Meet Gabriella Shira Broome | Ketuba Artist, Visual Artist, Video artist

We had the good fortune of connecting with Gabriella Shira Broome and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Gabriella Shira, why did you decide to pursue a creative path?
I am pursuing an artistic career because I want to share my talent with the world. I want to express my inner truth and meaning in this universe. The drive to create is renewed within me constantly. I have sketchbooks full of ideas that are aching to be expressed. When you have something to give it is very important to use that gift.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
Ketuba:
One of my businesses is customizing personal Ketuba’s, marriage documents. In designing a Ketuba, I get to experience the couple as a shared soul and tie that unity into the paintings flow. I love to find out about the name’s deeper meaning and find related quotes. I take themes of place that are special and merge them into a blend of swirling colors; I pray into the swirls of color and patterns to hope for peace of mind, and soul, healing and success. My art is hopeful and yearning with spirals that swirl into yellows’, blues, and purple to be touched with the colors of the divine presence. When you get a Ketuba from me, you are receiving art full of prayers.

Artist Story

I was very dedicated to art my whole life as a young girl; it has always been my inner world that revived me. When life got too scary or tiring, I would enter into a world of color and song. I used art as way of processing the intensity of emotional experience and my mode of truth in this world. During a visualization workshop for New Year’s resolutions, I visualized myself having an art studio which helped to create the dream as a reality. A recent studio was next 770, which is a spiritual community in Crown Heights, this allowed the spiritual location of the studio to influence the work. I make paintings with surrealist imagery that also contains Hebrew quotes to add layers of meaning.

One of my early opportunities to prove myself as an artist came during high school when I had a month long senior exploration as a practicing studio artist. I spent each day developing my body of work including mixed media painting and sculpture creating beautiful blue and ink figures with hot glued with lace; collages of figures drawn over the couch made into a backpack; plaster dolls painted with figures and made into a lump. Saliva Scream Cycles,” is about adolescence, trauma and family. This work earned me the YoungArts award opening a world of opportunities. I was able to attend the National Young Arts week in Miami in 2019.

This combination of being believed in and believing in myself has allowed me to fuel my voice. I didn’t originally apply to major in art but I was in a gap year program in Israel where I had an artist mentor and I was inspired to reapply as an art major, and I received an award towards college. In my artwork, I create artifacts from worlds of prayer to create images of the search for transcendence. I create videos of performative interactions with site; thematically exploring holy searching and yearning. I often use the visions I see in spiritual connection as my fuel to express.

I incorporate performance art, writing, video, dance into the way I live. My advice is to ask the creator for help to never give up and listen to your dreams. Trust that process of the the journey and make a little opening for a mark to come though; just a hum and a line on a page.The dreams within you are there for a reason and they are a key to your deeper self. When something is very important to you there are many obstacles to achieve it. Don’t listen to voices of doubt or complaints because your purpose is part of God’s plan.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
Come visit NYC, we”ll go to Central Park, the Metropolitan museum of art, the MomaPs1 in Queens. We can take a trip to the Brooklyn Museum and go to the Botanic garden. There’s summer kayaking on the river. We will buy some food from Trader Joe’s to have a picnic. If you want a spiritual moment I will take you to the Ohel, the resting place of the Rebbe. We can go to Hudson yards and enjoy the Vessel. Maybe we will stop by the Guggenheim museum in Central Park, or the High line, and Whitney Museum and go to Chelsea Market. We can get on a bike and go down the water to the bridge and create rock sculptures. There is always events happening and fairs that we may encounter on our way.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
Definitely my mother has been an inspiration for me my whole life. She believed in me and has instilled creativity into me, When I was younger, we would work together brainstorming my school projects. She would buy me fake natural terrain elements for dioramas and taught me to continue experimenting and reach for what I want.

Website: https://www.brideofshabbat.com/

Instagram: Songb4shabbat

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/gabrielle.broome.12/

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@messengerofsong