“Please Pardon Me” for lacing this intro of “Sweet Thing”, Gabby Maiden with her father’s song tracks (Rufus and Chaka Khan fame here). Not to eclipse her own accomplishments but I am “Not Jive Talkin” about Ms. Maiden being a hit on both the rails and in front of a camera. She continues in taking her career “To the Top” and has done it solely on her own. Far from “Hollywood”, even though her name is gaining such notoriety at eighteen, she spread her wings out of LA and moved out to Big Bear, California to set forth on being able to ride consistently and meet a community of new people.
Speaking to her fresh off the plane, having landed in SLC after frustrating delays, the interview pivoted to laughter and fun as we discussed National Lampoon movies (she had just finished watching ‘ ‘) snowboarding, modeling and boys (wouldn’t YOu like to know!).
Snowboarding is her “Everlasting Love” (and that was my ultimate love song track) and she’s “Sharing the Love” and “Inspiration” through her words in this article. Gabby, we hope you continue to “Slip and Slide” your way to success…..
RRRG: So are you at a hotel right now in SLC?
Gabby: No..actually, funny, funny story.
RRRG: You had drama yesterday flying into SLC, huh?
Gabby: It was the worst day ever! I wasn’t sure what was happening. I’ve been to LAX so many times; I had to wake up at 4 o’clock in the morning, packed up the car and I had my animals up in Big Bear (my dog and my cat, so had to get their stuff together and then my mom was driving me down. And we were racing to LAX, barely making it. I don’t know how she did it but my mom ended up swindling to get me on the plane. I go in in the most ridiculous way…it’s like an underground tunnel…
RRRG: “Yeah, they’re doing construction there…..constantly….”
Gabby: Is that what it is?! I was like….DUDE…am I in a horror movie?! I didn’t see anyone, there’s no air conditioning and I’m running around….my flight ended up being delayed….and I didn’t want to be late for the Celtek catalog shoot. So I’m here at my homie’s house. I’m staying with my friends that just moved into this little duplex.”
RRRG: Where do you live right now anyway?
Gabby: I live in Big Bear…but I used to live in Salt Lake but I moved back to Bear. Most of my life I lived in Topanga Canyon. Then we moved to Marina Del Ray.
The deal is, I work with an agency called Click Models and they are based of Hollywood. The past couple of years I’ve been neglecting the fact that I had an agent but snowboarding takes up a lot of my traveling and time and I’d barely be in LA. So this year, my main focus is I wanted to move back to be close to my family and to be based in Big Bear so that whenever I’m going to be going to my agent and I can do work close-by down in LA.
I’m organizing my time to where I can be able to film enough for a full video part because that’s another goal I have this year; to film a legit full video part. Another goal is with modeling, I’d love to get a part in a sweet campaign like Levi’s..but I travel so much for snowboarding that I haven’t been able to put full effort into it; and even in snowboarding because it all takes so much time! So this coming year I want to organize my schedule to be able to do both a balance of attention to both; so far it’s going awesome!
RRRG: Do you think you model more? Or snowboard more?
Gabby: I definitely snowboard more. But what also helps out a lot is that Nikita, my clothing sponsor is a company I not only snowboard for but one that I model for. I’ve gotten to do every shoot for them since I was eighteen. It’s been about five or six years now….I’m twenty-three now. I get to go to the most amazing places…one or two weeks of shooting, great photos and experiencing diffieret towns and countires. And also for Von Zipper, Celtek, I get to shoot for some of their ads too.
So with snowboarding, modeling kind of goes hand and hand because everyone has to do a shoot with their sponsors in catalogs and ads. Nikita is an amazing company…they are my second family and I work with one of their most amazing Icelandic photographer, borkur. Ever since I started doing these shoots, he’s been the photographer. And Heida and Runar and all them are amazing, they’re the owners. It’s a great deal.