Biography
As a Child:
Cynthia grew up as an “army brat” travelling the world with her family. Her dad, Steven, was a veterinarian in the Army. Her mom, Virginia, was a registered Nurse. She was the oldest of 3 kids. Brad is a software engineer, Iron man triathlete and a rock star! Greg is an artist, dad and also does a lot of things with computers. Education and creativity were equally important growing up in the Gaub house.
As a Artist:
She graduated from The Evergreen State College in 1989, with a Fine Arts Degree with courses covering performance and visual arts such as Film/video, Drawing/painting, Fashion Design along with Small Business Management and Education.
After graduating, she moved to Seattle and began working in galleries and showing her artwork in co-ops and cafes. She entered as many shows as possible and built a resume of group and solo shows as well as awards in competitions.
Her media of choice in the 1990’s was collage and her main subject was the female form as she explored femininity, sexuality, relationships and the inner struggle to feel self-worth. You can view her older work in the Collage Galleries here on this site.
As a Quilter and Fiber Artist:
Growing up, Virginia, Cynthia’s mother, was always sewing. There is photographic evidence of the double-knit polyester matching outfits for the whole family as well as one that was brown floral corduroy. She learned basic clothing making skills from her mother, which she continued in college with a semester of fashion design and fabric design. She made her own fabrics with batik and silkscreen printing, her own patterns and designs, planned and held her own photo shoot and fashion show.
Her passion for fabric and sewing took a pretty long hiatus while she pursued other passions. She returned to sewing in the late 1990’s to make a few baby quilts when her siblings started having kids. But then didn’t really sew again until her nieces were old enough to want doll clothes.
She started dabbling in small art quilts when she didn’t have room to make her larger paper window collages. Participating in a number of workshops, art trades and online art groups. But again took a long hiatus until her recent return in 2017. Since then she has been honing her quilting skills with traditional patterns, while again participating in workshops, guilds, groups and shows.
As an Educator:
Ms. Gaub has taught many classes in Middle School (6th through 8th) including Visual arts, drama, language arts, digital arts and Computer Technology. She loves gardening, creating art and playing with her giant dogs.
After working in the work or retail, including managing a Seattle Art Gallery, she returned to school in 1999. Graduating from City University a year later with a Master in Teaching, she began her teaching years.
Currently, she teaches Visual Arts for the Everett School District. Students in Visual Arts explore a variety of mediums in the Teaching For Artistic Behavior Classroom by accessing studios and meeting challenges based on themes and genres. She includes Digital Arts such as animation, photography, video and podcasting.
Sharing her knowledge with other educators has been a focus since 2006 when she presented at the Washington State Art Educators Art Conference with a workshop of Digital Art Projects using Photoshop. She went on to present the same at the National Conference in NYC in 2007. She returned to present again in Washington on Podcasting in the Classroom. Teaching for the district’s professional development department she has taught over 100 district teachers how to use podcasting with students. In 2008, she added classes in video. She continues to teach and present at both national and local conferences for art educators every year. In 2019, she was the Keynote speaker at TAB Colorado’s Winter conference.
Over the years, Mrs. Gaub has written and received many grants for her classroom on the district and state level.