It was 1972, I was 10 years old and I was just beginning to realize that my parents might have been embellishing the truth when they told me I could be anything I wanted to be. That summer I gave up softball when the harried dad coaching our team benched me after one too many strike outs. The truth was that outside the supportive circle my family had created for me, the world was not going to sugar coat my poor athletic performance no matter how much I loved being on the team.
Today, walking in to artist Bibby Gignilliat’s lively Sausalito studio, it is difficult to believe that she had a similar experience when she was that age. With the particular passion of a 10 year-old doing something they truly love to do, Gignilliat had joyfully attended weekly art classes until the day when a persnickety drawing teacher caused her to put the brakes on her art practice.
With Gignilliat’s exuberantly colorful paintings surrounding us, Gignilliat shared with me the story of the creative journey she has taken between putting her brush down as a child and the thriving art practice she enjoys now.
Gignilliat begins our conversation by mentioning that she is currently enjoying being “the CEO of me,” a reference to the extremely successful business she founded in San Francisco in 2006, Parties That Cook, with $4000 of personal savings. By 2013 Gignilliat had expanded the business to Chicago, Seattle and Portland, employing 11 full-time workers and about 65 chefs, servers and dishwashers, with revenue over $2 million. Along the way Gignilliat appeared on The Today Show, the Food Network and CNBC, and her company was featured in many national publications such as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and others.
In characteristic entrepreneurial fashion, Gignilliat is a big thinker, courageous in the face of risk and lives by the motto of “start before you’re ready.” After graduating from Colorado College with a degree in business, Gignilliat, a Chicago native, went to work for Backroads (bike tours) where founder Tom Hale became an early mentor.
Later Gignilliat honed her marketing and data base management skills while working for I. Magnin and Williams Sonoma Catalog. This composite career, as she calls it, was enhanced, and even made possible by, the specialized education Gignilliat sought at each stage. A cooking course at Tante Marie inspired the jump into catering. An art course not only rekindled her childhood passion, but prompted her to sell her business and commit to a life as a full time artist. Gignilliat muses that she “found all the right teachers at the right time when I was ready.”
Gignilliat has stepped into her art career with the same zest and creative passion that she brought to her earlier business ventures, emphasizing that artists can be “prosperous, not starving.” Her 1400 square foot studio in Sausalito’s ICB building stands out from the others the moment you cross over her custom painted hot pink threshold. Sunlight floods the space, and Gignilliat’s joyful, playful paintings fill the walls. Using a palette of colors she mixes herself, sometimes with house paint, Gignilliat gives the viewer a glimpse into a world of imagination, curiosity and hope. A note of nostalgia added through the use of collaged bits of old stamp collections, math homework and the occasional carved up road sign round out the images and give the viewer reference points to a common past.
With regard to setbacks we all encounter at 10 years old, it turns out, giving up softball was not a very big dent in the outcome of my life. I had other interests that were more suited to my potential. And for Gignilliat, the joy she felt as a 10 year-old in art class has stayed with her all along. Her advice for a young person considering the future? The same advice her dad gave her: “Follow your passion. Find something you love to do and do it well.”
Now combining her business skills and her love for connecting people with her art practice, Gignilliat teaches workshops in her studio and finds herself being drawn to marketing concerns at the ICB Building. Two of Gignilliat’s Piedmont friends, Hilary Zuckerman and Kathleen Winters, both say of Gignilliat that her ‘boundless energy, passion for creativity and willingness to take risks’ are no doubt part of what will make her as successful an artist as she was a businesswoman.
The author with Gignilliat in her Sausalito studio
See Gignilliat’s solo show on Saturday, October 12 at Gallerie Renee in Benicia, and view her work online at www.bibbyart.com.
All photos by Katie Korotzer
What a wonderful article Gigniilat’sart is captivating. I loved her story. ♥️