Gabi Scott felt right at home in the art classroom as a young child. In elementary school, Scott found encouragement among her classmates. That encouragement is something that she now passes on to adults and other children.
"The art room was my place where I was successful, and where I was noticed, and felt like I fit in. It's also where I got a lot of encouragement from my peers and from other kids, " Scott said, "it's the positive reinforcement that I received in the art room where I didn't get that in other places at school."
Throughout her adult life, Scott has worked with both adults and children in an effort to inspire them to enjoy art. She has worked in several places encouraging artists to open themselves to their creative sides. Some of those places include a Contemporary Classroom — a push-in arts program for creating arts access in public schools — ,Rocky Mountain STEAMFest — a festival celebrating science, technology, engineering, arts, and math through hands-on learning opportunities and for Maker Bolder.
Maker Bolder focuses on STEAM education, though the E in their name represents entrepreneurship. It runs a variety of programs like Girls Explore and STEAMFest connecting entrepreneurs, makers and educators.
"I would say that I'm an arts accessibility ambassador," she said, "I not only teach classes, but I support lots of arts organizations and programming. I'm always a part of planning committees and volunteering for all of the area arts opportunities."
Her creative side has only grown over the years as well as her passion to reach more people and now she is collaborating with the Firehouse Arts Center and with Junkyard Social Club and Maker Bolder to bring new programming to those organizations in the near future.
"Soon, I might join Junkyard Social Club as a Destination Imagination Coach. We're also working on some classes there. So right now, I'm more of a patron supporter of Junkyard," Scott said.
For now, she works with Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art (BMoCa) bringing art classes to dementia patients, both in senior living facilities and on-site, through the museum's Spark! Program.
"I work as an educator with senior citizens through the Boulder Museum of Contemporary. I do a program called Spark! with them, in which I go to care facilities, and the program is also available at the museum for individuals experiencing dementia and Alzheimer's. It's providing that art experience for their caretakers and the senior citizens in providing education outreach in that population," Scott said.
It is the excitement of watching others experience new materials and art forms that drives her passion.
"I love facilitating other people to learn a new skill or to really be excited about experiencing a material for the first time. For example, I give them a ball of clay, and they suddenly realize that they just love the feeling of it, and they love making things out of it," Scott said, "It's creating that spark in other people that I greatly enjoy."
In addition to being encouraged in her elementary art class, her brother — in their youth — inadvertently inspired another career for Scott, one in graphic design. Even through her business, Scott is still compelled to help others.
"It started with my brother buying me a copy of Publisher on a floppy disk, believe it or not, long, long ago," Scott said, "I started designing banners and cards and things like that, specifically, for my mom and for school stuff. I got into loving graphic design way back when."
Her love of graphic design helped her find a niche when she had to stop teaching during the pandemic shutdown. She owns Elle Creative and uses it to help creatives with their online presence and overall branding.
"I really want to be a voice for creatives. I've already been down this path, so I like to share it with people to say, 'hey, these are the absolutely important things you need to do to get your business going, these are the things that you need to be ready for in the future," Scott said.
She feels like Longmont, too, has given creatives a voice and provides a supportive atmosphere. Scott moved to town just over three years ago. She feels inspired by the level of support the arts have here.
"The art scene, the support of artists in our city is really special. I'm really, really excited to be in this community. So. I want to do as much as I can to support people whose path is supporting the arts and artists," Scott said.
