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Daily Inspiration: Meet Gabrielle Genovieve Battista

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Today we’d like to introduce you to Gabrielle Genovieve Battista.

Hi Gabrielle Genovieve, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
I’ve always been multi-passionate. I’ve been working on narrowing down what I’ve enjoyed and have been working at the most, and it comes down to being an actor, photographer, and musician.

I was a gig kid. Growing up with a single musician mom, I was brought to band practice, recording studios, various gigs, and even hired on to sing with her if they were short a singer. My sister and I were pulled out of school often to sing the national anthem in downtown San Diego for corporate gatherings. Hours of our summers were spent in the studio for Disney on Ice.

At one point, my mom purchased a Taylor guitar 412ce so she could learn to play. The more it collected dust, the more I started picking it up and teaching myself. I dabbled in songwriting as more of a coping mechanism through some tough teenage years. I was dealing with bullying, a ton of familial struggles at home and I never finished my homework. But I would sneak my mom’s laptop from her desk and record songs on her computer all night instead. I started submitting my music to my high school’s literary magazine and started playing a few acoustic shows even.

My mom wanted to make sure that my sister and I would grow up to be presentable, approachable humans, so she involved us in theatre at a young age. She preferred to prioritize studying classics over musical theatre, so at 11 years old she enrolled my sister and I in weekend and after school classes at North Coast Repertory Theatre. This evolved into spending consecutive summers performing in their summer youth Shakespeare productions and continuing theatre in high school and college.

As for photography, I started taking pictures as soon as I could get a disposable camera in my hands. I recently found a box of various underexposed photos from my first ever trip to Lake Arrowhead. When I looked over them a few times, I could tell that I was trying to make some artsy compositions of the lake on a foggy August morning. In high school, I joined the yearbook photography committee even though at the time I was heavily immersed in theatre, I still had this itch for photography and was eager to learn how to better navigate cameras. I used to borrow camera gear from the photo lab and photograph my theatre friends when they needed headshots. The headshot photography carried on through college and has been helping to grow my business. It’s only been within this last year that I’ve been combining all three of my passions into fully-fledged careers.

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
It’s definitely been a wild ride. So, no. It has been difficult. But the most rewarding part of it though has been figuring out who I want to be. I’ve lived in almost every major city in California, attempting to find an appropriate fit for a great theatre community and simply feel at home. Every time I move to a new city, I start getting more work in the cities I moved away from. I’ve spent years commuting from the Bay Area to Sacramento, from Sacramento to San Diego, and now from Los Angeles to the Bay Area. I feel simultaneously judged and admired for my nomadic lifestyle, but for so long it felt necessary to commute to where the work was instead of waiting for the opportunities to open up nearby. There’s this feeling that if you’re not in the right place, at the right time, ready and available, then who knows when you’ll be asked back for another show -it’s quite toxic. I’ve tried to maintain this “presence” across the entire state which has not only been tiring but incredibly lonely and isolating. I’ve been pushing through hoping that one day freelancing won’t feel as arduous and that my career will find stability. Right when I felt that I was gaining momentum the pandemic hit. I slept for a month straight, struggling to grab any freelance gig that was available – but those were depleting rapidly. In the midst of this scrambling and loss, I picked up my camera and started driving.

I drove and hiked through California, Arizona, and Utah. I discovered a new passion for landscape photography. I found freedom. This experience led me to take my life into my own hands instead of putting it in the hands of other people and industries. The pandemic suddenly took theatre out of my life and left a huge hole. The more I’ve worked on filling that hole with my other passions, the more I’m realizing what I have to offer creatively.

It’s been more of a struggle of identity than anything else. I’ve felt like if I have too many passions on my plate, people won’t take me seriously – or that I’ll be perceived as scattered or not hireable. I’ve even stressed over my personal relationships not lasting because I come across as “too much”. This past year has helped me to understand that I don’t need to feel ashamed of my curiosity. I’ve met many amazing communities across this state that I am honored to be a part of. These people have inspired me to keep going and remind me why I love what I do.

As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
Music, theatre, and photography! I hope to share my music to unify a journey we are all respectively on in finding ourselves. My sound consists of whimsical harmonies combining folk and indie genres. I enjoy the imperfection and humble beginnings of this journey, and I hope to maintain authenticity in my work and inspire others to lean into theirs. With my photography, I find joy in bringing out the truest version of my clients. I consider it a time capsule of where we’re right now in life. In this recent practice of picking up my camera more seriously, most of my work has transitioned from actor headshots to portraits. There were so many actors that were looking for new looks but not knowing what direction to go in. Together, we’ve been able to collaborate on mood boards full of ideas from personal to eccentric themes and ended up with some beautiful visual stories. It’s been a liberating experience for both my clients and myself to break out of the commercial photoshoot norm. Not one session has felt the same and all of my clients have been incredibly inspiring to me.

As far as acting, I’m still recovering honestly. I’m learning it will take some time to recover from the loss of momentum I built. But I also know it’s been a thread throughout my work of remaining present in my craft, whichever that craft may be. Through the pandemic, I switched gears into voice over acting and hope to get back to auditioning in 2022.

Is there anything else you’d like to share with our readers?
The greatest piece of advice I’ve ever received was in my early twenties. I sat down with one of my professors to discuss the LA acting scene. He told me to go through the door that’s opened for me. “If you’re banging your head against the stand up comedy door, but the door has opened up for spoken word, go through that door.” I’ve translated this advice into pretty much everything in my life and remind myself frequently of this metaphor whenever I’m at a loss or questioning my worth in what I love to do. The possibilities are endless, even if it feels impossible sometimes. Sometimes you just gotta get in your car and start driving.

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Image Credits:
Davis Suh, Brian Johnson, Robbie Sweeny, Gabrielle Battista, Scarlett McDonald, Yarcenia Garcia

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