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Each human that I interact with during these interviews, strengthens, and restores my faith in humanity. Artist Samantha Gabrielle, is BEYOND a fire cracker, this human at such a tender age has endured so much and came out on the other side of it a more solidified being who reigns tenacity. It is no secret how this world houses numerous automatons who could careless of passion overpour, or how art can literally help soothe a broken heart, especially its inception. I think, this is one of those interviews where you need to take a deep dive into Sam’s world to genuinely appreciate not only her art but the strength behind it. Happy reading!

RMMW: Hi Sam, ok, here we go, do you have any artist rituals before starting a new piece?

SH: When I’m not creating for other people and telling myself to, “get to work and make bank”, or breaking out the sketchbook in a spurred frenzy to translate an idea onto paper, I take things nice and slow. As someone incredibly prone to all sorts of creative block, it’s ideal to constantly keep my wrists working on something. Because personally, inconsistent productivity and sporadicness kills that flow and then all of a sudden I’m not drawing for weeks. It just sneaks up on me and it sucks, and I’m sure other artists out there can relate when I say that the guilt of not creating just eats at you. What I like to do when I do find that flow and intend to maintain it, is do to photo studies. Anything. I’ll scour the internet and find pictures that intrigue me and sketch it out. It’s so simple and comparable to an athlete doing warm ups before a big run. You can break the photo down into its fundamental shapes and learn the composition, and even learn new dynamic poses, perspective, and environments. It makes for a really pretty sketchbook spread, but it’s also something that allows me to keep training myself until it eventually leads to that motivating, “I’m gonna draw something really cool today” moment. Oh, and a good cup of tea.

RMMW: I have to admit I love the fight you have to push through and create. Can you please elaborate a little on the creative block you mentioned in the previous question?

SG: As unfortunate as it is, creative block occurs more often than I’d like it to. Maybe it’s because I haven’t quite found my niche yet, and I overthink what I want my next project to be so much that I never get round to doing it. I’ve recently taken up doing art commissions which helps immensely with filling up some space in my portfolio, and with easing that sense of dread of feeling like I’m not doing anything with what I’m good at. Before then, quirky fanart and Inktobers was where I satiated that need to make something with the hopes that that would set off the little gear monkey in my head to go and make something original. It’s not a perfect remedy, but it sure as hell gets things going for me.

RMMW: Satiated on art; one of the best things to be totally full or even bottomless. I know for me when I like specific artists regardless of medium, I devour everything they create. Sometimes the other side of that is the purposely dialogue we have with our inner critic. Do you have ugly inner critic? If yes, how do you deal with yours?

SG: Always look back at your very first sketchbooks. With the rise of all these social platforms out there, it feels almost as if there’s is just a saturation of talent EVERYWHERE. And sure, success is still pretty one in a million, but it’s hard to feel like you’ll have any chance at making it when there are fourteen year old prodigies popping up left and right. The point is, there will always be somebody better than you, no matter what creative field you’re in, and that’s okay. We’re all constantly learning, and it isn’t about where you’re at compared to some other artist, but rather where you are compared to who you were one year ago. That ugly inner critic will tell you that today’s magnum opus is worth nothing, but looking back and finding beauty in the journey to that, will say otherwise.

RMMW: I was just discussing this very subject during a podcast recording. I literally said there will always be someone who is better and worst than you; what is require is for you to be the best possible you. Something I learned with age and time. Speaking of time, do you remember what your first artistic memory was?

SH: Man, does doodling suns with smiley faces and stick figures a hundred times count? I might have been around three-four years old, but I’ve been drawing ever since I learned to grip a pencil with these small meaty claws. There are old day planners and princess story books stored in some dark closet out there that have toddler scribble in all the margins. I was a pretty ADHD kid and got frustrated fast whenever I got bored, so my mom’s solution was to give me one of the hundreds of snacks in my diaper bag, or to shove a pen and paper in my hands. Baby stimulation is the catalyst for who I am today.

RMMW: I love how you said “small meaty claws, it reminded when my kids were little and first started to draw. I bought them these pear shaped crayons they could grip easily. Lately those pencil crayons have been traded in for fine art pencil or charcoal. Speaking of which what is your favourite media to create in?

SG: Inks! Good ole traditional inks. When I was reintroduced to art, it was through comic books. I’ve never been an avid comic book reader but they’ve always been a part of my life. Hell, Emily the Strange was my very first at just about seven years old. So I fell in love with linework and with that deep and rich black. It’s not the most versatile medium to create with comparative to gouache paint and digital painting, but inks will forever hold a place in my heart.

RMMW: I ❤️❤️❤️ graphic novels & comics. I still remember when I first laid my grubby paws all over James Obarr’s graphic novel The Crow. Inks are very special they add an extra layer of depth within clean lines of beautiful expression. It’s remarkable the work that can come out of a human who is either a classically trained artist, or self taught; which one are you?

SG: I am a completely self-taught artist. Growing up, I never had the luxury of enrolling into art classes, so my teacher was the couple of ‘How To Draw:’ books I had at my disposal. I’d study the step-by-step for mermaids and dragons, and fill in the blanks of fashion stencils with cheap crayon and coloured pencils. Hell, I’d even trace and mimic the illustrations from all the Dork Diary books! As a child, I’ve always been a relatively fast learner so once my family and I were in a more financially stable place to afford things like art classes, I had already progressed past a need for it. There’s still so much I don’t know, and I believe that the artist’s best teacher is mimicry. There is absolutely no shame in using references and tracing subjects to fully understand the shapes that compose it, and it sucks just how much stigma there is in the community surrounding utilizing references when the old masters, once upon a time, used plenty.

RMMW: It’s the exact same thing in the world of poetry. I linger on specific words and definitions the way an artist would focus on a piece, understanding the fluidity of it. Which always invoked tunes as my co-conspirator. Is there a specific genre of music or songs that you listen to while you draw? If yes, which songs?

SG: It honestly just depends on my mood for the day! But I usually find myself listening to classical, and mellow-ish tunes. Here’s a short list of some of my favourites:

Valse Sentimentale Op. 51, No. 6 — Tchaikovsky
Comptine d’un autre été, l’après-midi — Yann Tiersen
Acolyte — Slaughter Beach, Dog
The Bug Collector — Haley Heynderickx
Neighborhood #1 — Arcade Fire
Sanctified — Matt Maeson

RMMW: I always found I could go from Classical to Hard Rock in a picosecond; mood dependant on the work and what I want to evoke as a poet. I started listening to the micro list above. OMG, Matt Marion’s Sanctified is WOW! Now let’s take a twist to artist’s; do you have specific one’s that inspire you to create?

SG: There are two very important people to me who have and continue to inspire me to pursue my craft: Gerard Way, the frontman of my all time favourite band, My Chemical Romance, is the reason I begun to take art seriously and ignite that desire to make a career with it. Drawing was always just a hobby for me until after I turned 11, my mom moved us out of New York and all the way out to the Philippines. It was such a drastic change in my life that I stopped really having hobbies completely and just kinda floated around, a part of me missing for 4 years and never really knowing what. I think that band was the only thing I listened to on repeat for years, and I invested so much of my time to them and the work Gerard did on the side, which was his endeavours in the comic book side of the industry. I fell in love with ‘The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys’ comics so I picked my pencils back up again, with a newfound love for creating.

McKade Wilde, frontman of Awakening Autumn (a band who will forever hold the number one spot on my Spotify wrapped for years to come), and my life partner. Gerard is the person who indirectly gave me that spark, but McKade fans those flames and continues to constantly push and encourage me to move forwards. When we first met, I wasn’t doing much with art due to falling into another one of those creative ruts coupled with attending college for medicine. With the way that my life stood at the time, I was so sure that I was going to abandon my dream just so I can succumb to and surrender my entire future to the bleak 9-5. I dropped out days before the final of my first semester by running away from my very-not-so-great-situation in the Philippines, and coming home here to the US. McKade, as an artist in his own right, saw something in me no one ever really did and chose to nurture that. It was the biggest push I’ve ever made in my life and I feel so incredibly lucky to have that support and wake up to it every morning.

RMMW: Welcome to the Black Parade is one of my favourite songs by My Chemical Romance, I had no idea there were any book or art references by Gerard Way. Need to check that out. Can we please just take a moment how I found Awakening Autumn’s latest EP Typing… to be killer. It is so essential to have humans in our lives who tenderly hold of our heart in the palm of their hand; honouring that level of hallowed love. I’m glad you found such a strong support system. It’s comical you know, expression is the greatest gift EVER!
Those who work in the field of art have often been criticized by not working in a lucrative field; that being said Art has to be one of the most important employment posts as allows for immense self-expression. If you were to explain to someone the importance of art within humanity, what would you tell them?

SG: We all know that artists are the reason that we have anything from film, music, literature, the packaging on your coffe grounds, and the very chair that you sit on. I cannot express enough just how significant it is that we have people out there who make their mark by innovating, or creating for the sake of it. I refuse to live in a sterile and corporate future, but for this question, I’ll get a bit more personal with it. Before coming back home to the US at the start of 2023 and doing what I do now, I was a nursing student for one hellish semester. I had given up completely, for the better part of the year, on the very thing that drives me insane when it’s put on the back burner. I was convinced that the only way I’d ever make it in this life was to dedicate myself to that lucrative degree. Premed wasn’t easy, and absolutely no shame to anyone who wants a future in medicine or any other conventional field, it simply just wasn’t for me. There isn’t really a financially stable place for artists in a third-world country like there is here in America. So, I put up my white flag and enrolled into college. I mean, what else was I to do? That’s when I met McKade. Over next few months that we got to know each other, enduring endless quizzing and early morning lectures, I began to realize that I was losing the person I once was by sacrificing myself for what we’re all so conditioned to believe is standard. It’s cookie cutter, and it kills. Art was so inherently me, so inherently human. It saved my humanity—the pursuit of happiness. To anyone who knows my whole story, they’ll know that that’s how incredibly important it was for me to hold onto that bit of myself.

RMMW: I can truly relate to this, when I complete my undergrad in Behavioural Sciences, I’ll be enrolling in the Music Business Management. It’s not an easy world to live in rampant expression with an infestation in the best way of art tools. To be able to be a whole human artistic impressions must reign; what is your process for creating? Do you start with a digital image or do you begin with pencil and parchment?

SG: I’ve yet to become that artist who takes goofy reference photos of themselves (though I would 100% benefit from that), but it’s a simple process I’ve created for myself. When it came to creating the album cover art for Awakening Autumn’s, “Typing…”, I had sketched out a handful of thumbnails and ideas for motifs and subjects that would thematically fit the album and what it represented. It was a team effort, honestly, with McKade over my shoulder giving all his feedback from an outside perspective. I love slapping a bunch of sloppy pencil drafts onto paper, and then bringing that into life digitally. With how I’ve trained myself, there’s so much more freedom and fluidity when you’re using the real thing. And perhaps I’m a little inexperienced with a process that isn’t mixed media, but what can I say, I like getting my hands dirty which makes me a bit biased for the methods of old.

RMMW: Trial by fire, best way, just dive in and see what works best for you. I saw the evolution of the Awakening Autumn, the details are beyond delicious with clean lines. Having that support of someone you trust allows such a freedom to create what ever comes to mind then tailored to the desired design. I love the process. Now speaking of getting your hands dirty, mine are constantly inked because black pens are my favourite. Do you have a favourite artist tool; if yes, what is it?

SG: 3D models, Pinterest and Ethan Becker; my holy trinity. 3D models and Pinterest go hand in hand for me. Freehanding anatomy takes mad skill but your stuck knowledge and imagination can only take you so far even with good amounts of practice. You can manipulate a model or take inspiration from other artists online. Both of those things are the most useful resources that can really make a piece more dynamic and striking (and remember, steal like an artist, folks). Sometimes, on your own, figures can come out looking disproportionate or stiff on accident and that’s okay so long as you know how to correct it. That’s why I love Ethan Becker as a creator, and I personally consider him to be the best art channel out there today. He’s a youtuber who’s worked with big boy companies in the animation industry, and what he teaches in his videos squashed a lot of old habits that didn’t work for me. What people spend years mastering for a degree, Becker dumbs down into 15 minute videos so that you can correct your composition on your own without needing a bazillion resources. I’ve recommended his videos to friends who struggled to break into their new hobby and have them come back to me with raving reviews. So the point is, for all the baby Picassos out there, objectively learn what you can from any and all resources that you can because all that knowledge to unlock your potential is literally at your fingertips. Take advantage of it. Abuse it, even.

RMMW: Seriously? 15 minutes? I need to check that out; my drawings and paintings look like odd characters. It’s powerful how resources can manipulate and make us more malleable. Now, to my penultimate question; if there was one thing that you would want readers to take away from this interview and your art, what would it be?

SG: Having the upbringing that I did, and going through the journey that brings me right here to this very moment, I wholeheartedly believe that true wealth and success comes with the experience you build throughout your life. There is so much beauty out there, and not just in places but in people too. If there’s any purpose to this life, then it’s to romanticize it. To be unapologetically passionate and make something that moves someone, anyone.

RMMW: Your prior response puts such a MASSIVE smile on my visage. There are indeed humans out there who do not comprehend passion over poor. It’s the best feeling everywhere, life will always be riddled with pain & joy; they are the pinnacle of the human condition and must be appreciated for the opportunity and inspiration it provides. To my last and favourite question, if you had a superpower, what would it be?

SG: Teleportation is such a cop-out cliche answer, but who doesn’t want to see the world? Any burnt out, fatigued, and exasperated artist wouldn’t hesitate to have the ability to manifest their vision onto canvas in the matter of seconds without the limitations of what their hands are capable of. While that sounds absolutely perfect, art is so much more beautiful when you bleed for it.

RMMW: Art does have an established purity when it’s bled for. I completely agree with you, it allows for a more profound articulation of the feast before the optics. Thank you so much for such thoughtful emotion and cognitive steeped dialogue Sam. I had so much fun.

*All images copyright Samantha Gabrielle