(2020) Career Interview: Gabriela Riveros
Interviewer: Bazil Pérez
Artist: Gabriela Riveros
Date: 07/23/20
Gabriela Riveros is a Milwaukee based who is 26, a huge Latinx activist, and a well known artist. She mainly works with digital mediums and inking. She grew up loving to draw, and went to art based schools throughout her education, later going on to major in illustration. Growing up her role models often were her teachers and one specific activist named Janet Arellano, meeting through internships. She recalls drawing since she was 2 or 3, the first instance being on walls with spider drawings. However she considered it professionally when she was 18 years old. Originally though she started with pencils and pens, but when she went to college she did many mediums. This got her interested in collages, painting with acrylic, some photoshop, but being an illustration major she then became focused on digital art with slight traditional art. When she realized she liked digital, she honed in on those skills specifically. The reason for the switch from pencil to digital was because it was easier to manipulate and set up the layers even when drawing traditionally she would still scan the drawing and layer it as well although she said, “i would definitely have a different opinion if I had chosen to major in fine arts.” She still has a long way to learn though.
While in college she knew that when she graduated she was going to freelance, be in the service industry, and have a non-profit art to the side. One thing she did expect to be hard was general business. This is due to the fact it wasn’t really talked about in classes so she had to go through trial and error to learn the foundation of business. The reality was it was harder in some ways and easier in others. The easiest things were contracts, which she thought was gonna be hard but it wasn’t that hard. To this day she uses the same contract that she had made four years ago. What was hard at first but became easier later was to be connected with people and have a stable communication with clients that she could tap into. Deadlines were a lot easier for her on the other hand.
Things she wished she had learned that besides academic related artworks outside it was different due to the lines of art being blurred. This is because people who are clients usually tend to be less strict than colleges especially when it comes to deadlines. When it came to selling things she didn’t have much trouble although she recalls the worst commission being with a certain band that would constantly change up their design and couldn’t agree on the final design. She said “I had multiple breakdowns due to this job.” She advises to be careful with bands. Her best commission was for community service and for temporary installations for this river bank. She recalls that it was weird due to the fact it was mainly white people working in a very latinx area. She hopes that soon there will be more people of color artists that will have the spotlight the same amount their white counterparts do.
Her last piece of advice though was to do internships. She says,”they can set you on the right path to make connections.” Along with that to learn to communicate with people since you will be needing that. Especially when it comes to saying no. Gabriela says you should learn how to say no, and feel comfortable drawing what you want? But it all depends on the boundaries someone has.
Attached is her favorite piece yet, made as a banner for the BLM protests
Traditional:
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