Eric Gibbons of Raleigh, NC. on Life, Lessons & Legacy

We’re looking forward to introducing you to Eric Gibbons. Check out our conversation below.

Eric, so good to connect and we’re excited to share your story and insights with our audience. There’s a ton to learn from your story, but let’s start with a warm up before we get into the heart of the interview. What is something outside of work that is bringing you joy lately?
I have made several return visits to Japan in the past 2 years, and this last summer with my brother, sister, and their spouses. I lived in Japan for a year on a student exchange, and only in the last few years have I made return visits with my own spouse. My students overheard me speaking about my trips and asked me to sponsor a trip. I told them I didn’t think there would be enough interest as Japan is not cheap to visit, but we now have nearly 30 signed up to go! Japan has this tradition of placing large decorative rubber stamps at major landmarks, and it’s a tradition for people to collect these stamps in books. Even train stations and highway rest stops now have stamps. They are beautiful and free to collect. So I have made my own stamp collecting books wrapped with Japanese fabrics for myself and my family. It was fun to hunt stamps down and collect them while we traveled. My sister suggested I make a few more and sell them on Etsy, and they have become unexpectedly popular.

So, making little Japanese stamp collecting books has been bringing me a little unexpected joy lately.

Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
I am better known online as the ArtEdGuru. I’ve been teaching art for over 30 years in the U.S., Japan, and Egypt, and along the way, I started sharing ideas, lessons, and resources with other teachers. That grew into Firehouse Publications, where I publish books and classroom tools made by teachers, for teachers.

What makes my work a little different is the way I connect art to everything—history, math, science, culture—so students see creativity as part of the bigger picture. I love giving teachers fresh, practical resources they can use right away, and I share a lot of that through my blog, YouTube, now at 140,000 followers, Tiktok with over 600,000 followers, and other social media.

Right now, I’m busy creating new resources, planning an amazing Japan trip for my students in 2026, and expanding the professional development I offer to educators. At the end of the day, my goal is simple: help teachers unlock creativity and make art feel exciting and accessible for every student.

Great, so let’s dive into your journey a bit more. What did you believe about yourself as a child that you no longer believe?
I grew up as a chubby child with low self-esteem. I did find praise for my creative activities, so that is where I found a home and focused my energies. I have undiagnosed issues like ADD and likely dyslexia. I look back and some of my early writing, and the spelling was pretty bad, but the ideas, what I was trying to say, was very good. I even wrote little books as a 3rd grader, but was told by a rather sullen teacher there was no future in it for me since I spelled so poorly and my grammar was laughable. The joke is on her though, as I have over 100 books to my name and pen name. I still misspell words, but there are technologies like spell-check that emerged in the late 80s that allowed me to catch mistakes and slowly learn to correct myself.

What did suffering teach you that success never could?
Empathy for sure. As a teacher, I see the suffering I experienced from bullying, being a bit of an outsider, or not fitting in reflected in my students. I become a lion-hearted advocate for them. I also share, candidly, my own troubles, experiences, tark times to help them see they are not alone. It also lets them know I am a safe person to open up to so we can get them the resources they need to succeed or to overcome a difficulty. For example, I now take an antidepressant, which also helps my focus (ADHD). I am open about this. So students see mental health is a real thing, and medication or seeking help is not a stigma. Had I found early success in another field (I was a pre-law major) then perhaps I never would have been able to make these important but personal connections with my students.

I know for sure that I helped 2 avoid suicide when I was their teacher. I recognised the signs of depression and together we got them the help they needed.

I think our readers would appreciate hearing more about your values and what you think matters in life and career, etc. So our next question is along those lines. What truths are so foundational in your life that you rarely articulate them?
Cautious optimism. I try to see the best in people, even those I do not agree with, until they show me otherwise. This has been challenging lately in the political climate we live in today. There are large portions of the population I do not understand, but when we get one on one, neighbor-to-neighbor, I find common ground and trust in the goodness of the individual.

As a teacher, I am apolitical. I am there to guide my students using art as my mode of teaching and allow them to form their own ideas and express their own beliefs and point of view without imposing any of my own. I do ask them to respect the differences of their classmates. We live in a diverse society, and need to understand that.

Okay, so before we go, let’s tackle one more area. If you knew you had 10 years left, what would you stop doing immediately?
I’d stop “working” and travel… I am actually near retirement, and unfortunately, longevity is not in my genetics. As I near retirement, I am writing more and more to create a library of books to support my passive income for when I retire fully. It is then that my travels will go from one major trip a year to two or three. There is a vast world out there to explore, and I want to see as much of it as I can before I “go.”

Contact Info:

Image Credits
These are all my own photos or ones taken by my spouse. The image of the book is an example of my hand-made books I spoke about and are for sale on my Etsy account.

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