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

Sofia, appreciate you joining us today. I’m sure there have been days where the challenges of being an artist or creative force you to think about what it would be like to just have a regular job. When’s the last time you felt that way? Did you have any insights from the experience?

I’m very happy as an artist, and every day I love it. I continue to crave the ability to learn new techniques and forms of art to keep expressing myself, and to tell my stories and the stories of those around me. I am extremely grateful for the loving and supportive community art has provided me. I feel especially lucky when it comes to the opportunities I’ve had since I understand how rare and difficult it can be to live off of my art; especially as an immigrant. This, obviously, makes me wonder how much easier adjustment to a stable life and a steady income could’ve been had I possibly chosen a different and more regular or traditional job. I can’t help to wonder and compare how in other fields the process that constitutes a smoother transition into financial stability and immigration status updates occurs from having a solid structure and set hierarchy in a job. It’s this exact thought of “what if” scenarios that also makes me love my career choice as an artist much more, makes me prouder of my accomplishments, and fuels me up to continue creating. It makes me much happier because it means every little thing I have worked on: every art piece no matter the medium has been worth it.

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?

I am on paper a visual development and concept artist, but by heart a multi-medium explorer. I have worked for years now on my art as a form of breaking barriers and transmitting knowledge. Depending on where you are you might know me from working as an art instructor, teaching all sorts of traditional and modern techniques of art: from your core paper-making and book-binding skills to everybody’s fundamentals in drawing and even more like 2D animation or creature design and sculpting. I’ve also made myself known to the film community in San Francisco as the “movie artist” responsible for working with The Castro Theatre programmers making limited edition didactic art prints for movies (old and new) that continue to be shown in their original 75mm or 16mm films to bring people back into the local theatres. I’ve worked hand in hand with many local artists in markets creating prints and even merchandise of my art in all its aspects: whimsical, political, and even comical. I even once got a small cult following for the silly zine comics of my cats for a while. I’ve worked with the punk, LGBTQ+ and music communities to make event posters you could find around the city. Currently, I also have expanded my creative exploration back into my roots in performing arts. I grew up acting in my home country of Colombia and now here in the Bay Area you might find me performing some drag shows around, usually with the purpose of fund-raising for different causes regarding my community here in The Bay. I truly enjoy my current road as a chameleon of sorts in the way my art has come out to the public, I believe it keeps me humble and open to every possibility and opportunity that might come. I am extremely proud and have focused most of my energy on building and growing the community that has cared for me all these years with my art. I’m always looking for projects that incite collaboration with others, as well as exploration of new mediums.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

There are two things that I was taught in my journey as an art student and then as a new young creative that I am so thankful I unlearned and I wish was never taught again to future artists. The first came in my learning to become a visual development artist and it was that “other artists are my competition”: I was taught that manners and behaviours should only be good because the person or artist next to me could be my next boss, not because they’re my peer, or an equal or even just for basic decency. Along with this was the idea that other artists from my same background shouldn’t work together but against each other because there can only be one successful Colombian or one successful immigrant etc… This belief is WRONG and I think it promotes isolation in artists which can lead to the negative stereotypes of the depressed, burnt out artist; and that’s sad. As artists, we should ALWAYS support each other, and make and cultivate environments in which we trade our craft and passion. Working together we can all grow and promote diversity in our creations. I owe so much of my success to other artists around me who gave a hand to lift me, everyone should have the opportunity to experience that. This leads me to the second thing I unlearned and wish for everyone to do so too, and it is that “art or rather an art career is for people of high privilege and its elite” that art is only the fancy snobby gallery showing in the upper side and that’s only meant to cater the commodity of wealthy patrons. Art IS the voice of the people, art is the ability to communicate that marginalized groups have been able to use to not only show that we are here but to unite with one another. Art is meant to make people uncomfortable sometimes because it is a way to show different points of view and realities. I very strongly believe it is a form of healing and we should have more access to art education for everybody for it is a part of history and cultural patrimony.

Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative?

Something I think non-creatives struggle to understand not only of my journey but of art in general is that art is not a privilege nor a commodity: it is a necessity. I think it’s a very strong learned behavior in our society to polarise creatives vs. non-creatives and we tend to take each other for granted. As an artist, I’ve been made fun of many times since I “just get paid to draw silly doodles” yet people fail to remember that architects also draw fun little doodles that then get turned into houses, buildings, schools, and more. Industrial designers just doodle cars sometimes, yet people are very much willing to pay the money for those after a mechanic or engineer makes them real and very very fast. Creatives and non-creatives work hand in hand every day to build the world we live in. We are so quick to put figures like Da Vinci in a pedestal for his ability to draw and create machines, and show us the human body just as scientists do, and forget that so so many people do that every day. As a concept artist, I have had the privilege to learn anatomy, engineering, and many more things to be able to create my art, and that should not be dismissed. Creatives are more than silly doodles and we are crucial for the world to be able to make it practical and functional. Journalists and writers are creatives who keep people informed, chemists are creatives, and mathematicians (who often are made to believe are not creatives) work with wonderful patterns that nature and art constantly require to replicate for our world to work. We are so quick to dismiss other people’s abilities when we do not have them. Yet our journeys are not very different and neither of us carries more importance than the other.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sofiicaldas/
• Linkedin: linkedin.com/in/sofii-caldas-a34860145

Image Credits
(for the group photo) credit to Fabrice Ducouret