We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Almudena Caminero a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Almudena, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Have you been able to earn a full-time living from your creative work? If so, can you walk us through your journey and how you made it happen? Was it like that from day one? If not, what were some of the major steps and milestones and do you think you could have sped up the process somehow knowing what you know now?

I moved to New York City back in 2014 from Spain after I finished my Masters in Set Design from a Film School in Madrid. At that time It had been pretty difficult for me to find jobs in film working in the Art Department which was my main goal when I graduated.
I worked as an Art intern and Art PA in a couple of TV shows, that is the lowest of the positions in the team but I could see that It was gonna be very difficult to grow from there to get to be a Set Designer one day.
After I finished the last project I had nothing else lined up so my parents, that have always been super supportive with my career, suggested to try and study abroad in the States where there is an actual Film Industry.
So I did that, I came here by myself leaving all my friends and family behind to do a one year filmmaking program with the plan of staying for a year, maybe two…and here I am almost ten years after.

After I finished the program I started looking for projects in films where I would get to Design the sets of small films. I designed a few of the Thesis of my classmates in school cause I knew my focus was gonna be Set Design.
I started building a portfolio, sometimes by just collaborating for no pay at the very beginning but I kept meeting more and more people that liked my Style and that’s how I became a full-time Production/Set Designer.

Another Difficult part of the process was also getting an Artist Visa to be able to work here, cause you need a lot of press, awards and people to support you that want to work with you. It was after two years of being in NY when my portfolio had grown and when a film I directed the first year had done Its festival run that I had more press to prove a deserved a Visa to earn a living here as an artist.

Living in NYC has also allowed me to grow as a Visual Artist. Since I was very small I started painting and experimenting with Oil and Acrylic paints, and what started more as a hobby is becoming my personal business.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I am a Brooklyn-based visual artist originally from Spain. I work professionally as a Production Designer and Set Designer in films and commercials and I am also a painter.

When I work in films I design and decorate sets by modifying locations. I start by reading the script, and after visiting the locations where the movie will be shot I do sketches and plans to transform the space. I also create shopping lists based on the original drawings so me and my team can source the items needed to decorate the sets.

On the other hand, my work creating atmospheric spaces for film and television sets is very related and has inspired my paintings often.
I have always been fascinated by storytelling, and it is there where I have always found my inspiration. I try to tell stories by creating scenes for peculiar characters, almost like it was the scene of a movie where the viewer can imagine the rest of the story, I just present the first frame. Each painting is usually inspired by and starts with a story, a tale, or a song I hear. As I start working on the painting, I add more and more details. The more time I spend with a painting, the more details I come up with. This is why I consider the “genre” of my art as Narrative art. I often work serially, creating groups of paintings that tell a single piece of a larger story.

Pieces from one of my recent series After the Carnival is Gone, which focuses on the sideshow performers of Coney Island, have been exhibited at Cargo Project Gallery in Bushwick, the Brooklyn Waterfront Artists Coalition in Red Hook or the Freak Bar in Coney Island and you can find prints and other merchandise with my artwork on Etsy.

Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can provide some insight – you never know who might benefit from the enlightenment.

I think it is not uncommon for non-creatives to not consider the career of an artist like real career. Since I was small I always knew I wanted to be an artist and work in film and when I was choosing my major and topic of my studies I came many times across comments like “You are very good at painting, but that is a hobby, you need to find what you want to do for a living”. And the response was the same when I mentioned I wanted to work in film.
It is true that where I come from the amount of work in film shoots is much more limited but sometimes you just need to do some things that involve leaving your comfort zone to reach what you want to do and sometimes leaving your home and your country is one of those thins . And a lot of people doesn’t understand that.
I am not saying making a living as a creative is easy, you need to work hard and most of the times you work many more hours than If you had a regular 9-5 job, but It is very rewarding when people start seeing your work and appreciating it.
I think the feeling that you are doing something different that makes you stand out from the crowd and hopefully leaving a legacy is pretty rewarding

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

For years I have been working on painting series in my free time between jobs, because I enjoy it, not just with the goal of having them on a gallery of selling them (of course that is always on my mind), but because I enjoy choosing a theme to study and then do a series of paintings about it.

One of my series “After the Carnival is Gone” , that I started working on in 2015 is probably the best example of this.
One of the places that have fascinated me the most about New York City since I moved here has been Coney Island. I had never been to a Sideshow before in my life until I went there and I found It very inspiring, almost like I found the place that I didn’ t know I had been looking for.

I wanted to write a movie or do something creative about or around a sideshow to have an excuse to go more often and spend time there, but after many tries I realized that I knew nothing about it and that to be able to write a script you need to talk and breath like your characters so I decided to find some books to reach my goal.
Reading “American Sideshow” by Marc Hartzman or “Freaks: We who are not as others” by Daniel P. Mannix helped me a lot to understand how the sideshow along history (very differently from what I original thought from what you see in a lot of horror movies) has been a safe place for disability. A place where the “different” is celebrated.
I loved reading the life stories of Schlitzie, Chang and Eng, General Tom Thumb or Al and Jeannie Tomaini between many others so I decided to start a series of paintings portraiting them in their peace moments, trying to imagine what happens when they leave the stage and what they do in their daily lives.

Writing a script was the original plan but making a movie involve so many other things like having a budget, producers, you need a big team and usually the original ideas end up being modified a lot for many reasons. It is also difficult to make a movie with little resources and I have always been a visual person so I thought creating a “still” of each of their stories would be much more appealing for the audiences, but I mainly did the series for myself or to try to show my friends and family back home and my new friends who these people were, and tell them their stories that I found so fascinating.

Fast forward to almost nine years after, the paintings that were originally a personal project have been exhibited in five galleries around NYC and you can even find prints of them for sale in Coney Island, the place where everything started.
I have also had the honor to collaborate with Coney Island USA by making some banners for the sideshow, so that is a great example of a rewarding aspect of creating art.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.almudenacaminero.com
• Instagram: @almudenaCFpaintings
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/almudena.caminerofernandez/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/almudena-caminero-1bb2a4b5/
• Other: Etsy: https://www.etsy.com/shop/AlmudenaCFpaintings

Image Credits
The profile photo and the photos of myself posing in a gallery with my art hanging were taken by Ibai Vigil-Escalera. The 3 process Photos of myself painting and posing next to the sideshow banner were taken by Laure A. Leber The 3 photos of my paintings were taking by me