DEBBIE GIOELLO
PAINTER
In our modern age, a true Renaissance Woman without exaggerations is rare, but there is no mistaking her when she crosses our path. It is pure joy to profile Debbie Gioello—painter, fashion designer, entrepreneur, photographer, author, and poet.
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From former Professor of Fashion Design at Fashion Institute of Technology to designer-inventor of 4 patents within the fashion field, author of 7 fashion design books and several career-targeted publications to award-winning artist, Ms. Gioello is a powerhouse of accomplishment. One would think that after such significant and fulfilling successes that it would be time to slow down and enjoy the view from the top, but this Renaissance Woman has a pocketful of plans and a passionate, unquenchable spirit.
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Debbie’s exquisite balance of power and authentic humility and resilience and sensitivity is most evident in her large, shimmering butterfly portraits that showcase technical prowess and mesmerize with sheer beauty. Her watercolors steal the soft heartbeat of summer’s colors, and her etchings translate life and the human experience with intricate simplicity. Whether she is preserving the brief joy of her garden flowers in photography and art collage or bringing forth the inner, emotional landscape in her abstracts, Debbie is fluent in the many languages of color. If one looks closely, an autobiography can be read between color harmonies and contrasts, tragedy transmuted to undiluted joy, an extraordinary life with a promise of much more to come. In short, Debbie Gioello is a woman who makes me proud to be a woman.
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Here she is, in her own words, followed by links to her website, Facebook pages and current gallery exhibitions. Enjoy!
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Q: As an artist who has enjoyed a successful painting career, a gallery owner who has generously promoted other artists, a teacher who has inspired many students, and a designer of highly innovative textiles, which “hat” have you most enjoyed wearing?
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A: Of all the endeavors in my life as a fashion designer, educator, author and artist, art is the passion in my life. It allows for the strongest creative flow.
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Q: Your prismatic, large paintings of butterflies, in my mind, represent all that you have put forth into the world—beauty, transformation, adaptability, and beautiful energy. What does your Metamorphoses series mean to you as an artist? As a creative woman? As a human being who has endured sometimes unspeakable challenges?
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A: My realistic butterfly paintings from actual specimens, represent the ultimate in transformation. The life cycle emergence of the butterfly is representational of life. The pattern of evolution from one form to another emerges in such beauty with color, balance and form leaving behind threads of its existence. As a creative person, I was grateful to recognize the beauty and variations butterflies represent not only locally but internationally. As a person who has met many challenges, butterflies as stated before, represent the ultimate in transformation.
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Q: Many artists are strong souls; from your corner of experience, how has art contributed to your strength? And on the other side of the coin, in what way have you had to be strong in order to be an artist?
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A: My creativity is expressed in my art. My feeling of creativity and the implementation of the creative process gives me strength as an artist as well as a person. An artist needs to be strong in the face of deterrents and retain strength with the vision and hope of tomorrow. An artist is always an artist, and the need to express creativity will always be there. The knowledge that creativity does not go away gives one strength.
Q: Describe a typical day in your studio… What materials are you working with? What colors are on your palette? Who or what is your Muse?
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A: A working day in my studio is void of all interference. No people, no radio, no phone, no noise. I am in my own karma. Over the course of my artistic life, I have expressed myself in different mediums and techniques exploring new applications; always learning. My work is created as collections. When inspired, I work in that venue until the expression is completed usually on paper, often on canvas, and sometimes found objects as colleges as well as photography. The color of my pallet depends on the work. My latest direction is color. The use of all color in motion and action. What color means and how color interacts with the viewer. My Muse is what I hear and see, and how I interact and reflect on it.
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Through an artist’s eyes, my idea of bliss is to be able to continue all creative pursuits as I enter the autumn of my life. At this time, a new collection is unfolding. In the past I have done some commentary pieces that reflect the chaos or news of the era. A new commentary piece is in the works titled “Women”. It is a collage box and poetry inspired by all the harsh realities that are facing women worldwide.
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Q: You have been in many artistic environments… Describe one that prompted an inner shift, a place and time that changed you as a creative being.
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A: Most of my initial art work was representational. When I experimented with impressionistic abstract watercolors, it released a feeling of excitement in the experience and the solution of color explosion!
Q: We can probably agree that creativity is energy moving through time and space—and manifesting infinitely; when you are in the free-flowing current, who are you and how does this Self differ from the everyday self?
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A: My every day self in concerned with routine chores based on my pattern of daily existence. The creative self is isolated and only involved with the execution of the newest collection. Nothing else matters. It is the time when I am most content.
Q: You are a fly on the wall, in the studio of any artist that you admire… who, where, and why? What do you hope is revealed to you?
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A: I have always admired the great masters of the Renaissance such as Michelangelo and da Vinci for their abilities and gifted talent, inspired by their application of creativity in painting, sculpture, printing and inventions. True Renaissance artists. Others are Jackson Pollock and Jasper Johns, their struggles and discoveries, the beauty in their accidental discoveries. “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.”
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Q: In your opinion, what is the greatest obstacle to being a channel for—and partner of—inspiration? And what is the antidote for getting out of our own way?
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A: The greatest obstacle is not being able to create feeling to achieve fruition of an inner thought. When there is an internal struggle, I move away from the project and evaluate it another day. My solution is to destroy what is not working or to paint over it and start again.
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Q: Rummaging through your bag of memories, describe a time of purest inspiration when you felt on fire with joy or new beginnings… as well as a time when inspiration was despair and helped you to survive.
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A: I painted all my life as I remember it. Entered every contest in junior and senior high school and was recognized by winning one of the top three awards. I channeled my creativity as a fashion designer during my career in the fashion industry and painted by stealing moments while raising a family. In the late 1960s I was able to devote more time to painting. 1969 started a period of creative explosion for me, and I started to show and sell my art work. Multiple galleries handled my work and I participated in many juried exhibitions. It was a long period of creativity. I experimented with different art styles and techniques. The creativity also expressed itself in writing poetry, textbooks related to fashion and applying for patents of innovative ideas. This was a profusive period that lasted until 1995. The period was exhilarating but demanding and exhausting, with many challenges. Each successful outcome overcame despair.
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Q: If you could walk into the studio of your younger self, what would you tell Debbie? If you could also walk into the studio of your older self, what would you tell Debbie?
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A: Hindsight is a wonderful tool. If I could go back and do it over, I would spend more time as an artist and ignore the obstacles and obligations that hindered my creative process. Reviewing my adult life as an artistic and creative person, I am grateful to have accomplished what I did and look forward to doing more. The following poem has been published in various publications and expresses my life:
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THE GIFT
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I have walked in the breath of God
Green velvet for my carpet
Embraced by fragrance
Encompassed by wonder
So far to stretch and gather all unto my bosom
Enthralled
Glowing joy
So much is mine
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The Art Factory of White Mills
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