We recently connected with Carlos Suarez and have shared our conversation below.

Carlos, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today What did your parents do right and how has that impacted you in your life and career?

My mom has always been supportive of my journeys. Ive had a lot. Growing up watching her take on some many roles in my life and her own, I learned that you’re not always going to have things figured out by the time you need to. What matters the most is having the courage to show up and try every time.

Carlos, 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?

My artist name is Carlos Mikelangelo. I was born in Houston, Texas in 1992 but grew up and came of age in the midwest state of Indiana. Growing up adopted, African American, and queer, I always felt like I had eyes on me for one reason or another. My childhood was relatively good overall, but high school was where my artistic eye started to develop. I completed multiple art classes with interest in photography, painting and drawing. However once college came I had my first identity crisis. I always knew I wanted to be a creative of some sort but I wasn’t sure how to pursue that passion in the “Real World”. At the beginning of my college career I tried the stereotypical logical path and pursued a nursing degree. Early on I knew I had an obsession with how the human form looked and functioned. I quickly realized my passion was not going to lead me into the white halls of a hospital someday. I made the radical change to computer graphics in the middle of my sophomore year. Why the switch? At the time it made me happy and my curious mind of how things functioned led me back to design and art but expressed through tech. The same year, I found myself interning for a makeup studio for 3 years while I finished my degree. That period of time was the birth of me combining my two passions of tech and beauty.

Fast forward to 2024 as a 31 year old creative, I proudly can say I am a beauty and portrait photographer in Los Angeles. The business of beauty is forever expanding. There is skin, hair, cosmetics, grooming, and fragrance niches just to name a few. My work as a creative is heavily influenced and inspired by the beauty and adversity of being queer, and African American. I aim to creative images that inspire others to live authentically and express themselves without the fear of social norms. I am just getting started.

Have any books or other resources had a big impact on you?

Atomic Habits by James Clear is an essential book that I feel every person should read. I keep an enormous amount of affirmations and visuals from this book. There are so many nuggets sprinkled throughout the pages. Here are my top 3:

1. Start to understand and be aware of what you do and how you respond to the task and promises you make to yourself on daily basis. How you treat yourself is the basis of how you allow others to treat you.

2. We as people, are made up of our daily habits and rituals. If you have no direction where you want to go in life, you will forever be spinning around with no sight or sense of direction.

3. Be kind to yourself and allow grace when needed, however you can not fool yourself. You know when you have the capacity to do better.

How can we best help foster a strong, supportive environment for artists and creatives?

As artist, our main objective is to evoke emotion and feeling through our chosen medium. Our current society is structured in a way to reduce feelings, numb pain, and selling a fast track result. I would love to see more access to spaces for people to come together to connect, express, collaborate and share. I find that many of these current spaces have high entry prices that most creatives especially at the beginning of their journey do not have the resources for.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.carlosmikelangelo.com
• Instagram: @carlos.mikelangelo