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

Hi Caia, thanks for joining 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?

While being an artist and freelancer definitely has its challenges in terms of reliable and consistent income, having the freedom to make my own schedule and work on a variety of projects is absolutely worth it. My life feels so full and dynamic this way. I have been lucky enough to have had a steady flow of creative work as an art director on film sets for the past five years, but throughout my life I have had many “regular” jobs as well. I grew up babysitting for spending money, I’ve done professional organizing and personal assistant work, and I worked as an interior design consultant for Restoration Hardware for two years, which gave me a taste of corporate life. Ultimately I was craving an environment that I could be more creative and not tied to the very neutral branding of RH. So when a month-long opportunity to work on an HBO TV Pilot, I took it, and I have been freelance ever since. Now, even when I am working on set for clients and executing other people’s ideas, I am craving more time in my studio to paint and bring my own visions to life. But when I have too much time on my hands, I get anxious about not being able to make enough money. So it is a constant battle of hustling and manifesting the most fulfilling yet lucrative work. It’s challenging but I wouldn’t want it any other way!

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I have been drawing since before I can remember and I was raised by two professional artists, so my life has always been built around art and design. In 2015, I graduated from Bard College in upstate New York, where I studied Studio Arts with a focus on printmaking and installation art. For my senior thesis, I created an immersive optical illusion in my studio using broken mirrors, ladders and painted shadows that obscured the viewer’s understanding of whether they were looking at physical objects or their reflections. I called it “Matrix of a Moment” and it is still to this day one of my favorite projects that I have ever done. When I moved to Los Angeles after graduating, my first roommate was a production designer and she saw this installation work and figured I could do well as a set dresser with my eye for design and space. So she began hiring me, and my life in the film industry began. I absolutely loved the thrill of running around town sourcing random items, crafting props and making the set come to life. She taught me to look at the film screen as a painting, creating a scene that has a beautiful composition and tells the right story.

Since then, I worked my way up to becoming a production designer myself, completing commercials for a variety of big brands such as Vans, Walmart, Kristin Ess Haircare, as well as floral & mural designs for several Rooftop Cinema Club locations around the country, and a feature film that went to Tribeca & now streams on Hulu. This year, I moved to New York City and started working for Ralph Lauren creating their window displays on Madison Avenue. I am thrilled to explore a new way to use the skills I developed in the film industry to reach people in person versus on the screen; I have found that my passion still lies in immersive experiences that can have an impact on people in a visceral way.

Another passion of mine that has been simmering in the background of all of this production design work is clothing design and embroidery. You will learn more about this venture in my following answers, but I have been creating custom hand-printed textiles for t-shirts since I took an experimental printmaking class in college, and it has since blossomed into an embroidered vintage jackets business that I have named CAIA Designs. My ultimate goal is to combine these two worlds by being my own art director, creating the world of CAIA and designing immersive events that channel the artistic energy that these jackets carry. I believe there is an intimate experience that lies in how we dress and how we move through the world, and I want to harness that feeling of confidence for others. Everything I do is inspired by the shape of the Spiral and its symbol of outward growth and forward momentum. Spiralize Your World in Wearable Art by Caia .

Have you ever had to pivot?

As a freelance artist & designer, pivoting is practically part of the job description. Perhaps the most significant time was when the pandemic hit, when the film industry completely shut down. Relying on unemployment to pay my rent, it was a blessing in disguise because I finally had the time to focus on my own art practice. I had an “aha” moment one day when I decided to create an all-ages coloring book for everyone bored at home in quarantine. I also began hand-printing on face masks and continuing my hand printed t-shirts that I had been making since college. It was a joy to be able to focus entirely on my own creative endeavors and treat it like a proper business.

While I received a lot of support and customers in this new venture, about a year later I decided to put a pause on all of it as the film industry started to pick back up. I felt I was no longer able to put my all into the business and I also wanted to refresh the brand into a more elegant, sophisticated and refined version of itself. My vision was to transform my hand printed designs and drawings into embroidery, inspired by designers like Schiaparelli, Alexander McQueen and Versace.

Knowing that embroidery was not historically a skill I had in my wheel house, I reached out to several vendors to help me execute the designs I had in mind. After a great deal of empty promises and frustrating flakiness, I realized I was going to have to take things into my own hands. I researched the best embroidery machine, found an amazing deal on Facebook Marketplace, and began watching YouTube videos to figure it out. Another year after that, I finally have a collection of prototypes for my refreshed clothing line, CAIA. In the spirit of channeling my own artistic practices and creative energy into the collection, I decided to transition away from the previous brandname of SpiralEyez Designs and celebrate my own name. After years of experimenting with different processes and styles, I have a confident sense of what the CAIA brand means to me and what it can mean for the world. I still want to channel the spirit of the Spiral as a symbol of growth, change and positive thinking. To Spiralize something is to enhance it, to celebrate its original character and take it to the next level. By embellishing forgotten vintage pieces with my artistic embroidery, I am breathing creative energy and new life into them, and I hope anyone who wears a CAIA piece can feel that.

Spiralize Your World with Wearable Art by CAIA.

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

My vision for the CAIA brand spans beyond just clothing. I am interested in the concepts of intuition and immersive experiences; how can we be more aware of the energy that we surround ourselves with? Inspired by sacred geometry, ancient symbology, and a stream of consciousness process, my designs are a manifestation of my own intuition. I allow the shapes to form line by line as I turn off my thinking brain and let the present moment take over as I draw. When these drawings are transformed into embroidery designs, there are limitless possibilities to how they can enhance a piece of clothing in their own way.

The collection is made up of hand-selected, high quality second-hand and vintage garments, which means that each one has its own personality and impacts the environment much less than wastefully producing them from scratch. Using clothing and materials that already exist is one simple way for us to be mindful of our connection to nature and the environment. I believe clothing is all about energy – in the same way that being in nature has an inexplicably positive impact on our mindset, it can be so empowering to put on an amazing jacket that immediately makes you feel genuinely more yourself. What you wear has the power to change your attitude, your sense of self, and how you move through the world.

I want to create immersive experiences for people within the CAIA brand that harnesses those blissful feelings of being in nature and feeling confident. I have been so inspired by clouds, the sky and the feminine goddess energy of the earth & the cosmos, and I can’t wait to manifest these visions into a three dimensional space. In a world that is so overwhelming and fast-paced, it is important for us to slow down and exist in the present moment. How can we truly listen to ourselves and be confident in our decisions when we are constantly distracted by external stimuli, social media, and the overall chaos of the world? We can be more observant to the energy that surrounds us, and manifest more of what makes us happy. We can all find peace by “spiralizing” and seeing the world around us in a new way!

Contact Info:

• Website: www.shopcaia.com (embroidered clothing) www.caiadiepenbrock.com (online art & design portfolio)
• Instagram: @caia.diepenbrock / @designedbycaia

Image Credits
Grace McCarthy – Photographer of beach photoshoot