Sam Desmond
Even with a tragic introduction to the world at large, Gabby Petito’s warming aura, infectious smile, and love of life was apparent in the ‘round the clock news coverage of her disappearance and subsequent homicide this past fall.
While internet sleuths and parents around the nation sought answers to the gobsmacking mystery surrounding Petito, her light as a dazzling personality, that carried through even in still photos and scant videos, was what sustained interest in her case.
For these reasons, The Suffolk County News selected Gabby Petito’s nomination for our Inspirational Young Women series this Women’s History Month, to focus on Petito as an artist, a wanderlust-enveloped traveler, and an impetus to hold domestic violence perpetrators accountable.
“She always gravitated towards the arts as a young girl,” said Nichole Schmidt, Petito’s mother.
In a breathtaking and genuflecting mural dedicated to Petito’s life, local artist Tess Parker captured the beauty of Petito’s personal artwork in a reproduction of the pieces incorporated into the mural.
“Gabby was quite the artist herself,” said Parker. “She had a unique technique that produced striking artwork.”
Later in life, Petito produced a myriad of mandala-inspired artwork on found objects like guitars.
Soothing and requiring high attention to detail, the mandala work seemed a perfect match for the quieter side of Petito’s personality, according to Schmidt.
As a child, Petito would often be attracted to pencil drawing with an affinity for the eyes, and Schmidt said she would find scores of eyes in Petito’s sketchbooks.
Schmidt, herself an artist who excelled in drawing, said her mother was a painter and that Petito had shown proficiency in both mediums.
In 11th grade, Petito was honored with inclusion in the senior art display with her probing self-portrait, done in light pencil.
After graduating high school, Petito’s artwork, with a poignant anchor, was selected as the symbol for The Great South Bay Coalition, a Blue Point community organization formed after a local mother’s loss of her son to a heroin overdose.
The mission statement of the The Great South Bay Coalition is, “To empower our communities to promote physical, mental and spiritual health in an effort to reduce the impact of substance abuse,” and Petito’s artwork was chosen because it represented inner strength and clear vision through turmoil.
“Gabby was someone who challenged herself, and she always sought to do more than just what was expected,” said Joe Petito, Gabby’s father.
Indeed, at every interval of school, Petito was also a step ahead: in a middle school art show, she was honored with another display of her work, whereas commonly students would only have one piece, and created art at a high school level even as a seventh grader.
One of her elusive art “unicorns” was a fully symmetrical face, something that her meticulous mandala work harkens back to, and she sought to find these mathematically perfect portraits in her daily life.
Paradoxically, Petito preferred to work in psychedelic color schemes, yet somehow achieved a muted effect, even with such lively colors. “Her room [on Long Island] was a cross between Scandinavian and bohemian styles,” said Schmidt, who recalled her daughter sporting Bunger Sayville or Nike black sweatshirts with her carefree personal fashion.
At her father’s home in Selden, Petito opted for dark purple and fluorescent pink in her youth saying, “This is what I see.”
While Petito was accepted into the SUNY Fredonia art program, she opted to travel after high school as she was a “free spirit” according to Schmidt, who was wondrous at new places they visited on vacation, especially an underwater museum in Mexico.
Art, at this point in her life, took a backseat and Petito turned more towards craft/hobby art like embroidery and macramé. She also had a knack for refurbishing found art, like a piano that was cast away on the side of the road that she repurposed. “Gabby had an ability to make things just look pretty,” said Schmidt.
Petito’s love of nature included succulents and decorating rocks and sea shells she found along her journeys.
Petito attributes Gabby’s affinity for mountainscapes borne from a familiarity of seaside ventures from living in Blue Point by the water and visiting the tropics on vacation.
Schmidt said that while it took some time, Petito was able to “believe in herself” and felt that was a message her daughter would want people to take away from her art and life.
Schmidt and Joe Petito, along with their respective spouses, started the Gabby Petito Foundation in honor of their daughter to raise awareness of domestic violence and to help established organizations continue in their charity.
Most recently, the foundation donated $23,000 to VIBES, a Long Island-based charity founded in 1976 whose mission is, “[to provide] individual and group mental health counseling services over the phone, in-office, telehealth, and 24-hour emergency services for victims in crisis.”
This Saturday, March 19, would have been Gabby Petito’s 23rd birthday, and a fundraiser is scheduled at Top Gold to raise money for her foundation.
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