WILMINGTON - Gen Abate knew even as a kid that she loved spreading the joy that art gives her. Throughout her childhood, she helped her siblings get in touch with that joy by creating her own art school at home. 
“I would take my younger siblings and sit them in front of me in a row,” she said. That row was long — Abate was the second oldest in a family of 11 children. The ones younger than her were about a year apart from one another.