We recently connected with Karen Arredondo and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Karen 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.

We learn from people of all ages, backgrounds and cultures. The more friends of varying backgrounds you have, the wiser you will be. I am friends with several 3 year old kids and people as old as 80 years old with all kinds of people inbetween. People from 4 different continents, of many major religions, and cultures, and political affiliations, job classifications, sexual orientations, and gender identities, with many other intersectional factors that make people so uniquely diverse. This far, I’ve been fortunate to have so many people come and go with hopes to meet many more people as the time goes by.

I whole-heartedly believe that this fact has made me a better artist, and a better human.

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.

Growing up, I was always artistic, I loved to draw and paint, I loved to play outside, I loved to work with my hands. I have written several poems about my childhood growing up playing in my dads shop, riding on forklifts, and being around general laborers a lot of my life. I also found myself around the elderly, taking care of my grandmother. I grew up and learned from people around me. They wanted better for me. I was told I was supposed to be a doctor, then I discovered I don’t like blood or needles. Then I thought I’d pursue Architecture or Mechanical engineering since I liked creating things. When it came time to apply to colleges, I wasn’t accepted into the schools for those degrees. I was accepted into the school of liberal arts…I took that as a sign.

I took a lot of electives in high school. One of them was theater. I was approached by the teacher to stage manage. He said I had a knack for it. I’ll always attribute my career to Mr. Rehm who believed I could make a go at this. I didn’t know at the time, this was a viable career.

I went to a community college, I have an Associates Degree in Liberal Arts, my dad worked at the college so my tuition was essentially free. I was able to find a job at the auditorium there, and got sucked into the drama department there. I worked on plays, music recitals, special lectures, workshops or dance recitals that came through. It was here that I learned I could work in this field, doing technical theater. I could use skills that engineers, architects, artists, and business managers have. All things I wanted to learn about. So now that I had a plan, I transferred to a program up the road, got a BFA in Technical Theater-Design and Technology from Texas State. I worked as a freelance theater artist all over the state, up to places like Chicago.

I worked as a set designer, scenic artist, props master, set dresser, faux painter for a fabrication studio, and an assistant puppet designer in addition to costuming, and stage management, lighting and sound board work, and general labor getting these events and performances up and running.

I moved away, and came back. Im rooted. My family, friends, and culture all exist in San Antonio. That’s where I want to create my own work.

What is to really learn something? I get to play, I get to explore, I get to study, and I get to try…..and fail. All in the pursuit of sharing what the human experience is through this act of storytelling. That is how I define what the ‘craft’ of theater is. A holistic approach to the study of the human condition. We grew up hearing stories, songs, there are idioms, parables, all about life, creation stories, love, war, loss and gains, virtues, and vices… I get to tell these stories in profound ways.

I went to school for the industry I predominantly work in, but I do a lot of different things for what is considered, “work.” Luckily I have been able to meet seasoned theater artists, as well as work with people just walking into the field. We learn from everyone, if you have the right mindset. A Master’s degree is really a study in learning how you best can learn the subject you want to pursue knowledge in. You learn a lot about yourself, you learn a lot about the people you work with, and the nature of the work itself.

I would like to think that the ‘craft’ of theater is really just acting on observations of life. the retelling of common and uncommon experiences. The universal but also the nuances within individualism in order to better understand life itself.

I’d like to think I’m not all that different from the majority of people in this world, broken down, in the simplest terms. My experiences learning theater are broken down to the last 20 years of different stories I’ve been able to tell. These plays, operas, performance art pieces or dance performances have all impacted a community with a temporal experience that can never be repeated in quite the same way ever again. I find this work irreplaceable and vital to the human experience. It is through my craft- this craft of theater- that we learn empathy, that we learn to work as collectives, we push ourselves, and we strive to make the world better.

Being Brown, Queer, and Non-binary. I think the lenses through which I experience life can bring a different perspective to the common life experiences people understand. I can also bring new things that only people that identify similarly to me might find ourselves going through. I think its important to share perspectives as a means of understanding.

I always seem to go back to ideas of what has existed as the dominant form of any craft, and I wonder how it has shaped the ideas of today. How can a shift in those forms impact communities of all kinds…and expand on what the American experience is.

This shift in creating new stories has always been what I find my passion in. Most of the work Im most excited about are new works in my field. New plays, new operas, the retelling of older stories with updates to impact today’s audiences is important. We learn best when we relate to what we experience. I find myself designing and writing more than anything these days when it comes to theater. I have a vested interest in all kinds of other work, truly.

What is it that I offer? I offer the opportunity to share stories. I design the worlds, I write the scripts, and I produce whole projects. I’m a maker and a doer.

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

GO SEE ART. That’s it. Go to shows, exhibits, open mic’s go support street artists, as well as the established gallery showing artists. Go see big shows, and go see small shows, Go to the markets, the fairs, the trade shows.

BUY THEIR ART. Support them directly.

GET TO KNOW THE ARTISTS IN YOUR AREA. Have conversations with people outside your units. Exchange info, keep up the lines of communication.

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

I have the most fortunate kind of life. I get to do what I love. Its not work when you love what you do. I get to tell stories, without having to be in the spotlight. I help people share ideas. I get to practice skills I enjoy doing. My life is never predictable. I have structure, but no day is ever the same. I get to thrive.      

Contact Info:

• Instagram: www.instagram.com/citaface3/

Image Credits
photos courtesy of Karen Arredondo. Benjamin W. Smith, and Liquid Cat Publishing respectively.