Brooke Gemmell Shows up
National equestrian champion Brooke Gemmell with Anna at Sloane Training Center in Wolcott, Connecticut.
On a rainy morning in Wolcott, Connecticut, Brooke Foti Gemmell ’15 (SFA), ’22 MA saddles Anna, a bay Arabian with the breed’s classic dish-shaped face and wide, intelligent eyes. Gemmell moves with the efficiency of a woman who grew up around horses, pausing only to whisper an encouragement before tucking Anna’s forelock under her bridle band.
“I love a horse who wants to be in your pocket,” she says, using an expression for affectionate horses. Her aunt, a trainer at this farm, lets two jubilant Boston terriers and a bossy goat named Abby into the aisle to say hello, and a moment of slapstick chaos ensues. Gemmell, here to train for a regional horse show coming up in Virginia, is in her element, with people and animals coming together to work and play, full of purpose and good humor.
The Southington native shows horses in her free time, if you assume “free” is a relative word. She works full time as an associate director at UConn’s Internal Insights & Innovation (i3) in the Homer Babbidge Library and, with husband Joshua Gemmell ’11 (ENG), ’19 MBA, raises six-year-old Tommy — which only makes it more impressive to hear that last fall, Gemmell won her first national championship at the United States Arabian and Half-Arabian National Championship Horse Show in Tulsa, Oklahoma. She and her mount, a gelding named Party Nut, took first place in the amateur hunter pleasure class for Half Arabians. In this context, “pleasure” means the horse appears a “pleasure to ride” at a walk, trot, canter, and hand gallop.“I felt such an adrenaline rush as we entered the ring,” says Gemmell. “I remember thinking, ‘I love the horse I’m riding and can’t wait to show him off.’ He was just game for anything. We were so connected.”
Hearing the judge call out her number was an experience Gemmell had been hoping for since she was a kid. “It actually happened — the trophy I’d dreamed of getting, the blanket of red roses on the horse,” she says. “I just doubled over bawling. I had dreamt so long about the way it would feel.”
Being an equestrian took on an urgency when Gemmell was 16 and suddenly floundering in school. Her family and stable mates gave her much-needed support while her now-deceased horse Kaz offered her comfort and focus. “I would get dropped off after school at the barn, and Kaz would just put his head on me and be close. He was such a grounding presence.” Gemmell was eventually diagnosed with severe depression and anxiety.
Her family encouraged her to go on to college, despite her day-to-day trials. She did, but it wasn’t a straight path, attending the Waterbury and Hartford campuses before settling in at Storrs. Along the way, she discovered something else she was great at: art. She studied photography, video and communication design, and digital art. “The art program was more the way my brain works. I explore things visually,” she says. “Once I got into the program, I started to get straight As and really get into my groove.”
Her first job at UConn was archiving the U. Roberto (Robin) Romano Papers for Archives & Special Collections. An American photographer and videographer, Romano (1956–2013) documented child labor around the world. Gemmell brought a knowledge of digital files to the complex collection. Romano’s images were heart-wrenching but deeply important. In 2017, Gemmell co-curated the exhibition “Lifting the Veil: A Photographic Archive of Child Labor in Light Manufacturing” for UConn’s Business & Human Rights Initiative.
From there, she moved to the fledgling Greenhouse Studios, now part of i3, where she could apply her talents as a creative generalist. A partnership among the Library, the School of Fine Arts, and the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Greenhouse Studios is a research incubator for faculty and students from across disciplines, offering a place to work through problems collaboratively. The answer might be a product — a website, an app, virtual reality, or something analog — but the research that goes into it is always paramount.
“Making is a way of knowing. Trying and failing at things is a way of figuring out a way forward,” says Gemmell. “Part of the studio’s mission, from the beginning, was to rethink the way scholarship is created.”
Today Gemmell oversees the studio’s brand, manages projects, facilitates groups that want to learn about design thinking, and — her favorite — mentors students. She remembers what it’s like to be young on a big campus. “We’ve been lucky to have some of the students with us from their first year into graduation,” says Gemmell. “You really see them blossom from having no confidence and asking a million questions to leading their own initiatives.” She topped off last semester by winning UConn’s Student-Nominated Staff Career Advocate of the Year Award.
Gemmell has a keen awareness — as do many people who’ve endured hardships — of what sustains her. She needs camaraderie, a collective commitment to the work, and a respect for everyone’s contributions. She has found that in equal measure among her UConn colleagues and her equestrian trainers and stable mates.
At the barn, Abby the goat, who is not a team player, has butted her way into the indoor ring before Gemmell could lead Anna through the gate. A small posse runs in to wrangle her. Anna bobs her head, eager to work out. She is ready, like Gemmell, for a ride together that will be a total pleasure.
By Alexandra Kennedy
Photo by Peter Morenus
Art director Christa Yung captured chaos creators Abby the goat and her Boston terrier friend.
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