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

Alright, Sofia thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. How did you learn to do what you do? Knowing what you know now, what could you have done to speed up your learning process? What skills do you think were most essential? What obstacles stood in the way of learning more?

I learned to tattoo the old fashioned way, with a mentor at a street tattoo shop. Since I was already a skilled artist with pencil on paper, I knew that I could learn via youtube, but I always had this romantic urge of learning a skill from a master and inmersing myself completely in the life and the craft of tattooers.

I think I could have sped up my process by having started earlier. But improving in art is never quick, and that’s something I’ve known since I was a child. So, no hurries, no worries.

The #1 most essential skill (even before considering becoming an apprentince) is knowing how to draw with pencil and ink. Ctrl+z is something you can’t do on paper, less on someone’s skin. That, and a good deal of patience, tolerance and empathy.

Obsctacles are necessary, and they stand in the way for very good reasons. They teach us, and sometimes, we learn much more from the obstacles we face than from whatever we may be trying to do.

Sofia, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

My name is Sofía Borrero, and I was born in the concrete jungle of Bogotá, Colombia, in 1992. I was born into a family of artists and readers, so I was playing with colors and pencils, surrounded by books, since before I could walk and talk. At 14 I got the absurd idea of becoming a tattoo artist, so I commited to the project and studied a bachelor’s degree in Visual Arts after finishing my tattoo apprenticeship. I have worked solo since (with the occasional guest spot here and there) in my private studio, located near the heart of Bogotá.

I focus my work on merging Art and Science. Those two concepts mean to me as much as my two legs, being equally important and mutually supportive. How? Even the simplest tattoos have an ocean of knowledge around them: be that historical legacy, biological wonder, culural complexity or personal context. The only thing you need is to be curious and to allow yourself to be submerged by it. Curiosity is the keystone of my work, joining with answers to questions and questions to answers, those two not-so-different concepts of Art and Science.

I do what I love, and I do it with love. And somehow. in many different ways and by different means, the people who have given me their trust to working with them have given that love back.

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

I believe the main problem society has is that it is unable to understand how much effort artists have to do, to do what they do. There’s the popular saying that it takes 10,000 hours to master any skill, be it tax accounting or oil-painting. For some reason, society values those hours differently, based on outdated assumptions and biased opinions. Many creatives struggle to make a living with their art because people fail understand that all knowledge is valuable…. leading to artists’ efforts being underappreciated, and therefore, underpaid. All fields of knowledge are horizontal.

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

I have a love-hate relationship with social media. Sadly, social media is rarely about quality but about quantity, and as time passes and the algorithm progresses it gets more and more superfluous. But it is also incredibly useful as a resource to get recognition outside your physical circle and a fantastic way of letting people know you exist.

My advice would be to not do what I did: I ignored social media until it was almost too late. Nowadays, I accepted that I’m in the 21st century and not in the 80’s, and I use it to showcase my work and give a little bit of myself to the people who follow me. The tool is there, it’s just a matter of learning how to use it (maybe by hiring a community manager?).
Use the tool, don’t let the tool use you.     

Contact Info:

• Website: www.borrerostudio.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/borrerostudio/