We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Powerpaola. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Powerpaola below.

Powerpaola, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. 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?

After many years of having all kinds of jobs as an immigrant (nanny, artist’s model, waitress, Kitchen assistant, elderly companion, etc.) I was able to dedicate myself completely to my creative work. I learned to survive with my own possibilities and on my own terms.
I think the key was not to stop, to work a lot, to move in many worlds and to learn to live with little, as a nomad, I try to be minimalist.. The day I dedicated myself completely to making a living from my work, I decided to dedicate the same amount of time to it as I did in the kitchen where I worked.
One day with my ex-partner we decided to have a sabbatical year with our savings and dedicate each of us to our own work. He wanted to write a play and I wanted to write a graphic novel, and from that moment on I only dedicated myself to painting, drawing and writing.

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 studied arts in Colombia and before graduating I was already working. I started working when I was 15 years old with a brand of t-shirts that were very famous in Colombia in the nineties. I used to draw up to sixty designs a week about ecology, Colombia and social conscience.
Then I worked with an art gallery that sold my paintings, but at the same time I was a waitress in a café where people went to paint ceramics in Medellín.
After graduating I won an artistic residency in Paris and lived for two years in France, I dedicated myself to painting and at the same time I accompanied an elderly person to the cinema, to museums and helped her with some chores at home.
That’s when I became interested in comics, it was a huge world that I didn’t know about.
I worked with an art gallery called Miss China Rue Française, there I had my first solo exhibition and I remember it was also the first time I sold an original notebook with my drawings and texts.
Then I lived in Sydney for two years where I worked in a kitchen as a helper and at the same time I painted and made my comics. It was after all this that my partner and I decided that with our savings and what Australia was giving us back for having worked there (taxes, severance pay, etc.). to We came to Buenos Aires to dedicate ourselves to what we had always wanted.
And since that decision I have only dedicated myself to work as an illustrator, cartoonist and artist. I work with different publishers, newspapers and art galleries. Besides inventing self-managing projects with my friends to sell our publications, give workshops, etc.

What can society do to ensure an environment that’s helpful to artists and creatives?

In an ideal world it would be great to have more state policies, scholarships, institutions that work together with artists.
Art saves us in this sometimes hostile world.
Luckily there is still community, ideas and creativity here to continue working collectively and help each other a little bit. Because although many people are not so conscious, we need others, we are a network, an organism that works thanks to the work of each one of us, the interaction, the synergy, is what makes this life wonderful.

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

Social networks, the power of interpersonal connections, were invented for a reason. The value of building a community, luckily I also lived in an analog world and I value that real interaction more and more.
I started using them in 2006 with Flickr and Blogger, I met many artists from all over the world. People that are friends until today. I started uploading my drawings there. I decided that instead of using facebook to show my intimate life, I would do the same but in drawing and text on flickr and Blogstpot. Then came Twitter and Instagram so I kept going around uploading my paintings, illustrations, comics, poems, etc.
I started to collaborate with other artists, I have been part of many collectives: Taller 7, Chick’s on Comics, La Casa Telepática, Las Chicas del Calendario, etc. I drew an animated film VIRUS TROPICAL with the director Santiago Caicedo and several friends.
I think I am part of a generation that comes from an analog world and has seen the evolution of this virtual world. I think I just got into that wave.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @powerpaola
• Twitter: @powerpaola
• Youtube: @powerpaola

Image Credits

Portrait photo: Catalina Bartolomé
Painting portrait of Milagros Pochat