft or career. Some of the biggest tech innovations of the last few years, specifically ai generated images, text, and art, have been centered around eliminating the artist all together; creativity without the pesky expensive human at the other end of it. And as calls for censorship in communities rise, as we see libraries defunded for even daring to feature art made by/for marginalized communities, we need artists and their work to be protected from exploitation and demonization alike. I think real change will come from society fundamentally upending their expectations of artists and what the role of the artist in a community can bring, but until then we need our work protected and compensated fairly and I think that starts with local arts initiatives and small artist communities working together to support one another. I’m a part of the Cartoonist Coop and, although I’m not as active as I’d like to be, I’m still really happy to be part of an arts organization that is all about artists supporting each other and working for each other’s futures in our field.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://margemakescomics.myportfolio.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/margemakescomics/