Abby Gordon

artist statement
Whether it’s with a brush and canvas; pencil and paper; text; or props, my goal is to tell stories. At their start, these stories are told orally. Nine friends arrange our lives around having one night a week free to sit down and tell a story together. We sit around a too small table armed with pencil, paper, and dice, smushed together and antsy like kids ready for a bedtime story. One person sits at the helm, the grownup with the book who guides the story. With a combination of improv skills, math, and the roll of the dice, we all chime in together to weave a tale as silly, serious, heartwarming, or soul crushing as our hearts desire. There is no recording. No way of really showing people what it's like. When you see the components laid out, it all looks so mundane. Some sheets of paper, a stack of books for rules, and people talking about “modifiers” and “dump stats." How could a roleplaying game have so
much impact on a group? This is what this body of work is born from. Trying to capture that feeling. I want to share with you the witty banter, the heart stopping action, the triumphs and joys, as well as the heartbreak and sorrow that we all feel as though these events were happening to us. This body of work aims to tell a story.
Are you ready to roll?

bio
Our adventurer Abby Gordon hails from St. Louis, Missouri, and has been an artist and enormous nerd her entire life. While some children played with toys, Abby was handed dice to strategically place in the pathway of unsuspecting grownups. Now armed with oil paints and brushes galore, she is a senior at University of Missouri St. Louis, where she will be graduating with a degree in Studio Art with an emphasis in Painting. Her works of bardic inspiration have been featured in UMSL’s Express Scripts show twice. Her skill proficiencies include painting, drawing, prop making, and filling this bio with too many Dungeons and Dragons references.