Gabby McNeese

Gabrielle had an imaginative and creative mind as a child along with a natural ability to draw and paint. As a young adult, she attended the American Academy of Art in downtown Chicago to study drawing, design and illustration. She had developed a skill in watercolor painting and continued to pursue a career as a painter, selling her work in many galleries through the years. In the early 2000’s, Gabrielle attended the Building Trades program at the San Juan College in Farmington, New Mexico. She excelled at learning the operation of the tools of the trade and spent a few years working in the field of construction, specifically as a finish carpenter. As she continued to paint, her interest slowly shifted to working with various hardwoods with a scroll saw. Combining a natural ability of drawing and design, and the use of wood working tools, she began to invent a very definitive and unique style of creating with wood. Some refer to it as wood intarsia or mosaic, but she thinks of it as “painting with wood”.