We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Isabella De Santiago. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Isabella below.
Isabella, sincerely appreciate your selflessness in agreeing to discuss your mental health journey and how you overcame and persisted despite the challenges. Please share with our readers how you overcame. For readers, please note this is not medical advice, we are not doctors, you should always consult professionals for advice and that this is merely one person sharing their story and experience.
My artwork mostly focuses on mental health. It’s my way of working through the complex emotions I’m dealing with at the time. The problem is, though, it can be especially difficult to create work when you are in a tough place. I have found a few things to be helpful.
First, I always keep a small sketchbook on hand, and I don’t put any pressure on myself for those sketches and writings to turn out any good. I often use it to jot down and illustrate my dreams from the night before.
Second, I try out different mediums since it keeps things interesting, and again, there’s not much pressure for it to be any good. Amazing things will come, though, usually when you least expect it.
Perhaps most importantly, surround yourself with other people. Working alongside others and keeping each other’s company is so important for your mental health.
Also, if you don’t feel like creating, look at what other people have created. Watch a film, listen to music, enjoy the other things that are out there. It always inspires me to make something of my own.
Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?
My name is Isabella, and I am an interdisciplinary artist from Aurora, Colorado. During the day, I work in production at Terry Ludwig Pastels. In my free time, I create artwork using a variety of mediums, primarily painting and sculpture. I’m also a member of The New Genres Collective, a performance art group based from Rocky Mountain College of Art + Design where I received my BFA. We’ll be participating again in the annual performance art week at The Emmanuel Gallery at DU in April.
Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
A piece of advice I hear time and time again is to do what scares you. As a naturally anxious person, almost everything scares me. However, if I lived in fear every day, I would never get anything done. When an opportunity arises, don’t waste it.
Learning new skills and working with different mediums keeps me going. It adds excitement and diversity to my practice, and it’s incredibly fulfilling to discover a new favorite medium. It feels like I’m unlocking different parts of myself as I explore new ways of expression.
Be part of your own community. I’m a natural hermit, but I know it’s important to come out of my shell every once in a while. I find that scheduling a date with a friend is often the best way to get me out there.
We’ve all got limited resources, time, energy, focus etc – so if you had to choose between going all in on your strengths or working on areas where you aren’t as strong, what would you choose?
This is something I think about a lot since I started off strictly drawing realism. If I had focused solely on that one medium and style, I would probably be very skilled in that area by now. However, I’m not at all interested in focusing on one thing. In fact, my goal is to learn many mediums so I can completely switch things up or combine different mediums in single projects.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.isabelladesantiago.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bellsdes/
