Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Arnoldo Diaz. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Alright, Arnoldo thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Are you 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?

Living economically from art from the beginning is not an easy thing, at least it wasn’t for me.

For several years I shared my creative time with other activities: street food sales made by me (a year or so}. Carpentry, making tables, chairs, beds, etc, (about 4 to 5 years)
At the same time, during that time, I participated in different salons and art exhibitions, making a resume in what has always been my passion.

My livelihood did not come from my artistic works, so I only created and I was not worried about the economic situation, since with my other activities I did more than enough.

I gradually stopped doing that until one day I said that I was going to live 100 percent from the product of my art.
Fortunately, it has been like that since then and I thank life for the joy of being able to live doing what I like for almost fifty years.

Arnoldo, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

About myself I can tell you that I have painted almost all my life, since my childhood what I liked the most about school tasks was the free drawing that you had to do at the end.

I made many paintings that I gave away without knowing that I was going to be a painter later for the rest of my life.
Proud, no. Grateful yes.
The fact that you do what you like and can make a living from it is something incredible and wonderful.
I am inspired by life and every aspect of it, I take everyday things to a level where they transcend and can be recognized with another interest and purpose.

My theme: “Art within everyone’s reach”

I strive to be able to make it easy for each person who is interested in my work and feels my energy in painting to acquire an original of my authorship.
Most of my paintings reflect a positive, happy energy, with a lot of color and I think that this helps people to reconcile with themselves, showing another side of reality through imagination.
Art saves!

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

The biggest positive aspect that could be seen as a reward for what you do and how you do it, has been my lifestyle.

A little irreverent with the social statutes, the value that I give to freedom and the way people see you and accept your way of being because you are an artist.

It’s like you somehow represent something or someone that deep down they are, and they understand that particularity in a way to be interesting and daring.

I mean the behavioral and social aspect. The artist is generally respected and his extravagances are accepted because in some way they consider us crazier than others, a point on which I agree with society

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

Being an artist is not easy, it is said that you are born and not made. Perhaps both points of view have a common theme, which for me is that there are many situations to overcome if you are truly an artist.

First: the family and the paradigms that exist on this subject: that artists are only worth something after they die, that painters starve, that this is fine for a jobie but it is not a professional career, blah, blah, blah.
Thank God that has now changed a bit.

After that family part comes the social part, a world where you are valued for what you do or have and not for what you are. An aspect that you have to deal with with a lot of intelligence, audacity and self-esteem, which I think will stay with you for a long time.

I have a very peculiar story on this subject that I experienced firsthand.
A few decades ago I came here to the US for a period of 6 months, which was what the visa allowed.
After five months trying to place my paintings and not having succeeded at all, the time has come to return to Venezuela, my country of origin.
So I already had everything packed and had delivered the apartment I rented and those last days I stayed at my sister’s house in Florida.
One of the gallery owners with whom I had become friends, told me about an important painting contest of the Absolut vodka company with the idea that I participate, I told him that I was already leaving the country and that everything was saved and that at the next opportunity I would.
Later, when I got to my sister’s house, I remembered a story I had read about an American who had bought a plot of land to drill and extract oil from the subsoil. The individual drilled to a depth of 52 meters and came across a large, very hard rock and this discouraged him and he decided to sell the land to someone else thinking that there was no oil there.
The next owner, on the same 52 meters that had been made, drilled another meter of the hard rock and found the black gold that was there waiting for whoever would remove it.
That’s what came to my mind and I thought: could it be that I’m at 52 meters?
Next I went to the art store, bought what I needed and on the glass doors of my sister’s apartment I held the canvases and painted two paintings for the absolut vodka contest and consigned them. Then I left for Venezuela and a few months later they told me that my painting had been selected as the winner of the contest.

The rest is history.

The point here is that each rung of life has its resistance and if we overcome that contradiction, the results are different in this world of infinite possibilities.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.artediaz.com
• Instagram: Artnoldodiaz
• Facebook: Arnoldo Diaz (artnoldodiaz)
• Linkedin: Arnoldo Diaz
• Twitter: @artnoldodiaz
• Youtube: artnoldodiaz