We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Giacomo Muraglia a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Giacomo, appreciate you making time for us and sharing your wisdom with the community. So many of us go through similar pain points throughout our journeys and so hearing about how others overcame obstacles can be helpful. One of those struggles is keeping creativity alive despite all the stresses, challenges and problems we might be dealing with. How do you keep your creativity alive?
I keep my creativity alive by organizing my life and myself as best as I can. Sometimes people says passion is everything, which is true I agree with that, but not always… unfortunately becoming an artist, it’s never been that easy, it’s a big commitment… all I can say about it is that sometimes it can be extremely hard becoming an artist, but if you believe in what you’re doing and what your goals are, nothing can stop your journey. During my carrier I’m learning a lot of things about being an artist… things about my art and specially things about myself and two of these things, that personally I consider the most important ones are:
The first one,
An artist needs to work hard for his/her own self esteem. This is something that I personally try to do every single day of my life. Self esteem is important… we know, we all know what we’re doing. We have to work without feeling ashamed of anything or worrying about any prejudices coming from outside of ourselves.
The second one,
Let’s accept our destiny serenely. Serenely, no matter what’s gonna happen.
Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?
I’m a sculptor, painter, mold maker and designer, passions I have since I was a little kid, but being mainly a professional sculptor is all I ever wanted. I basically grew up painting and drawing, but later I discovered sculpting, and a completely new world opened up in my mind. I started my business opening my own studio in Italy (where I’m from) and working for many collectors, but my goal it’s been always moving to America and trying to be a teacher. Over time, I realized I wanted to teach, because is the only thing, besides making art, that makes me feel happy and free. Being a landmark for people, is something I’ve always wanted. Now I’m in America and this is my opportunity, I’ve been teaching since I moved here and I’m very happy. My biggest goal in life, one day, is to open up my own school and prepare talented students/artists for professional careers.
You can always follow me on social media (Giacomo Muraglia Sculptor), my website is www.giacomomuraglia.com
There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?
Three qualities, skills and/or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in my journey? I can mention one of each and are:
The first one;
My move to America. At the beginning It was really hard, for certain aspects is it still, I got the chance to meet wonderful people and less wonderful people haha, but this helped me grown up and learning more about my own persona, in life and professionally.
The second one;
I used to be very impatient… now I can really say that patience is a virtue, especially with people, I would personally consider this second one a good quality. Various experiences in my artistic carrier they definitely change my personality in a very good way.
The third one;
The love people expresses when they approach to my sculptures, to my art, to my heart, to my soul is one of the best joy of my life and I feel very grateful for it. I feel my gift is growing with me and I feel I can possibly one day becoming a real landmark, I hope so, I would really love that. For example my students give me already more than enough and I love them all, with my whole heart, I really care about them, like my master/sculptor Salvatore use to take good care of me back in Italy, he’s like a father to me, and I will never forget al the beautiful things he taught me.
What’s been one of your main areas of growth this year?
The film industry in California gave me great opportunities. One of those was being an instructor in a special fx school in Los Angeles. I improved a lot learning a lot of new skills from the biggest sfx makeup masters from Hollywood. People I was dreaming only to work with, and now I can say that I met them, I work with them and hang out with them. It’s definitely an amazing life changing.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.giacomomuraglia.com
- Instagram: Giacomo Muraglia Sculptor
- Facebook: Giacomo Muraglia Sculptor (page)
- Linkedin: Giacomo Muraglia
- Twitter: Giacomo Muraglia Sculptor
- Youtube: Giacomo Muraglia Sculptor
