Mercer artwork professor chosen as Cherry Blossom Legacy Queen

Mercer adjunct artwork professor Yvonne Gabriel got here to the USA considering she’d settle in New York Metropolis, however life took her to Macon as an alternative. Since then, she has flourished personally and professionally, and she or he’s honored to signify Macon because the 2022 Cherry Blossom Legacy Queen.

Gabriel was born and raised within the Netherlands, the place she obtained a nursing diploma and commenced to develop her inventive expertise. Her adventurous spirit led her to journey and reside all over the world whereas working as a registered nurse, flight attendant and tour information, all of the whereas documenting her experiences by way of drawings.

Enticed by the potential job alternatives and impressed by her visits to New York Metropolis, she moved to the USA and ended up in Atlanta, the place she met her husband, Dr. Sabry Gabriel. They finally settled in Macon and had two youngsters.

Gabriel targeted on elevating her youngsters however turned to artwork in her free time. She volunteered to do work for church buildings, faculties and organizations, and somebody finally requested her to color a portrait.

“I wasn’t certain if I used to be in a position to do this,” she stated. “That challenged me, and it took me six months as a result of portraiture may be very tough. From there on out, different individuals requested me to color portraits. Step by step, it began taking me much less time, and I began having fun with it extra.”

After her youngsters have been grown, she determined to return to highschool and work towards a grasp’s diploma. She enrolled in Mercer’s Faculty of Skilled Development, an academic expertise that she referred to as attention-grabbing and fantastic. She discovered a mentor and kindred spirit in English professor Dr. Margaret Eskew.

“Dr. Eskew places you in contact with who you might be and what you wish to do,” Gabriel stated. “I form of felt ambivalent about artwork so far as it being sensible and never making some huge cash. Dr. Eskew helped me to see that I ought to actually simply observe this path in my life. That positively had a huge impact on me.”

As a Mercer pupil, she wrote and illustrated a youngsters’s e-book referred to as “Chico, the Polar Bear” that turned the second e-book printed by Regeneration Writers Press, a educating press based by Dr. Eskew and her college students. Gabriel created the duvet paintings for many of the Regeneration books and illustrated 10 portraits for “Dawn: Radical Hospitality in Motion.”

Gabriel accomplished her liberal research bachelor’s diploma with concentrations in writing and artwork from Mercer in 2012 and went on to earn a grasp’s diploma in portray from Savannah Faculty of Artwork and Design (SCAD) in 2018.

“Yvonne’s artistic perspective on life, her generally brutal honesty, her want for magnificence and her pent-up inventive power translate themselves onto her canvases, all the time evoking a response from her viewers,” Dr. Eskew stated. “Artwork for Yvonne is just like the oxygen she breathes, essential for survival. Yvonne actually adjustments the world one brush stroke at a time.”

Gabriel’s massive breakthrough in portraits got here when Joan Godsey, spouse of Mercer Chancellor Dr. Kirby Godsey, requested she do her portrait. After that, Mercer began commissioning Gabriel, and her portraits now grasp within the College’s McDuffie Middle for Strings, College Middle, Stetson-Hatcher Faculty of Enterprise and Godsey Science Middle, in addition to within the headquarters of NewTown Macon.

She has additionally had paintings exhibited at SCAD and Atlanta’s Besharat Museum Gallery. One of many items in her underwater portrait sequence earned ninth place within the “outdoors the field” class of the Portrait Society of America’s 2021 Members Solely Competitors.

Gabriel is at present engaged on a 9-by-5-foot piece of a gaggle of individuals in a moonlit setting, which has required her to review anatomy. 

“I’m all the time studying each time I make a portray,” she stated. “It’s all the time eager to stand up to the following degree, do one thing new, study one thing new and set a problem for your self.”

Since 2019, Gabriel has helped Mercer college students uncover their inventive capabilities and develop upon them. She teaches programs in drawing in addition to shade and design as an adjunct professor within the artwork division.

“It brings me such pleasure. To be allowed to show at Mercer and work with these unbelievable individuals is such a privilege,” she stated. “It’s fantastic to see college students uncover a unique dimension of themself. I’m so blessed to be concerned with educating younger individuals like that.”

Gabriel stated she didn’t know what to anticipate when she moved to Macon, however she’s so glad she ended up there. The town has supplied stability for her household and an exquisite place to lift her two youngsters, who at the moment are ages 26 and 28. She’s been welcomed and inspired in her endeavors. That’s why she is so grateful to be on the Royal Courtroom of the 2022 Cherry Blossom Competition, which is March 18-27.

“Macon actually means that you can shoot roots and flourish. It positively turned my residence,” Gabriel stated. “Macon has been so good to us. We now have been capable of notice all of our goals right here, and Macon has a lot to supply. It makes me actually proud to be part of it, after which to have the ability to signify it because the Cherry Blossom Legacy Queen is a large honor.

“Additionally, who doesn’t wish to sit on a float in a pink costume?”