We were lucky to catch up with D’ana Nunez recently and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, D’ana thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Learning the craft is often a unique journey from every creative – we’d love to hear about your journey and if knowing what you know now, you would have done anything differently to speed up the learning process.

I’m a visual/hands-on type of learner, so I continue to invest a lot of time into experimenting with new mediums and I also invest time into practicing–which has been the most important when I want to sharpen what I do or don’t know.

Knowing what I know now is I can easily cut corners to speed up what I do but it doesn’t necessarily help me in learning more. Context and education whether self taught or in school, helps a lot in building the artist you want to be. To speed that up can mean you’re leaving a lot of room for unnecessary error.
Some things take time and if I want to provide quality of work, I need to be honest with my process.

Some skills I think are critical for what I do is listening and being flexible in order to adapt because we’re in an era where a lot of things are advancing without our permission and how we adapt, adopt or navigate these times is just as important as having talent.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I am a Puerto Rican multidisciplinary artist from Miami now living in Brooklyn, I have pursued the creative world for over 10+ years with 6 years of that being fully independent/freelance. I got into the arts because I saw it at as an avenue for my inner child to create worlds that don’t exist.

Throughout my career, I have collaborated with brands such as: Nike, Meta, Ulta Beauty, SZA, Brooklyn Nets, Netflix and humbly, the list goes on. A project that I’m most proud of is the basketball court I designed and helped paint in honor of the Puerto Rican community that flourishes at Orchard Beach in the Bronx. That project was a symbol and a turning point in me recognizing that I do belong.

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

In 2023, I self-funded my first solo art show. title HOMESICK, it first debuted in Brooklyn, at Kidsuper Gallery and then in Miami, at Ampersand Studios a week before Art basel.

I ended up self-funding it because my team at the time, was continuously pitching to secure funding in order to make my show happen. But after pitch after pitch, we received no’s–which felt super discouraging at the time because I thought the work I provided was of value and I thought I would have more financial support.

But once I decided to not pursue the show and put it on ice, we got an email to check out Kidsuper Gallery, which they ended up providing the space to me for free and with that support, we were able to scratch off the biggest ticket item off our our budget.

Once we left the venue, I remember asking “okay, now that the space will be provided for free, how much would it cost to cover the bare bones of show?” They told me $10k, and I said “fuck it, lets do it” because it was so important to me to at least have the chance to do it, show my work and tell my story versus to never doing it at all.

In your view, what can society to do to best support artists, creatives and a thriving creative ecosystem?

With advancement of technology being such a hot topic right now, a lot of artist are growing skeptical and resistant to the world of AI and rightfully so.

As a society, we lack context, understanding of copyright laws and education surrounding how and who AI is affecting. I believe the every day consumer and user doesn’t understand how these companies are building technology off of poor ethics because for them, they get to benefit off the idea of being a creaitve without the journey of one.

So I think for a better, more creative future, our society needs to be provided with more education, better laws need to be in place that protect the creator and it’s intellectual property while AI companies include people like myself in those brainstorming/development sessions to advocate for what’s right.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.covl.co
• Instagram: @itscovl
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/d-ana-nu%C3%B1ez-72247640/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@covlwashere