Where My Fire Comes From
Every artist is shaped by someone who came before them. My greatest inspiration is my great-grandmother — a woman whose courage, creativity, and unshakable faith are the reason I pick up a brush every single day.
Aimee Semple McPherson
My great-grandmother was Aimee Semple McPherson — known to millions as “Sister Aimee.” Born in 1890 on a small farm in Ingersoll, Ontario, she became one of the most influential women of the early twentieth century. She founded the Foursquare Church in 1923, built the 5,300-seat Angelus Temple in Los Angeles, and gave hope to millions of people during some of the hardest years America has ever seen. She was a pioneer in every sense of the word. One of the first women to preach the Gospel publicly. One of the first women to own and operate a Christian radio station. One of the first to feed the hungry on a massive scale — her commissary served over 1.5 million meals during the Great Depression. When she preached in San Diego, the crowds were so large the National Guard was called in to help. She refused to be small. She refused to be silent. She refused to apologize for being a woman with a calling.
She Preached With Art
What most people do not know about Sister Aimee is that she was an artist long before I ever was. She did not just stand at a pulpit and read scripture — she created “illustrated sermons.” She filled her stage with costumes, painted backdrops, props, live orchestras, and dramatic storytelling. She used art to bring the Gospel to life. She understood, almost a hundred years before I was born, that color and creativity are not extras. They are the way the human heart receives love. When I learned this about her, something inside me made sense for the very first time. The way I see the world — in color, in shape, in feeling — was not random. It was inherited. The same fire that lit her stage lives in my studio.
“She used costumes, paint, and stages to share her faith. I use canvas, clay, and color to share mine.”
The Torch She Passed Me
I never met my great-grandmother. She passed long before I was born. But I have felt her my whole life. I feel her when I stand in front of a blank canvas and somehow know exactly which color to reach for. I feel her when I speak in front of a room of strangers and the nerves disappear. I feel her when someone tells me my art changed the way they see themselves — because that is the same gift she spent her life giving people. She left behind a denomination, a temple, and a legacy of feeding the hungry and lifting up the forgotten. I am too small to do any of those things on her scale. But I can do my version. I can paint. I can speak. I can advocate for people the world tries to overlook. I can remind one person at a time that they are loved and that they are seen. That is the torch she passed me, and I carry it with everything I have.
What I Carry Forward From Sister Aimee,
I inherited four gifts that I try to honor in every piece I make: Courage. She was told a woman could not lead. She led anyway. I was told a person with Mosaic Down Syndrome could not be an international artist. I am one anyway.
Creativity as worship.
She believed that art was a holy way to tell the truth. When I paint, I am praying. When I shape clay, I am thanking God for hands that can make things. Faith over fear. She lost her first husband young. She faced public scandals, lawsuits, and people who wanted her to disappear. She kept going. When I am scared of what people will think of my work, I think of her and I keep going too. Love one another. Underneath every sermon she ever preached, that was the message. Underneath every painting I have ever made, that is the message too.
A Family of Fires
I come from a family of women who refused to be small. My great-grandmother used the spoken word. The women who came after her — my grandmother, my mother — passed that fire down through Gabby Ledesma Art.
Four generations of faith, love, and the simple, radical belief that every person matters. I am the next one in line. And when I am gone, I hope someone looks at my art the way I look at her photographs, and feels permission to be exactly who they were made to be.
Thank You, Sister Aimee|
To my great-grandmother, thank you for lighting the way. Thank you for showing the women in our family that we are allowed to take up space. Thank you for using art to tell the world about love. I hope every painting I make is a small letter back to you, saying: I see you. I hear you. I am carrying it forward.
— Gabby