Relationships between college students and their parents can vary widely, but Gabriella Garcia, a senior studying interior design and architecture, is lucky to have a strong relationship with her father.
Because she is following in his footsteps to become a designer, Garcia said she values sharing her experiences with her father on the phone between school breaks and weekend visits.
Gabriella Garcia | Courtesy
Gabriella Garcia sits in front of her father, Adam Garcia, in a chair she made.
“My dad has always been the person that I go to just for any advice,” Garcia said.
Both Garcia and her father, Adam Garcia, have had successes in 2017. Gabriella received the People’s Choice Award for her work at the Chair Affair event hosted by the Interior Designers of Idaho and Adam Garcia was recently commissioned by Dutch Bros to design all of their future coffee stands.
“That’s a huge thing for him,” Gabriella said. “It’s really cool we get to experience those things together.”
In addition to sharing his passion and talent for design, Gabriella said she will also be following in her father’s footsteps and focusing on designing health care facilities
Gabriella said she didn’t set out to follow her father’s path. She said she wasn’t drawn to designing for either residential or hospitality groups, but found her love in health care.
“I want to be able to create a space that helps people in the most uncomfortable situations feel the most comfortable,” Gabriella said. “I want to help people.”
Although Gabriella said she loves a challenge, she said she can rely on her father for an empathetic ear when things get tough.
“He always tells me on the phone that it’s all temporary,” she said. “that always keeps me motivated and keeps me moving because it’s true— it’s just for right now, it’s going to get better.”
However, some things never changed. Gabriella said she has always wanted to be “either an architect or an interior designer.”
“I used to watch him (working), and from a young age I was always like ‘I cannot wait to be able to do this just like my dad,’” Gabriella said.
Now in her senior year as an interior design student, Gabriella is able to help her father with some of the same tasks she used to be in awe of.
While Gabriella was excited to be able to help her father with his work, the support goes both ways — when Gabriella struggled with her GPA and faced having to leave the interior design program, her father was there for her.
“I did everything I could to (get my GPA up), and last semester I made the Dean’s List with over a 3.5,” she said.
In addition to her professors, Gabriella said she knew her father was in her corner, cheering her on.
“To have that support, and to have him be so understanding of how difficult drawings can be… it’s been great to just have that there,” Gabriella said. “I had to work on this drawing for 14 hours straight, and my dad was like ‘I don’t doubt you, I know it’s hard.’”
Gabriella said her father has supported her throughout her journey since the very beginning, and the benefits of having a father in an artistic profession are not lost on Gabriella.
“Knowing how demanding and how competitive this field is before going into it definitely has helped me for sure,” Gabriella said. “Just being able to share my creative thoughts with him, and him being able to bounce back at me with other ideas is amazing.”
Beth Hoots can be reached at [email protected]
Correction: Adam Garcia is not a registered architect and does not exclusively work with St. Lukes Hospital.