Building Friendly Spaces: Dimensíones de Expresión

Featured Artists

Amy Arechavaleta Llanes

Alexis “Lex” Chavira

Tony Casas

Paulina Canela Garcia

Frank Luna

Rita Esther Beltrán

Amy Arechavaleta Llanes

22

She/They Painter, Illustrator

How did you end up in the creative industry? Honestly, there wasn’t a time where I was deciding that I was going to be an artist. From my earliest memories, I remember seeing Sailor Moon on television as like one of those TV shows they put for kids in the Cuban channels. I loved them so much. I was just a very creative and imaginative kid I guess, and I would start drawing them like on pieces of paper and whatever. I must’ve been five or six years old, and I was always drawing when I was little. I had a hard time I feel with communicating my feelings, so I would use art to express myself. If I was frustrated, I kind of expressed anything that I felt if I couldn’t find words for what I needed to say, which I think is very much a child development thing. If you don’t find words, you have to find some other way to do it. And I knew I couldn’t.

My siblings also drew. So maybe they’ve also impacted. That was my choice of showing my emotions. But ever since I can remember, I’ve been drawing and I did that for myself for a really long time. I always had a sketch book on me and I started taking classes. Once you start school, like middle school, they have at least like one art class that everyone has to take. So I was always the person that was like, ‘you’re so good,’ ‘how come you’re so good?’ Whenever I had to do, what are those called the “pancartas,” a poster. Whenever we had to make posters for class. It was always, ‘Well, Amy knows how to draw, so she’s just going to do it.’ And then eventually, after that, after my family immigrated here to the United States, I went to an art magnet middle school. I wasn’t in the program when I started, but I became friends with one of the girls that was in the Magnet.

I would spend time in the art classroom during breaks. And we would just draw and one day one of the teachers sees my drawings and she thought I was really, really good. So she told me to stay a little bit and she’d give me a pass for my next class. And she took one of my drawings and when her class started, she showed all the students the drawings that I was making, which were two studies of hands, and she was like, ‘This is how I want you guys to do it. This is a really good way to practice hands.’ And I just felt like, wow, like I’m actually talented and there’s something there. After that, she told me to come back after school and she started, she told me, ‘Hey, I’ll give you free lessons after school and we can build a portfolio and you can apply to the art magnet.’

Dimensíones de Expresión

So I ended up getting into the art magnet because she recommended me and I had to do a test regardless. It was just doing a couple of drawings and I got in. And ever since then, like my eighth grade was in art; and then I went to an arts high school as well doing visual arts.

Then, I decided on illustration for college, and I did that. So ever since I can remember, I’ve been in the art world. I wouldn’t say there was anything in particular, it was just where my emotions took me to express myself.

How does your culture shape your creative process? And does it present any barriers for you?

For me, where I feel like it impacted me the most, I feel like it has had two different stages for it. It’s impacted me a lot when I was younger, a lot in the materials that I would use just because the only thing that I had available. From the time that I was maybe five or six or the time that I was doing it, it was just like lined paper and pencil, like lead pencil. So I really got anything then I would do just like graphite drawings of anything. And after that, it kind of just became my comfort materials. The first thing that I still use to this day, that I choose to use whenever I want to draw, is a pencil and some paper. Once I got access to more materials, I think it made me like, yes, it was my comfort zone to go there, but it made me think of other materials to use.

Yeah, I like repurposing materials. I like scraps of clothes or just cardboard to use just to draw on or to see if I can make something out of it as well. I do that just as often, just because I’m leaning more towards illustration. But it also made me be really interested in collage just because of the mixed media aspect. And to this day, even with paintings, I’ll use like graphite and charcoal and acrylic all in one painting just because I can, and I have access to it. That’s in the aspect of the materials themselves. And then when it comes to the work that I like to create, I feel like it impacts me. I feel like Cuban culture, there’s a lot to it, but it’s also one of those countries where there’s a mix of so many cultures that it makes me very aware of diversity. Whenever I want to write a story or whenever I want to create like a set of characters for something, it’s always, okay... we have to have this person that is from this background or is mixed, and then this person who’s from this background and is only from that background, but they have this friend who is from this other background. So it’s just making sure I keep it diverse and making sure I show that a lot of different groups of people can get along. I want to show teamwork between different ethnicities and just how we all can get along together, and how we can make it work and just be aware of that at all times and in general as well with painting.

Specifically my thesis, for example, it was all about how love shows up in community and how here in America sometimes the only love we really care about is romantic love

and not like community love. Not like the love for your family, the love for your friends, which I think is very present if you’re Hispanic or Latino is you care about everyone in your community and you have a community and you know what that love feels like. So you don’t feel like the romantic love is the only thing you care about. For example, my parents are getting a little older, and they’ve been thinking about retirement. They’re not old enough to retire, but they’re thinking about it, and they’re like, ‘You guys are going to put us away now that we live in America, we’re going to go to a home.’ And we’re telling them, no, we’re going to take care of them. And my dream has always been to kind of build the home next to my two siblings, and they both have homes in the same area and then we have all of our elders with us.

And it’s something where I feel like it’s so easy sometimes to just forget about the rest of your family or your extended family just because you want to get married, have kids with your partner, and that’s it. Like it’s just the two of you and your kids against the world. But I don’t feel that way. I think that’s really important, and I think those are values that I’m glad that I still carry, because it’s easy to lose that in American society, I think.

How are you able to remain authentic to yourself with your work?

Honestly, I feel like sometimes it’s hard, I feel like I talked to you about this at some point when we were in college. Sometimes I’m afraid of making work that really touches on my ethnicity at all, or my background at all, because I don’t want to be put into a box of Hispanic artists and I’m only going to be shown in Hispanic galleries. And this is all my work can ever be about, because otherwise I’m not being authentic to myself. I try to remember the reason why I even started doing art in the beginning. I try, I think I want to explore more about my ethnic and my cultural background, more in my work. Like I said, my work’s still very much about my family, pictures of my family or abstract moments with them.

I have kept it a little more like ambiguous. I think now I want to really delve into it, like explore my culture just because it’s not fair. It’s not fair that just because this is our background, that we are put into a box. And then, we never really get the same traction that white people get because, ‘we’re white, so we’re from wherever we want to say, or we’re spicy white because my mom is like five generations back Russian and my dad is Finnish. Then I was raised in America, and I’ve been living here for like a thousand years.’ Like they get to show wherever they want, they get to make work about whatever they want. And sometimes when you are making work about being Cuban, that’s the only thing the people want you to make work about. And I don’t think that’s fair.

Like, yes, I am Cuban. But at the same time, there’s so many other experiences that come with that. Like at the gallery I’m working at, my boss was talking to an artist that had been a professor of mine when I was in high school. And she said, ‘he makes work about a lot of political subjects, now like the things that is going on with like Israel and

Gaza and like his political opinion on that and how just on that kind of subject.’ She was like, ‘Well, why are you touching on that when that’s not your culture?’ Okay? And he’s kind of like, ‘Well, because it’s important to talk about it because that’s something that everyone, regardless of whether we’re there or not, is experiencing, because we’re seeing it.’ And it’s the idea of like, what’s our perspective from outside of that? Isn’t the point of art to kind of raise attention to a lot of the things that are happening in our lives right now? So that really irks me. It’s like that’s still an outdated belief where you can only make work about the culture that you have. And I’m not saying do work that kind of takes advantage of other people’s culture, but also especially as someone that has been living here for most of her life.

While I know I’m Cuban and that’s what I identify the most with, that doesn’t mean that I haven’t lived within the American politics and that I haven’t lived in here experiencing everything here. I’m allowed to also talk about everything here and a lot of the other things that I do see around.

So, I just try to remain authentic by making sure my voice, regardless of anything, still remains in my work, that my culture is still there. I will try to make it more present that I am also honest with my experiences in life in general.

What’s one encouragement you would give to your fellow Latin creatives? I feel like, exactly along the lines of before, to not be afraid to talk about your culture and make work about your culture. Because it’s still important that where we are from is represented in the art that is here in America and honestly, in every other part of the world. I think sometimes we’re afraid that we’re too colorful or too loud or too much for what would be considered fine arts, that would be put up in a gallery in Italy where people can sip wine and talk about the art.

But we’re not. We’re perfectly fine and that’s just who we are, and we need to be represented. If you’re studying art, you’re only going to see a lot of white people and you’re going to see the same two Hispanic artists repeated over and over. You’re going to see Frida Kahlo and you’re going to see her ex-husband, and those are going to be the only two Hispanic artists you’ll see.

Do your own research, if you’re stuck on that and if that’s all you see and their art doesn’t speak to you, do your own research. There are beautiful works and amazing artists from your own countries and from other Latin countries, and they don’t get spoken about a lot, but they found their own success and so can you.

Alexis “Lex” Chavira

22

How did you end up in the creative industry?

I guess technically, I would say my freshman year there was this class called DIM, it was basically just a class to learn Photoshop. And I was so into it that my teacher noticed and was like, ‘You should do this thing called graphic design.’ And from then on, I’ve just been obsessed and that’s really all I do. Every single aspect of design is just like my favorite. So, it really started since then, all because of school.

How would you say that your culture shapes your creative process and does it ever present any barriers for you?

When I first started designing, I don’t think if you had asked me this question then I would have noticed my culture affecting me at all. But then moving to Austin and San Marcos and doing school over here, I can definitely tell how much it really does affect like my designing process. My work ethic is so driven and really thorough compared to like the other design students I was around. I didn’t notice it ‘till the very end. I would lean towards projects that related to El Paso local businesses, I would try designing for, and like things that would benefit the community, stuff like that. I would always lean towards those where people were doing local businesses in Austin or things that would just be for fun. But I was like, No, this would be good for El Paso, El Paso could use this. So, there’s also that.

And does it present any barriers so far? No, it hasn’t yet. Maybe got a couple of like strange comments before as to why I’m always picking places in El Paso because they don’t really know what El Paso is over here. So I get a little bit, but also my culture is a part of me and I’m not going to let myself be held back. So, I haven’t hit anything yet.

How would you say that you’re able to remain authentic to yourself and who you are through your work?

This is a fun question. I think as a viewer looking at my work, you know, it’s authentic to me because it’s really bright colors. The concept is really fun or really funky. Like it’s probably something you’re like, ‘I would have never thought of that.’ And the fact that everything I try to make, I try to add motion to it, I try animating it, I try to just add any sort of animation to it or motion to it because I’m someone who can’t sit still.

So my work isn’t going to sit still either. But in my head, what makes it authentic is that all my pieces, all my works and all my pieces, digital or traditional, have references to them that only really I would understand. So that’s how I know. Okay, I made this because it’s connected for these reasons that no one else is going to know. So to me that’s how it’s authentic. But to a viewer, it would be the colors and the concept of it, and it’s probably got a lot of motion in it.

What’s one encouragement you would give to your fellow Latin creatives? Don’t listen to what people say, and just make stuff for you because if you like it, then you already have your like background with you. It’s, how do I explain this? It to just keep going.

If you like it, then it’s an amazing piece. As long as you, yourself like the piece, then it’s going to be great. So just keep moving forward, I guess it’s really just, if you like it, great, right?

Tony Casas

42

He/Him Partner/Creative Director

How did you end up in the creative industry? So, you know I was never an illustrator, designer, or anything like that. I did do a lot of creative writing, just things like that. I was just a little kid in high school, but I come from parents who were drug addicts. They weren’t around. I moved out when I was 16 and have lived on my own ever since then. So, I actually never graduated high school. So that kind of plays a lot into what kind of shaped me after that, because I was kind of on my own the whole time.

I went to school for nursing, which is super weird. I wasn’t into it. It wasn’t a good fit for me. At the same time, I had a lot of friends that were in the music scene, and they were putting on all the concerts and the shows here, which was really cool. Then they also needed a lot of design material. They needed fliers at the time, they needed tickets, they needed posters, and like, ‘well, who can do these?’ And I kind of started playing around with the idea of maybe I can learn how to use Photoshop and start trying to learn stuff on my own and that’s kind of what spurred it all off. I started doing a little bit of design on my own. I learned the processes; I’ve learned what looks great and what doesn’t.

I never understood why things looked good and why they didn’t. I just had an eye for it, I guess. So, I started designing a lot of that stuff and it got bigger and bigger and it just kept kind of exploding from there. I started to win some contests nationwide and then I went on to actually get picked up by record companies. I started doing design for major record companies because they came through El Paso and they liked the design that I did and so forth. It was really cool and at the same time really scary because me, this little designer who never went to school and never really understood what design actually was, kind of picked up from that.

I think a lot of that kind of comes through our culture and the way that we’re brought up is just to be scrappy and just to be fighters and just to do whatever it takes to reach your goals within reason. Of course, not going to break any laws or anything like that. I mean, it’s just because of our nature, our culture, how we grew up, how our parents grew up hearing stories about my dad working on films and stuff like that. They fought for everything, they really did; they wanted better lives and that’s exactly where I was.

Just like I wanted a career and I wanted to do this for my life. At the same time, I think especially with our culture, it’s so small-based that everybody knows everybody, which is a great thing as well.

Your dad reached out to me at Stanton Street and was just like we’re struggling with this design that we can’t do because it’s really abstract and we’re used to doing stuff that’s a little bit more corporate, a little bit more subtle. He heard of me through somebody, through another mutual friend who knew that I was doing these abstract designs for all these bands and stuff.

So, I ended up doing the design for that project. Then I kind of was like are you guys hiring? I was brought on as a junior designer there working underneath your dad, and then your dad quickly moved on. I was really in a hard place at that time because I was a junior designer. I could design, but I didn’t know what design was exactly, why things worked, and why decisions were made. I just knew how to do it, so that was a real struggle for me. It took me a couple of years of just really learning and going head into books; reading everything that I can, absorbing everything I can to understand color theory and how it works, to understand typography and how that affects the mental state of a user, how user experience and user interface works, and why they’re making those decisions.

Because as a junior designer, you’re getting put into a situation where your client’s like, ‘Hey, what’s up? Why did you make this decision? Why’d you use red instead of blue?’ Which is such a simple question. But I’m like, I don’t know, because it looks good. There was a lot more thought that went into it that I just didn’t understand that I was making at the time and that I was making these decisions based off of user experience.

But I didn’t even know what that was at the time. So, a couple of years down the line after I really started to learn all that and be able to make the decisions and working with other designers and seeing what other designers do, I finally moved into a more comfortable Creative Director position and I’ve held that position.

I’m partner now, so one of the owners at the company, but I still handle all the creative decisions and do most of the design for the company as well. That’s just something I don’t want to lose. Just enjoy doing it so much. I’m doing it at the higher level, but not as much as I used to do. That’s kind of like the soft spot of where I’m at right now.

How would you say your culture shapes your creative process specifically? And does it present any barriers for you?

Yeah, I think there’s yes, it creates barriers for sure. I’ll touch on it now, and in a little bit.

I think a big part of the culture here, especially any type of Hispanic or Latino culture, is 16

that creativity runs really thick in our blood. And it always has been. You take a look at anything from music to dance, to color, to design, to painting, and it’s just nothing but vibrant colors, it’s things that shouldn’t match, shouldn’t go together. Being put together and forced together in a way that makes it so appealing and so overwhelming, but at the same time comfortable. I think that that’s not something that you find in a lot of other cultures. I’m also part German. You definitely don’t see it there; it’s the exact opposite. You know, everything’s a little bit more bland, everything is structured, everything has reason. Whereas with the Latino culture, we’re a lot more abstract and it shows with everything that we do. We take pride in that and I’ve always been a big thing on that. Like that was one of the reasons why I got reached out to was because I was using these crazy colors that shouldn’t be used.I was breaking every single design rule that is in place and I wasn’t scared to do it. At the time I really didn’t even know that I was doing it to be honest with you. I think that is a big role there just breaking rules, vibrant colors, things that shouldn’t need to go together, creativity.

That is all spurred by one thing, which is passion, which to me is, I think, the biggest asset that us as a culture have. You know, we’re very passionate about everything that we do. You know, we put our heart and soul into everything because it’s not worth doing unless you’re passionate about it. You want happiness and you want to be able to feel like you’re making a difference in every single project that you do; which is great and it all can lead to really great things. But at the same time, I think that’s the biggest wall that we face. We become really passionate about our work and there’s a fine line between an artist and a designer. A lot of times we take so much pride in the work that we’re doing that we become the artist behind it instead of the designer.

Designers are there to solve problems and create solutions and to create a path forward. As an artist is there to put their stamp on things to make things beautiful and to just bring their thoughts in their mind to somebody. And it’s a dangerous mixture because you have clients that you have to work for. You have consumers that you have to make sure that you’re addressing. A lot of times the more artist brain kicks in and you’re like, you know what? I’m doing this because it looks great, it looks phenomenal. Then the client’s like, ‘I hate it’ for whatever reason, they’re just like, ‘I don’t like that color or I showed it to my wife. My wife hates the color. My kid hates that color.’ You know, you’re always going to hit that. Then the artist brain in you, it’s just like, fight back because you know, you made that right decision. Whereas the designer brain should be like, let’s see alternate solutions for this that find a different route to get the user to the same place or to get the same feeling or the same message across.

So, I think that’s something that not only I see within myself sometimes and I had to really learn the hard way; and being in some really tough situations, you need to emotionally disconnect sometimes. But a lot of newer designers I work with, I think

that’s one of the biggest struggles that I see. They have their vision, which may work extremely well, but as soon as they’re faced with that wall of any type of pushback, whether it be internal, client, or even the consumer, they can’t bend to see it another way. They only see it their way in the “artisticness” comes out and I don’t even think that’s a word, but it makes sense. And I think that’s the biggest wall that I think we’ve built for ourselves. And it’s tough. It’s really tough. You have to learn that the hard way. I think I’ve never seen anybody not learn it the hard way, which is we say that we have thick skin and especially as a culture, when it comes to our work, you know we take a lot of pride in that.

How would you say that you’re able to remain authentic to yourself through your work?

That was a little bit tough one for me. You probably get a lot of different answers for this one. I think to me, again going back to our culture, is just encouragement and the friendship and companionships that you make along the way. It speaks a lot to you as a person. You know, I can’t count how many times like I was working with your dad and I was making these decisions based off of just anything. Like, well this other designer did this cool thing, and it’s different than the way that I would do it. Then showing it to him and then him being like, ‘well, how come you didn’t go with your first gut instinct?’ I’m like, Well, because it works better, this other designer did it, it’s in play, it works well. He is like ‘who cares? Do what you think is right.’ I think that’s something that a lot of people kind of overlook, especially me, because I came up with a different upbringing. I have really bad impostor syndrome. I always had it.

I don’t think that I should be in positions or making the decisions that I make. Even to this day I struggle with it. But you know, I always go back to that is just like trusting your gut. I think you have to fall on your face a lot to be able to understand that. A lot of times your decisions are right because those risks are worth taking. A lot of times you hold yourself back, you go to a client and the client’s just kind of underwhelmed and they’re just like, ‘I’m not a big fan of what you did just because you weren’t true to yourself.’

It’s because you didn’t stay authentic. It’s because you decided to bend and not break the rules that you originally wanted to. I think just understanding that it’s okay to do, that it’s okay to take those risks. A lot of times those risks are the biggest rewards. They’re not always going to work out. They really aren’t. But the times they work out, it’s like, holy crap, they’re going to go with this. This is exciting and that passion comes back and it just makes it so much better to work on. A lot of times you go in there, you present it and it fails, but that’s okay. You just know next time you can try it again or you can try a different route.

I think that’s a big part of it. Just trying to put your touch on every single project that you work on along the way. I kind of lost myself a little bit there because I was brought in to do design differently. You know, I had a different way of thinking, and that’s what they were really looking for.

Then I went too far the other way and I got to the point where, like I was designing stuff, it just wasn’t working anymore because I was doing like a bank site and I was doing like these crazy colors and like, crazy just design stuff that didn’t work. And it hurt me because I went the opposite direction. I scaled back my design and I wasn’t putting my personal touch on things anymore. I was designing for the norm and our project suffered because of that. Yeah, they were fine, the client liked and they enjoyed and they worked, but they weren’t art. I think that was a big thing that we missed for a little while.

And you just got to make sure that you do that like you are in the position for a reason. You are chosen to work in every single place, in every single spot, that you’re in for a reason. From anything from parenthood, you’re a parent for a reason, you know you’re married for a reason. All those things you need to make sure that you just stay true to yourself and make sure that you’re putting your personal touch on all that.

What’s one encouragement you’d give to your fellow Latin creatives?

I honestly think, there’s two that stand out and I’ve kind of already beat these up. But number one, stay true to yourself again just work hard, never give up. That’s so cliche to say, but really just embrace the passion that you have inside and let that kind of guide you. And you know, in that you’re going to learn to trust your gut. You’re going to learn when decisions are bad; you’ll learn when they’re good.

The biggest thing that I think I’ve learned, and I am, I gravitate to a lot of design that follows the same structure, is not to be afraid to break rules, to break every single rule, break every single rule that you know, and don’t be scared to do it.

Again, I grew up listening to punk rock, being a skater kid all that stuff. When you look at the design that comes out of there, none of that should work. None of that should be great. You shouldn’t be able to do black and white, just throw pink in things you know? But it works really well because that rule is being broken. A lot of times those are the things that really stand out. Those are the meaningful projects, the ones that break the rules and not to be afraid to do that.

Paulina Canela Garcia

How did you end up in the creative industry or what got you into art? I’m pretty sure I was like any Mexican person. For me, it was really hard to tell my parents that I was going to do art because both my parents did go to college and my dad, when I was little, he was like, ‘You need to be better than I am.’ And he’s a chemical engineer. And I’m like, What’s better than a chemical engineer? A doctor?

And so like in my head I was like, Shoot, I don’t really like science. I don’t like math, I don’t like history at all. I don’t like any of that. But I also don’t want to be a starving artist. Like, what am I going to do? And so for the longest, I had that pressure and then one time my dad, I hadn’t even told him anything, and he’s like, ‘Listen, as long as you go to school, like you can be whatever you want, just go to school. And if you don’t want to go to school, don’t, stop wasting any time. Stop wasting your money, just start work.’ And I was like, No, like I actually like school. But okay, now that you’re giving me the option, let me explore what they are.

And then my senior year in high school, that’s when I liked everything. I took animation class, I was a photographer for campus, and I was in a couple more things. Then I started looking for art schools and I really liked the Academy of Art in San Francisco. It was a great school. I just didn’t see myself in the city by myself. It was just not an environment I was comfortable with, so I ended up getting accepted into Fresno State.

Fresno State offers a Bachelors of Fine Arts with multiple emphasis, illustration, graphic design, and multimedia. So, I was like, okay, I’m going to go for it, and I need to get into the BFA program. So, I didn’t even look at the graphic design shows. I was focused on the fine arts track because they’re slightly different. So I worked, worked, worked those two years to get into the BFA program. My goodness I was so happy when I got my acceptance letter. I was like, Great, I made it and ever since I loved all my classes.

My favorite courses have been typography, and I just fell in love. I had just such a great time and I know every project is stressful, but looking back on it, being a student was the best time of my life. I was like, shoot I’m only going to be here like, this is a moment, you know. Also one of my favorite courses was packaging, I loved it. I loved it. I loved it. That’s how I ended up in the industry.

How would you say that your culture shapes your creative process and at any times does it present barriers for you?

Thankfully, it has not presented barriers. The reason I can recognize that, is I took a race/ ethnicity course and stereotype course because back then there was like this friction going on because of the Aunt issue, and they were even trying to throw that Tapatío guy in there. And I was like, Yo, leave my Tapatío guy alone.

So like, listen, I’m not trying to get sued, so let me culture myself. A lot of the things that were mentioned there made me reflect on myself and I was like, okay, compared to where the prejudice towards a Mexican is, I don’t fit that stereotype. I’m lighter complected. I’m taller than the average Mexican. So, I don’t get judged that way. And now that I think about it, for me, it has not presented any barriers like that. I’m very proud and I freely express it. Even with my outfits and the things that I wear every day, like every time I get a free say on my project, it’s very colorful, it’s very playful. And I don’t necessarily use a lot of illustrations but typography. I just try to make the color scheme like very bright and vibrant colors.

How would you say you’re able to remain authentic to yourself through your work?

That’s a tricky question because I think over time we evolve, and it’s not that we’ve lost our roots, it’s just like we’ve grown as people. To say that I can remain more authentic to myself, like it can be only within a short time, but I can reflect upon and grow within. My style has definitely changed.

But I think looking back, you can see like a progression of what it is. It definitely does not look the exact same way it looked when I started. It looks way better, and I don’t think that now, or in whatever amount of years I’m going to feel or think the same way. I remember my roots and I know what I’m strong with, and I can remain like authentic to that. But within my style, I think that it’s definitely going to evolve.

What’s one encouragement you’d give to your fellow Latin creatives?

I feel that if you have a creative side, it’s good to explore it. Whatever struggles you may be going through, don’t completely discard it. You might be struggling now, but there’s going to be a point where you’re going to be okay. Then you will be like, I should have kept doing that.

You know, if you have a couple minutes, even if you’re stressed, go doodle anything creative that you feel like you can do, and don’t discard it. Just keep it on the side. If you’re on survival mode, there’s going to be a point where you can be like, okay, I’m good, What do I do now?

And that’s when you start like getting into your hobbies and your creative side starts developing. For a lot of people, like their darkest moment is like their most creative time.

I don’t know, just kind of find your balance. If you are struggling in terms of what people say, if you feel like that’s what you need to do. Maybe not necessarily your parents know, they’re just like trying to have the best for you. But for now, they just kind of need to trust the process and that you have a sense of direction of where you’re going with it.

If it’s just a hobby, then okay, it’s a hobby and there’s nothing wrong with that. But if you want to do something professional with it, like really research, there’s a community out there very willing to help and teach you and guide you in whatever you need. So, if that’s what you’re really looking for, start talking to whoever that you know, start with your school counselor. If you’re already taking classes, talk to your professors. They know the struggles as well.

Frank Luna

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He/Him Creator of blackstacie, Creative Director

How did you end up in the creative industry?

I think it’s just something I’ve always followed. I think what pushed me there was I recently found out that I had ADHD about a year ago. So, what I realized is that I was never really good with working a 9 to 5. I always struggled with school, being in a classroom, and I think ultimately what happened is just that I had to find every way possible to not have to work a 9 to 5. And, you know, there’s a lot of stigma with being an artist. So, in junior high, high school and growing up in El Paso, everyone told me, ‘you know, you’re going to be a struggling artist. You got to pick one thing, you’re going to be irresponsible, lazy, not contribute to society,’ all that sort of thing. So that was kind of what drove me to prove them wrong.

I leaned in a lot, on not just the creativity but learning business and all the irresponsible things that artists supposedly go through. I just fought my way to start making a living as an artist. So, my first job was when I was 11. I got hired as a photographer, and that opened my eyes that I could actually make money doing this stuff. Then after college, I went to New York and I had a media production company up there that I started, and it was surprisingly successful for about ten years.

I think I just ended up in the creative industry because I just did not want to have a 9 to 5 boring job. It was a challenge because in El Paso at the time, everyone really just discouraged me to even take that path pretty much. I fought tooth and nail to just make some kind of living. So, I really just ended up there out of just desperation.

How does your culture shape your creative process and does it at any time present barriers for you?

I’ve actually always had a hard time. It’s interesting you know, these questions now, because my perspective has kind of been or I’ve been reexamining things because of my recent diagnosis with ADHD, because I’ve always felt like an outsider, even with creative people to a certain extent. But growing up in El Paso, I never felt like a real Mexican. And when I would create art, a lot of teachers, professors would give me a lot of shit for not creating art that spoke to my heritage or the Latino culture and things like that. So, in that sense, growing up here, the culture, I don’t know. I just never felt supported by it.

I guess it shapes my process in the sense that I’m leaning more into now to what I want

and not what other people want or expect. So, it’s pretty much designing my own personal culture of whatever my influences are in some sort of weird, not weird, but like a lifestyle design and an ecosystem that supports my creativity and my output in whatever I’m comfortable with, essentially. Through that, I’m open to all cultures and all perspectives. However that comes out in art or it doesn’t.

I feel cultures and subcultures can kind of be harmful to themselves and to others. I don’t know if I told you I had a nonprofit where I helped artists build sustainable careers and such. So, I worked with a lot of subcultures and there’s all the different genres of different mediums: filmmakers, musicians, photographers, graphic designers, and more. The musicians are those subcultures. Some are into hip hop or rock or whatever it is. As awesome as it is, art brings people together and people get in those subcultures. There’s someone who’s in to rock or a punk scene and there’s a hip hop scene. But when they would come to my organization, they were kind of anti each other, which is kind of counterintuitive to what art is about, bringing people together. I would try to throw events where it was a mix of those people.

But I kind of see sometimes as great of a thing as culture is, it also fuels ego to a certain extent, and artists start to kind of close themselves because it’s like they get real pride on the music they make or the art they make and the culture in which, the art that they’ve followed or inspired them. I think sometimes artists start off open minded and then they end up being closed minded. For me, I kind of try to be careful to not be open to all those sort of cultures, subcultures sort of thing.

How would you say you’re able to remain authentic to yourself through your work? This has helped me a lot. It’s why I kind of created the blackstacie thing. I just, I guess I’ve just grown tired of giving a fuck. So, the most authentic I could be, and I try to remember it and it’s a training thing.

It’s a personal practice. The training thing is I try to think of my seven-year-old self and my 70-year-old self. I’ve always thought, you know what? What would my seven-year-old self say about me today, and am I doing things to better my life as a 70-year-old or as someone older? Right. So, I’m always thinking of that and making life easier for me as I get older.

But recently and also with the whole thing of this blackstacie thing is thinking of myself as a seven-year-old and would my seven-year-old self be proud of me; who is my sevenyear-old self before shame and guilt and regret and consequences like started to weigh in on me. I was free and as most kids are, they are free.

And you know, when I see my little cousins and they’re like four or five, six years old, they’re screaming. They’ll run around naked and not care. Then with grandparents, I 26

don’t know how close you are with your grandparents, but I am. There is this thing where like people who are older connect with the younger people because like, they kind of don’t care to a certain extent.

You know, like all things we worry about, elders, older people are just like, ‘yeah, I don’t care about career. I just want to enjoy life, spend time with family,’ and little kids are just having fun. So, there’s a unique bond that kind of bypasses people in their twenties, thirties, forties, fifties or whatever.

I feel I’m more authentic when I take away the distractions or whatever book I’m reading or whatever YouTube channel or whatever artists, does what or whoever artists that I look up to, what they’re doing. When I eliminate all that and not care and just think like would my seven-year-old self be happy with what I’m doing right now and is it carefree? I think that being authentic is just kind of eliminating as much of influence surrounding my life and my world and just thinking as a kid, essentially.

What’s one encouragement you would give to your fellow Latin creatives? I would say the reason I found out I had ADHD is because I was tired of all the external influence. I’m pretty lucky because my full-time job is that of a creative director. I was able to use my understanding because I learned like every visual medium and applied it. I loved everything from graphic design, filmmaking, storyboarding, writing, and I was always told to ‘always pick one.’

I explored all that and at some point I realized I was a creative director or I could be a creative director because I could communicate to a graphic designer and see what a graphic designer needs to get a job done for a bigger idea. I was kind of learning the language of the visual arts.

And so there became a time where I got stuck and I just realized I’ve been doing work for everyone else. Right? Awesome to have a career that is creative. But when I did blackstacie, that’s the first time I’ve ever put myself out there. I had like 300 some drawings and illustrations and 3D renders that no one’s ever seen until my therapist brought it out. She said, ‘you know, what’s your art? What do you do? You’re doing art for everyone else and helping everyone with their projects and their career. And the same with music.’ I had hundreds of songs that no one really ever listened to, so she challenged me to just put the stuff out there and I was like, No I don’t.

I’ve never considered myself a drawer or an illustrator. I just do it for fun. But there’s so much I got to learn. And when I showed her, she was like, ‘This is all pretty good.’ And I said, No, I need to learn how to do noses and ears. Then she listened to the music. She’s like, ‘That’s good too.’ Yeah, but I need to be better at drums or learn guitar better. I can’t put it out there. But she challenged me to just put it out there and not worry about likes

or comments or making money. So, the end of 2022 she said, ‘2023 I want you to draw daily and post something daily.’

It was huge. I started overthinking about branding and logos and strategizing and learning all the aspects of Instagram, it was paralysis by analysis. I took her challenge and part of that challenge was just detoxing everything in life and just learning more about me. So, every time I had the urge to like, look up a YouTube video about growing as an artist or any philosophical thing or any tutorial, I stopped myself. So all last year it was a huge detox and every time I wanted to go learn something or go on YouTube, I just reflected back on me and just posted every day and not care about the outcome. And so from working with artists, a lot of artists stop themselves before they even have a chance to take a step.

All that to say the suggestion is I finally understand what it’s like. Because when I was working with artists before I started putting my own art out, I didn’t see, Why are you stopping yourself? You’re an amazing musician. You’re an amazing this and that. You can easily make money, but they put barriers in front of themselves. And then I was presented with that I never thought I would be one making money or living off of my actual personal weird art. I did the same thing and I put those invisible barriers on myself. But my therapist just pushed me in the swimming pool and challenged me. And I posted 400 some days in a row.

I drew every single day, and at the very least, I drew for at least 15 minutes, even if I had a headache. Life happens, family or a death in the family. I made the effort to just focus 15 minutes on my art that’s either drawing or posting something or engaging with people on Instagram through my art, and that was a game changer.

You just got to jump in and not worry like you’re going to embrace the mistakes and embrace the wins and do feedback loops. Every week, what was the good stuff that happened this week and what was the bad stuff?

It’s just jumping in, embracing the mistakes, realizing that you’re going to screw up, you’re going to get hate, people are going to like what you’re doing, but you’re just trying to find your tribe and the people who actually enjoy what you do. Yeah, that’s it. I hope that made sense of it.

Rita Esther Beltrán

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She/Her Art Director, Designer, Illustrator

How did you end up in the creative industry?

I always think I wanted to be an architect at first, but then I decided to be a designer. I don’t remember how that happened, but I’m glad I did that. Also, my mom is a creative, so I grew up in a house where she did ceramics, and she had a studio in the house, so I think I was exposed to that since I was little, and I realized I liked it more and more.

So, I think it just happened organically. I don’t quite remember how I even heard about graphic design you know? But I think maybe it was because I wanted to be an architect. I remember I used to draw blueprints like the architect when I was a kid. Maybe I did that because I used to see some at my house because we moved several times. So, I think that’s where I saw them and I started drawing them. That’s how I started my idea of being an architect and from then I think I discovered graphic design.

How would you say that your culture shapes your creative process and it does it at any point present barriers for you?

I think it always reflects or it’s always related. I think culture is ingrained in us like it’s the way you grew up, the flavors you tasted growing up, the smells, the language, you know, everything around you. I think it’s like it’s engraved on us. So of course it’s going to be reflected on whatever it is that you end up putting out there.

Creatively, and I think it happens as continuously, I feel like even if you don’t want to, it’s going to be there somehow. But I think also sometimes we do want to make it more obvious. So, when you are trying to create something, I mean I think it’s as if you’re doing something like a piece of art and then if you’re doing something in graphic design because they have different purposes.

So sometimes you can, if you’re doing a project, let’s say for a graphic design and you think that the fact that you, for example, I live in the United States, but I come from Mexico. It’s something that you ask yourself, is that gonna help this project like if like make it more obvious or you can take that point of view and put it in your project? I think it could have a better perspective sometimes and if you are creating something like a piece of art, I think it’s something that you can decide if you’re gonna make it more obvious and if that’s going to help what you’re trying to tell or not. But I definitely think that it’s always something that’s going to be there, even if you don’t want to.

Like somehow it’s reflected there because of being brave with it. Whatever you create is just like a reflection of you, whatever is in you.

How within that, how would you say that you’re able to remain authentic to yourself through your work?

I think it’s difficult to do that even in these times because we’re supposed to do everything, basically. But it’s hard to say. I mean we all try to always be authentic or maybe at least I think I try to. I don’t know. I think it’s that you are exposed to so many things and then it’s like taking that and saying, what can I give it that is mine?

I guess what I’m saying is, it will be, if you do it from what you have inside. Like I think it’s going to be authentic. It’s going to have references or like you’re going to have inspiration in there. But if you try to follow what is inside, your ideas that come from in here, I think it’s going to be authentic.

What’s one encouragement you would give to your fellow Latin creatives?

I have seen amongst my peers where it was kind of a little bit of a fight to go after their dreams. I think I had that, too. When I first told my parents that I wanted to study something related with art, like graphic design or whatever, and my dad was like, ‘What are you going to do with that? How are you going to live?’ I was like, well, it’s a job, it is a profession.

I think it has to be persistent, like if that’s really what you want to do, you just have to fight for it. I don’t think I had it that difficult once I said, this is really what I want to do. It is a profession and there are jobs for this career. I think he kind of like went, ‘okay,’ but I still don’t think he understood until years later, that he could see I was making a living from this. But I think it’s going to be, like you said, more difficult for some people.

I think it’s just you have to be strong about what you want to do and not let anything get in your way. I also remember when I was in college, I had some peers that in classes, some teachers would be very hard on them and they just quit. They left and they never came back and that made me think it can happen to me, would I have fought for it or like, would I just leave? And I don’t think I would have left because I don’t even know what I would do if it wasn’t this, you know?

The other thing that made me think is like, okay, maybe this is not what they really wanted to do. They faced something difficult and then they just couldn’t get past it. So, I think you have to really be sure that, and not so much at the beginning, because maybe at the beginning you’re not so sure, when you start, you can start seeing that if this is for you or not. So just pay attention to that and see if it is what you want to do. You just have to work for it.

Huge thank you to the featured artists for sharing your stories and partnering with me for my thesis. It was very encouraging, inspiring, and healing to speak with you all and hear how your experiences helped shape you. I hope that the readers will feel empowered to chase their creative dreams and embrace all the parts of who they are.

Warmest Regards, Kalynn

Woodward

Kalynn Woodward University of Colorado Denver Digital Design Thesis 2024