Hi all, my name is Gabi. My story starts as the only person in my family born in the United States. When I was 16 days old, I was sent back to the Philippines to be raised with the rest of my siblings in Manila. I moved permanently to the U.S. in 2010, living the rest of my life in San Diego. I have loved art since I was a little girl, and continued drawing into high school where I ultimately discarded a career in art from the influence of growing up in a traditional Filipino family.

I found my way back into art 2 years into my attendance at San Diego State University. Four major changes and a gap year in, I got my first two tattoos, and realized I just paid my artist $500 to do something I could very well learn how to do. In school, I remembered a lecture that said a job needed three things to become a career: to make money, to have a good market, and for you to love it. Tattooing was all three for me.

Getting to work immediately, I ended up back in college after realizing I couldn't make a tattoo portfolio with no formal training. During college, I worked two jobs to pay for my education and my own living expenses, and on the side I participated in art shows, sold commissions, and sold prints under consignment with businesses. Eventually I graduated with a Bachelor's Degree in Studio Arts with a minor Business Administration, no debt, and a portfolio built enough to start walking into tattoo shops around San Diego.

Grand Cross Artworks is the name I chose to build my brand under, named after a rare configuration in my birth chart called a Grand Cross. I connected with this as the fixed grand cross highlighted a lot of the challenges I had with myself in my life, namely in my stubbornness, and the part where security and resources have felt extremely tied to my self worth. As I have gotten older and come more and more into terms with who I am becoming in life, I have only grown more sure of my path, giving me the determination to see all of my goals to their ends.