Meet Gabriel Shaffer

We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Gabriel Shaffer. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Gabriel below.

Gabriel , thanks so much for taking the time to share your insights and lessons with us today. We’re particularly interested in hearing about how you became such a resilient person. Where do you get your resilience from?

Id say over the years I have cultivated a constant balance of gratitude, joy, faith, hunger, anxiety and a bit of delusion. It’s a tricky alchemy of serotonin, oxytocin, dopamine and adrenaline and I have a bunch of healthy habits that help keep it flowing. Gratitude is absolutely crucial. Everyday, no matter how challenging the situation, I try to always be aware of how privileged I am to know my purpose in life and to have the ability to actualize that purpose every day. This love and passion I feel for art and art making fills me with joy and a feeling of youth. I think faith is also very important. That can be expressed through spirituality or anything that activates the feeling that there is something beyond you and that you have meaning in this world. Hunger is a huge drive and for me it has come from living a self made life. I know what living in poverty means. I know what it feels like to not know how you’re going to pay rent or be able to eat. I know that shame and that fear. That fear is an incredibly powerful tool. Anxiety has always been tricky to deal with and I don’t think the feeling of anxiety is healthy at all for creation and problem solving. However, learning ways to identify and neutralize anxiety is an absolute daily necessity. I have a weekly schedule involving lifting weights, running, meditation, small affirmations and prayer to help. I think another tool for fighting anxiety is recognizing your own power during past trials. Thinking about times in the past when you faced adversity and were able to see your way through. If you have solved or survived complicated circumstances in the past, chances are you will weather whatever storm is in front of you as well. A little bit of delusion is also pretty important and I think the imagination has a way of feeding this aspect of ourselves. I don’t know if there was any accomplished human being that didn’t have to have some kind of delusion of grandeur. Im not promoting narcissism here. What I mean is, if you are trying to make an impact in a certain industry or discipline, you’re never going to get anywhere if you don’t have self love. And once you have reached a place where you feel confident in the work and accomplishments you have attained, recognize the fact that you are bad ass and capable of whatever you give your full efforts to.

Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?

I live and works in the French Quarter of New Orleans. I am part owner and curator of Mortal Machine Gallery, located in the French Quarter and also the son of renowned folk/visionary artist Cher Shaffer. I learned from a number of pioneering Outsider artists as a kid. My art career started from a sell out premier at the 2005 Outsider Art Fair, in NYC. I have exhibited and sold my art to collectors, rock stars, celebrities, politicians, best selling authors, galleries and museums throughout various major cities nationally and internationally. I have appeared in magazines, newspapers and blogs such as Raw Vision, Art Papers, The Guardian, Art News, Boing Boing, Traditional Home, Architectural Digest, The Huffington Post , Hi Fructose and Juxtapoz. I have produced murals, installations and illustrations for various corporations, restaurants and museums including Facebook, BMW, Pandora Music, Sierra Nevada, PBR, Branded Arts, Mellow Mushroom, SECCA, The North Carolina Museum of Art and The Asheville Museum of Art.

For the past nine years I have been focusing heavily on curation. I have been arranging art since i was a little boy, first assisting my mom at rural folk art festivals. I began curating and organizing shows in 2006, while living in Asheville NC. Then after curating four years for the notorious Red Truck Gallery, I opened Mortal Machine Gallery in 2019. I have also curated multiple special projects and directed booths at art fairs such as Scope Miami Basel and the LA Art Show. In 2018 I became a contributor for Juxtapoz Magazine, writing editorials that focus on specific industry related topics, such as Salon and the effects of social networking on the art world. This year I curated “The New Salon” a revue of over 60 artists at the Asheville Museum of Art that included Robert Williams, Shepard Fairey and Mab Graves. I consider myself to be a maximalist and specialize in Contemporary Folk/Outsider art, Low Brow, Pop Surrealism, Street Art and New Contemporary, with a focus on representing mid career and emerging artists.

I am grateful to give my life to the act of making art and producing art exhibitions.

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?

1. The final outcome of a creative project is absolutely dependent upon the quality of time and energy you put in the studio. The studio must be a sanctuary where you feel safe and confident enough to explore, learn and maintain the discipline that is needed to put the countless hours that are necessary for attaining a sense of mastery. Nothing exists without the studio.

2.The meaning and perception that you have about your creative projects is not always what the audience perceives. I think it’s important to keep the easter eggs hidden. This allows the audience the opportunity to experience your work on their own terms and allows you to maintain something sacred. Once a work of art is finished, it belongs to the audience. However the time and energy you put into creating that work is yours and a precious experience. Everyone knows what it feels like to look at a painting, listen to a song or watch a movie. Very few know what it’s like to create.

3. The majority of the “Fine art” world is populated by money launderers, insurance scams, trust funds and vanity projects that are catered to the asset class. It’s a difficult truth to accept. But once you know, it helps you understand how vacuous the blue chip art world is and appreciate how valuable art that comes from an authentic place actually is.

If you knew you only had a decade of life left, how would you spend that decade?

It’s late August in New Orleans. Anyone who has ever lived here or visited during the summer season knows it is a completely different city. Outside feels like a wet 115 degree jet stream, the tourism is at its slowest and the neighborhood gets a little extra weird at night. The only thing you can do is put your head down and knock out projects that you won’t have the time for when tourism picks back up in October. I take advantage of this time to curate our next years calendar, prepare for the second half of the year and improve what we can. It’s extremely tedious and tricky to get through it, but it definitely develops a certain level of tenacity and when October hits it feels like Heaven. I describe this part of the year in the Deep South as “Fury Road”.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.mortalmachinenola.com
• Instagram: @gabrielshaffer
• Facebook: Mortal Machine Gallery
• Twitter: @mortalmachinegallery
• Youtube: Mortal Machine Gallery

Image Credits

Bio Image by BEEGATS
Image 2 Designed by Luke Pelletier