Gabriel said he was a poor student in high school, with a C- being reason to celebrate because of his conceptual dyslexia, which left him unable to understand what he was reading. But an art teacher reassured him that everyone has their own special kind of intelligence.
Before meeting Jamie, Gabriel was a singer-songwriter living in the Wilmington, North Carolina area, where he slept in his car and bathed in the ocean, selling paintings for $ 50 each from the back of his car. Then a friend he calls Mr. Mark let him stay in his studio in return for help around the house, and his art career got
Rare Love
Traveling through the Treetops serious, selling out art shows in restaurants and finally having his first museum show in late 2010.
He estimates he has done 3,000 paintings in the past ten years, usually working on five or ten at any one time. And though prices for his originals have gone up over the years, prints of his work are also available. He has no formal art training, but he walks through the world with his eyes wide open, seeing the shadows and the light and the details of the things around him.
He met Jamie at an art show in September 2014 and she asked him if he’ d like to illustrate her poetry. He declined at first because of his dyslexia. She persisted, and finally sent her work to him.
“ I realized I had already done it,” he said after reading her work.“ She wrote about my childhood, and she has the same mind as myself.”
They had a meeting, then a date, and were married shortly after that.
Together, they did children’ s books titled“ Splat” and“ Kitty Calamity.”
Continued on 42 May / June 2019 • Our Brown County 39