About me
Hello, my name is Vicky Gonzalez and I am a mutt. A half Cuban, half Greek, born and raised in Miami, Florida, who is passionate about arts, animals, food, and friends.
I received my BFA with a major in Illustration from Ringling College of art and design and I am currently the Operations Manager at AMRoC Fab Lab in Tampa, Florida. My love and involvement with Fab Labs is a bit of an enemies to lovers story with laser cutters. As an artist, I am classically trained and work with different mediums and styles, but I LOVE making stencils. In college is where I met my arch nemesis, the laser cutter. You have to understand, at the time I was a purely traditional artist and had never opened a digital art program in my life. I had been cutting paper by hand with an exacto knife, developing these skills and then there were students who couldn't cut their own mats for their pieces by hand, but could now make a beautiful stencil within minutes! I counted it as cheating. I had a professor tell me I needed to beat the laser cutter. I didn’t know what that meant and thought that was ridiculous. How could I beat a machine?! Until I turned in a piece that was so clean cut and intricate, and my professor asked if I had used the laser cutter? I knew then that I beat it. I eventually forced myself to learn and use the laser cutter by using it on material I couldn’t cut by hand.
After learning the machine, I learned how else I had beaten it. If something was too intricate or hard for me to cut, then it was too difficult for the machine to cut as well. Over time, I saw how the laser cutter could be a friend and how to utilize it as an extension of me. To help replicate and mass produce. This is how I found Fab Labs. I couldn’t afford a machine of my own after college and I wanted to make wedding invitations and other products. I found Moonlighter Fab Lab in Miami back in 2017. I stepped foot in and I’ve been in love with Fab Labs ever since. I still love creating traditional art and cutting by hand, but now I embrace machines and tech too. I believe it is fundamental to learn and work with old school and new school methods.
Some Hand Cut Art
Other examples of my art can be found HERE
I decided to join Fab Academy because, honestly, it seemed like the natural next step in my Fab Lab journey. While being recommended by both my past and current bosses to join, I always want to build my skills and become more well-rounded in the different facets of the fab lab I have yet to get acquainted with. I have very little to no experience with electronics and programming and would love to gain more of a basic understanding and bridge more skills within our space. For someone who has been emersed and involved with running Fab Labs for 8 years and counting, I sure don’t know a heck of a lot and still have plenty to learn. I can’t wait to explore uncharted territory(for me) and become a little less antiquated.