We recently connected with Santyi and have shared our conversation below.
Santyi, so many exciting things to discuss, we can’t wait. Thanks for joining us and we appreciate you sharing your wisdom with our readers. So, maybe we can start by discussing optimism and where your optimism comes from?
No story is ever brief, unless reduced to its structural relevance for some simple digestion. In the intersectionality of mine, you meet a posing jester awaiting applause. Although I laugh maniacally at life, she is my friend. Here is how I learned to rest and be optimistic with her.
Sisyphus. My first breath was in a warm Mexico, but my first exerted hyperventilation came from the ravaging violence of poverty. Mix in intergenerational trauma manifested as hallucinatory experiences, and you get closer to me. Imagine sounds wisping all around and being unable to determine which were true. Dice up some hoarding and substance abuse, and you get closer to childhood me. Then if you add the alcohol of being undocumented, you get me or you get 11 million immigrants. Everywhere all at once, we respond to this legality from our own unique vantage point. I know violent endings. Maybe that’s why I used to hide in my art. Experiences packed with shame or hurt punched deeply into my face, knocking back my bloody teeth.
This was never meant to be a trauma dump, my bad. Humans are meant to suffer, it’s how we understand what happiness means. It’s why some wealthy people will pay thousands to recreate the conditions of our very survival. Pain.
Pain can be beautiful. So toxic, right? During those years of my life, it was my buddies from the construction site and their racist jokes that made me laugh as a child going to work. A glimmer of optimism mixed with a laugh toward cultural prejudice that made the 8 hour work day livable. The more degenerate the joke, the more wheezing in my laughter.
I used to think that without connection, none of my pain would be worthwhile.That’s why I would laugh at really mean comments said to people I love. In many ways, I was coping with loneliness.
People are funny. They sometimes think that if they do something painful enough, the pain endured will translate into meaning. “All this hard work will be worth (fill in the blank)”. There is a secret here that life has graciously taught me. Pain does not translate to meaning. Something being painful can simply mean that it hurts, and that’s it. There is no lesson to take away. Our minds have incredible avoidant strategies for coping with pain. Sometimes we tell ourselves to never do something again because it hurt once. The more we avoid, the more we are controlled by our fears.
There’s more, but let me stick to the question. Where does my optimism come from?
Originally, it had come from survival and learning to love when life offered me a cozy pause. These days, there is optimism in my intentions. Optimism is my responsibility. Planning out a meal, a picnic, time alone, a workshop for the community, coffee with a friend. Optimism is a choice about the future, should this be the perfect day to do nothing or the worst moment in time to never act? Anxiety, or hope with intentional work and without expectation.
No longer am I the posing jester awaiting applause. Love.
Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?
Art used to hold a gun to my head, threatening me to let her out. Manic episodes of bottled emotions would waterfall out of me and I was but a passenger along the way. I’ve been sharpening my eyeballs for over a decade photographing everything and it’s mother. My portfolio includes work experience with A$AP ROCKY, A$AP Ant, UnotheActivist, Bandcamp, Instagram/Meta, SpaceX, Patrick Bet-David, Ronnie2k, & Josh Hutcherson (Peta from the Hunger Games).
One day discipline entered the chat and, through it, my label was born.
The difference from then and now is my relationship with the camera. I’m constantly looking to create the impossible image. It is important for me to truly capture an artist in their essence. This is a delicate job that I know from experience. The visual entity of my own music flows from a hyper-focused attention to brutalism, minimalism, & pop culture. My inspirations include David Lachapelle, Spike Jonze, Alfonso Cuaron, Beloved Sun, Zelooperz, Kendrick Lamar, M83, Radiohead, Yitzel (my friend), Kai (from Northside), Terko, Kenneth Cartel, ZappyZulu, Lance Victor Moore, Quincy (Midtrovert), Cedric, Adrian Hernandez, BEE.EM, Gage, Ryo Nishimura (from Lov3 Fest), and many more.
How beautiful is a tailored color palette, an article of clothes personally woven? Limitation in art can birth style when used intentionally. But what is the function of art? Honestly, who cares. Please breathe it. Please allow it to rip you open and consume your whole. Every person is an artist if they remove their sense of identity. We as the collective consciousness, the breath of existence, or the lively microcosm of the universe owe it to ourselves to enjoy life. To create aesthetic pieces solely to enhance this random experience that we call living.
My label’s responsibility is to provide a unique space for artists to connect with their audiences. As the first artist on our label, REDREDGREEN®, I have been able to connect with my audience by journaling with them and through our podcast. In the last journal session we explored our egos and identity, learning that identity can function as a safety mechanism. Our podcast, DREAMCORE®, takes a deep dive into the psychology of our guests’ dreamworld. Summoned into existence by my experience with sleep paralysis and a violently vivid imagination, DREAMCORE® lets us pick artists’ brains and their relationship with their dreams. As a label, we have also launched seven music videos going onto our eighth. I’m extremely proud and thankful for our team. Major shoutout to Gage, Nidhi, Isaiah, Bryan, and Elvia for their help in developing this vision. We’re just a few months old and still developing our approach. See you in the future!
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?
I’ll list them out simply.
1. Be a human being with the people you connect with & don’t interact with people solely looking for an outcome.
2. If you have a desired goal, communicate your vision and ask for help.
3. Know when you are new to an industry and need to build your portfolio in it before charging a price.
4. Leverage your connections and remind them when you are free and open to projects.
5. Learn your limitations.
6. Before building out a business, do as much work in the fields you want to out-source so as to easily communicate a want in that field when you are directing its progress.
7. Never stop learning, always be a student of your life. If you cannot do something and don’t have the financial bandwidth to hire someone for it, spend time learning it yourself. It may be easier than you imagine.
8. Learn to be present with people, don’t let your expectations or vision blur what is in front of you.
9. Learn to love the process. It can be easy to hate sending emails or purchasing domain names. Learn to enjoy each part, make it fun.
10. The reward is the person you become chasing your dreams, not accomplishing your dreams. There is a phrase I always think about. “The way I’m rewarded? That’s God’s decision.” Many times we think doing something will open a door to something better. Sometimes the way we are rewarded from our work looks very different from what we expect. Be open to that.
11. Find balance in a day. Learn to work & play all in the same day. Check in with yourself. Overtime you will realize that everyday can be enjoyable (mostly) if you have a routine that supports work and play.
12. Take time to reflect. Pausing can be scary in this slot machine age. Pause and analyze what you are doing. You’ll find you can make micro adjustments that have tremendous value in the long term.
13. Learn why you put yourself in any environment.
14. Love your body. Physical health is directly correlated with mental health. Eating with intention will help you easily live in the machine you live in (your body hehe).
15. Be financially literate. Take time to learn how to do your taxes and leverage debt. Seek to understand what in your life is an asset. Get rid of liabilities.
16. Change your environment every now and then. Just change it. and see that your mind will feel refreshed. Humans evolved from constant change and adaptation.
17. Learn to have conversations with people. Learn to be a real listener who can inquire with an interest about a different life. We all learn different lessons at different parts of our life. Each mind is an opportunity to see the world differently. Someone might know something you would never know if you didn’t ask. Be more interested than interesting.
18. Don’t take things personally. Usually when we do, there is an insecurity in the ego.
19. Exercise your creative mind. I believe exercising it will help a person learn to be more adaptive and be more creative in resolving their real life obstacles.
20. Learn to let go. Holding on to things because they once felt good will keep you stuck. Know that grief is a long process with no real end. You will not wake up one day and feel like the grief is fully gone. Learn to live with that emotion as it arises. Sit with that emotion by making time to sit with it. Seek how it is impersonal. Somedays may be heavier than others. Treat yourself like the parent you would want for your inner child.
Okay, so before we go, is there anyone you’d like to shoutout for the role they’ve played in helping you develop the essential skills or overcome challenges along the way?
The most powerful skill that is responsible for my growth as an artist or with my businesses has been being a continual student of life. A love of learning. Let me paint a picture.
Crawling from poverty and loving her intimately, every cent thrown to the wishing well that marketing is my shout to the universe demanding to be heard. As an immigrant, every decision moving forward with growing my label is the gambling addiction I’m not willing to give up on. A high so high even the smaller wins can feel like a loss. I remember being a teen in the car backseat and my family was joking about being as broke as the family from Everybody Hates Chris. Giggly laughs burst into high-pitched wheezing when during that ride we hit a bump and the whole dashboard of our old van fell off.
We always held each other when pain from the world was at the door. We had lived in a single room before and in a garage for some time. Anything was better than our hometown in Mexico where three weeks of work would equate to the price of sneakers.
Learning was the single most important skill that moved me forward. Learning required acceptance. Accepting that sometimes my ego was too strong for me to try something new. Accepting that fear held me back from my dreams.
If you’re afraid, do it afraid. Do it looking like a shaky chihuahua. Learn to love failure and know that’s how you really free yourself from the trap of your own expectations. I used to sell my paintings at the park. Sometimes, I would buy canvases instead of more food. I’d drive to Venice Beach or Hollywood and sell them on the street over the weekend. Then, I learned about marketing my paintings online and through a website. I learned to market my photography online, and pay for ads to reach clients easier.
Sometimes I would buy camera equipment over fixing my car so I could pick up higher paying clients. I learned I needed stability and learned to ask for it through my network. The stability of steady income is something I never experienced until last year. Being undocumented my only options were to work construction, in the service industry, or at a factory. Then I learned about working as a sole proprietor. I did my taxes and applied for an ITIN. Having that granted me the ability to work as a contractor. Now, I’m learning about using an ITIN to start my own L.L.C. I’m learning that I can connect my credit card with people who have a longer credit score and receive their benefits. I’m learning to leverage debt. I’m learning to use a loan to build out the grounds of my label. I do this very afraid. I do this with love. I do it to learn. All in service to give back to people starting life where I once started. Cycles I will work against so that some may overcome.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://redredgreen.com/
- Instagram: @santyi_._._
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCu4CRwRy_TSR5PUPJ8bXdg
- SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/santyi
- Other: DREAMCORE PODCAST YOUTUBE: https://www.youtube.com/@REDREDGREEN_777
Image Credits
Gage Stahlberg. Red Chua. Bryan Preciado
