My Story…

Hello,

My name is Andrew Gable.

If you’re reading this you’ve likely encountered my art in a gallery, or online, or somewhere in this world and you’re wanting to know a bit more about me.

Here’s my story.

Although my journey with stone carving started in 2013. My journey with art began before I was 10 years old. I remember signing my pencil drawings of superheroes, hockey goalies, animals, and things that came straight from my imagination before I was 10 years old.

At that stage I had already started to develop an awareness that this ‘art thing’ was something I was good at and dare I say, came ‘naturally’

Of course that natural talent could have died on the vine like is the case with so many people out there facing the pressures and realities of our world to ‘fall in line’ and take the ‘responsible’ career path.

Well, I took the road of an Artist and what a road it has been!

Here I am 30 years on from kitchen table drawings still making art, still just trying to make the next one better than the one before it.

I went to art school at the Alberta University of The Arts and earned a degree in Fine Arts with a major in drawing major in 2004.

I remember walking through the long corridor on my first day.

It was a big new world for me.

I still remember that feeling of expansive potential I felt in my body as I entered the school.

 I loved every second of art school!

It was my first time away from home and I was excited for my life as an artist to begin!

Speaking of ‘being away from home’…where’s home?

I grew up on a 5 acre property just outside of Prince George BC.

I was basically out in the forest and to be honest I feel like this connection to nature really helped filter out distractions that may have taken me from my artistic path if I were to have grown up in a city.

It was quiet out there in the countryside.

I had to entertain myself and so drawing become one of my favourite things to do.

In art school I decided to major in drawing because it was the most explorative and ‘free’ major that the school offered. At least that’s what I heard from my peers. ‘You can basically do whatever you want’

Yes Please!

I took that time to explore various subjects, mediums, and techniques of both drawing and painting. This ‘theme’ of exploring various subjects and mediums and techniques has stayed with me in my artistic life as I find myself still exploring what I call THE BIG 3, that is Drawing, Painting, Sculpture.

After art school I returned home an set up my first studio in one of the rooms where I grew up.

And so it began.

My career as an artist.

I drew and painted with a passion.

I knew that putting in the time was the only way for me to reach those levels of art mastery that I wanted to attain.

Those levels where there really is no short-cuts.

I am grateful for my dedication to art over the years because I developed a strong foundation of the fundamentals that has supported me throughout my career and has given me a versatility in my artistic pursuits that is empowering, not to mention a strong artistic foundation to begin carving around the age of 30.

Its good to be versatile and adaptable in this everchanging world.

My first big achievement as an artist came when I received a grant for $12000,00 for my work in realism for Canadian Artists under the age of 30. I was around 25. I had applied for the grant a few months earlier and received the congratulatory cheque in the mail one afternoon while I was on my way to the bottle depot to cash in some empty cans for an extra 40$ (I hoped) to add to my current TOTAL bank account balance of a whopping $18.00.

I had never received that kind of recognition or MONEY! For my art before. I was rich! Or at least if felt like it.

I used the money move back to Calgary, rent an apartment and set up my studio to continue my journey of ‘Being An Artist’

Unfortunately, at this stage the only template I had for ‘being an artist’ was what I learned in art school about applying for grants, ‘getting solo shows’ and earning the attention and accolades of your peers.

I had very little concept of selling my work, or of running my own business or being an Artrepreneur!

I just wanted to paint all day every day and so I did.

Putting in 10 to 16 hr days in the studio.

I painted a lot and sold almost nothing.

It took me a while to dislodge the mis-information that ‘Money was the root of all evil’ or that Money and art did NOT go together.

That idea was lodged in there pretty deep.

And so were the ideas I learned during my art school years of what it meant to be an artist. Ideas that romanticised the tortured or starving artist, spending their last 20$ on paint instead of food.

Which was a reality I was familiar with

Nowhere was I shown that being responsible, learning sales, or how to manage your own website could actually be more beneficial for you as an artist than attending openings or putting the health of your paintings before the health of your own well-being.

As my $12,000 was running thin, I landed a my first solo show in an actual gallery! I still needed to borrow money from my then girlfriend to complete the work, with a promise to pay her back when I sold some paintings from the show.

The opening came and went and I sold 1 small piece.

My grand vision of myself as an artist was crumbling down.

I continued painting because that was the one thing I insisted on doing.

I even ended up trying to sell some of my work at a local market to passers by ‘For Donation’ where I would accept what ever someone was willing to pay.

People would pay me $20 for a beautiful drawing I spent weeks pouring myself into.

I took the money with a pretend smile masking the pang of hurt in my heart trying to tell me that this was not a good deal!

Eventually I downsized my apartment, broke up with my girlfriend and was having an existential crisis.

I kept painting and drawing.

I had to.

I had to just keep making art,

It was a tough time.

This was the first time in my life where I though ‘maybe I am not supposed to be an artist’

I started going in and questioning everything about my life and existence as a whole.

This period lasted about 2 years.

But what started as a deep challenge blossomed into quite a transformation of myself and my life.

This deep self questioning eventually lead me to South Africa  to meet 2 amazing humans that had a massive impact on my life. A man who knew more about me than I did and who could tell me my life story and future just by looking at me in the eye and to a women who could leave her body and speak to ‘the other side’ (yes you read that correctly) It was a fascinating time in my life and that is an entire book in itself.

I will say this period was a kind of great restructuring of myself, my being, my core programming and basically was getting me prepared for the next chapter of my life when I was introduced to Stone Carving and began selling my work and making a living off my art for the first time!

One of the things that started happening during this ‘great restructuring’ was that I embraced the reality of money and became vey interested in sales and business.

I realized I was never going to change the system by fighting it. I rather had to understanding it, embrace it, work WITH it and from there introduce those changes I wanted to see in this world, not by running away from or shunning the world, but by EMBRACING it and meeting this world where it was at.

After all this world was just a reflection of ME so it made no sense to resist or fight it. Rather Embrace it!

And so that is what I did.

After almost 2 years in South Africa I returned back to Canada to start my life over.

I actually returned with the intention of restarting my art business.

Yes I was willing to consider doing other things other than art, and I did for the first year or 2.

But the idea of being an artist and getting to do this for a living was still the thing that LITE A FIRE IN MY SOUL!

About 2 years of odd jobs and drawing and painting on the side, I ended up in a starbucks café one evening using the free internet. I was perusing the classified ads looking for ways to earn some extra cash when one ad in particular caught my attention.

“Looking for Stone Carvers – No Experience Necessary”

I thought ‘what is this’?

‘Is this real’?

It was a gallery in Whistler BC looking for artists to carve sculptures for the gallery.

I had never carved stone.

I had done some ceramic classes in art school but ultimately I looked at this and though

HELL YA, I could do that!

I emailed the gallery and a couple days later showed up to a group interview with about 60 applicants!

I filled out a questionnaire then was called into the gallery to chat with the gallery owner.

I remember studying everything around me with the question.

‘What is this? Are artists actually making money with this’

I chatted with the owner of the gallery and things just ‘Locked In’

You know when something is just made for you.

I knew it, the gallery owner knew it.

Everything up to that point prepared me for this moment and it fit like a glove.

Training started a week later with 5 selected applicants

To be continued…