Meet Gabriela

We were lucky to catch up with Gabriela recently and have shared our conversation below.

Gabriela, so happy to have you with us today. You are such a creative person, but have you ever had any sort of creativity block along the way? If so, can you talk to us about how you overcame or beat it?

The main way I have been able to overcome Creativity Blocks is by simply taking breaks. Sometimes the break is a lot longer than what I anticipated, but I feel it’s very necessary. Once I am able to focus a little more without it feeling forced, I slowly plan the new pieces I want to make – rather than immediately jumping to the first thing I think of. The crafts I make is a valued hobby of mine, and the last thing I want to do is begin to dislike it by forcing myself to make something just to make it. I have also found it helpful to look through the pieces I have already made – they carry a similar style and I am able to push that through to a new design, but with my own twist.

Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?

I am a Fiber Artist, and I have what I like to call a smaller than small business called The Loom and Canvas Room. I started this back in 2021, however the hobby itself I picked up the year before, when trying to find something to fill my time with during lockdown. The name is a little long, but decided on it as this is how each piece starts off as – they are all either made on a loom or on canvas. I make different pieces with yarn and wool, yarn being my main medium. The tools I use range from various types of needles to a tufting gun, allowing me to make anything from keychains, coasters, keyboard rugs, small woven hangings to larger colorful rugs. My favorite thing about these pieces is that I am able to bring texture to art – I believe that part alone makes it easy to catch the eye. I love being able to make any design and character I wish to make, but I would have to say the best part about what I do is having the opportunity to make special pieces that are significant to others. I have made custom art pieces of people’s pets, images that represent their past loved ones, or of their own personal journey. I have found making these to be very fulfilling, as I was trusted to make something that has so much meaning to others. Each piece I make, no matter the size or what it is, carries my time and skill – and its nice to know that there are so many people interested in having my work in their space.

If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?

First and foremost, believing in myself and taking the leap to put my work out there. When I started working with fiber, my family and friends would always tell me I should try to sell my pieces – but I only saw it as a hobby for myself. As the time passed, I would think about it more and more, but that’s as far as it would get. The thought of no one liking or wanting to purchase my pieces was enough for me to not bother trying. I was constantly going through the same thought cycle of “Should I? No. Maybe? Nah.” and although they were only thoughts, I felt I was stuck in life. Eventually I was at the point where I told myself that I needed to either go for it now, or not bother thinking about it again and move on to something else. Five years later here I am.
Another thing was overcoming comparing my work to others. There are a lot of extremely talented people out there – another reason why I was hesitant to put my art out. If I put my stuff out there with theirs, my pieces were not going to stand a chance. Attending markets to sell is what I found very helpful with putting my mind at ease about this. With different artworks and pieces side by side, I was able to see the ranges of experience, technique, style, etc. and realized no matter where we fell on those scales, each of our pieces were unique in their own way.
Although I could continue to name a few more impactful things, the third one definitely worth mentioning was learning to be patient. I knew it wasn’t always going to be good all the time, but wow are there times when it feels like a punch in the stomach. Anything from as small as not getting many “likes” on a social media post, to inconsistent sales would make me think “Should I really bother to continue?”. I always remember that I never started to craft with the intention to sell, and at the end of the day, I do it because I love doing it. There are ups and downs always – sometimes a social media post or market will go very well, but it can’t be said for all of them, and that’s ok.
My advice for the people beginning their journey would be, as hard as it can be sometimes, you have to 100% believe in yourself. I know, I know, how original right? But it’s true. Get out of your own head and go for it. Don’t let yourself be the reason you never find out how much you are capable of doing and how much more you are able to be. Success or failure, everything you do is a learning experience. Don’t compare your work to others – there is a starting point for everyone, and we all start at different times. What you’re seeing when comparing yourself to others is simply the overlap of those different journeys. Lastly, being patient and knowing ahead of time that it won’t always be flowers and sunshine. You just need to push through the gloom to reach better days again, and they do come again.

We’ve all got limited resources, time, energy, focus etc – so if you had to choose between going all in on your strengths or working on areas where you aren’t as strong, what would you choose?

Although I can see the benefit of trying to be more well rounded, I believe it’s better to go all in on our current strengths. This is what has worked for me. The majority of my strengths at the time (with the exception of creativity) were not going to benefit me much in starting my smaller than small business. I found the confidence to take that step forward and learn anything I needed to learn along the way. Many of the situations I found myself in after going all in helped me in the areas I needed to improve. For example, conversing with strangers. I am a very shy person and this is not a situation I would have willingly put myself in, but as a vendor at various markets, I was needing to converse with everyone who stopped at my table. I am no where near being a pro, but my conversational skills have made a definite improvement since then. I also would not have considered myself a patient person, but can confidently say that is now one of my strengths. With business slowing down and my creativity halting at times, I had to learn not to rush to the next thing just to have something to do, as this would affect the end result of my work. I take great pride in each piece I make, and I want to know that I executed it to the best of my ability. Even though being artistic was already a strength of mine when I started, this was also improved tremendously over the last five years. I learned something new at the end of each piece I made, ranging from new techniques to things I needed to change in the original order I was making them. I can’t say for certain I would still be crafting had I not started selling my pieces, as they would have taken up too much space sitting finished in the corner of my room – so improvement in skill would have been minimal before I would eventually stop. Taking that leap as I was back then helped me work and improve so many things, and it’s shown in all the pieces I make.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: loomandcanvasroom