We were lucky to catch up with Alexia Estrada recently and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Alexia , great to have you with us today and excited to have you share your wisdom with our readers. Over the years, after speaking with countless do-ers, makers, builders, entrepreneurs, artists and more we’ve noticed that the ability to take risks is central to almost all stories of triumph and so we’re really interested in hearing about your journey with risk and how you developed your risk-taking ability.
I had to work towards not directly correlating taking a risk with becoming a failure. In the beginning of my creative career, I let fear guide me, every one of my explorations was planned and calculated. When I took a risk for the first time, I was more in love with the vision than the potential of failure and yet that first risk that I ever took resulted in one of my greatest failures. I refused to get behind a camera or pursue a creative idea for over a year. Eventually, my love for bringing concpets to life put me back on my path – and I kept making decisions that at that time- made me feel like I was continuously failing. I had to gain a new perspective in the correlation between risk and failure. I had to take a step back and realize that every time that I had taken a risk, I had learned more from it resulting in a negative outcome than it resulting in a favorable projected success.
The entirety of my skillset is built on all the lessons I have learned in the times that a risky decision has resulted in a difficult outcome. Eventually, taking a risk, and that risk resulting in a less than favorable outcome no longer scared me. When you realize that the fire doesn’t burn, you’re not afraid to run through it. Failure is no longer a fear, it is an opportunity welcomed by risk.
Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?
I am in a moment of transition. I’ve recently left my hometown and moved to a bigger city where my artistic career has never been explored or developed. I am taking this time to retreat into myself and explore what the next phase of my artistic career will be, starting with claiming the title of “artist”. For a very long time I was just a photographer. Right before I spontaneously moved from Las Vegas to Portland, I was working as a creative producer for a shoe company. Ironically, any kind of creative thinking was extremely undervalued and I truly just became a person that knew how to work a camera and run a set. It became draining to pour all of my energy into something that was never appreciated. I experienced full burn out and was left questioning if photography was still my passion. It is a fearful moment to question your love for something that has been your passion and concentration for so long. I left all my cameras back home in Las Vegas and have yet to pick one up for a photoshoot. It is both a confusing yet aspirational time for me, questioning and exploration is as healthy as it is difficult and I am both fearful of losing a part of myself but excited to see who I become as I sit and grow alongside the discomfort of not knowing.
I am also focusing on building community in this new city. Having a community of creatives is a very important piece of bringing ideas to life. Having thoughtful and enticing conversations with other artists is rewarding and inspiring. I’ve recently worked with an amazing group of people to bring to life an art installation for a community event that was highlighting latinx queer music and art. I met extremely talented people in working this event and have a few projects I am currently producing. I can’t speak on them yet since they are in early pre-production but I am incredibly excited for them all to come to life.
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
Leading with a sense of humility, collaboration and curiosity. Be proud of yourself and your work, but don’t believe that there isn’t someone better. You can be the absolute best but there will still be someone more experienced. The best thing to do is to kill your ego and allow yourself to learn from everyone and everything around you. It is so important to understand that there is no competition, there is only collaboration and community. Learning how to openly collaborate and work ideas with other people will bring your visions to life tenfold every time. Let people shine with you, you may not know how to do something that can bring the idea to its totality but the person next to you may know how to do it in 5 different ways.
Individually, I believe that as an artist, you must lead life with curiosity – question the world around you and explore the things that don’t make sense, or that make a lot of sense, and why do they make sense? Speak loudly, if you have a thought that you wan’t to explore, ask your peers, ask strangers, start conversations, run it through. The world around is so very intense, we don’t appreciate the complexity of the lessons it holds, it is important to step back, observe, listen and let it teach.
What’s been one of your main areas of growth this year?
It may sound really simple, but I’ve gotten much better at simply letting things go. May it be a person, a project, a feeling- if it doesn’t fall into place with my current state of being- I just allow it to end. I used to cling onto things so tightly, I think I was afraid of the uncomfortable emotions that any kind of ending brings. Learning how to let things end and then appreciating the discomfort as an opportunity to learn and grow, is much more valuable than forcing whatever the situation may be into what it definitely shouldn’t be. Every morning I drink my cafecito de me vale madre, and move on with my day.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: alexia_marlet
