Creatives in Action es una serie de entrevistas desde el estudio. Hoy en Creatives in Action #2: Brenda Laguna.
It’s a cool December afternoon siesta. I left home early with my backpack packed, because I knew that after work I would go meet Brenda at El Armadillo, the printmaking studio where she learns the magic of engraving and other techniques. When I arrive, she opens the door and invites me in.
I had already been there once for a group exhibition, so I had a bit of a sense of the space. Once inside, Brenda introduces me to Manuel, the director and founder of the studio, who greets me with a handshake. There are also other students there who, like her, are working on their personal projects under Manuel’s guidance.
Stepping into El Armadillo is like entering a slightly yellow-toned subworld, filled with the smell of wood, and packed with inks, brushes, and rollers. A soft murmur of conversations fills the room and stays constant while I’m there. When I take out my camera, some people look over, curious, and smile. Meanwhile, I can’t stop staring at all the walls covered with tools, arranged almost perfectly.
What is your name and how would you define yourself professionally?
My name is Brenda Patricia Laguna García. I define myself as a multidisciplinary artist and illustrator. Multidisciplinary because I like all kinds of art and enjoy experimenting with different techniques, learning as much as I can, and building things through which I can express myself.
What does your work consist of?
It consists of printmaking, photography, and illustration. I usually work with watercolor, gouache, and acrylic. I really enjoy making large-scale pieces, so I love when I can create murals. I’m currently experimenting with all of this. I also do collage sometimes, and I’d like to keep learning so many more things.
For me, art is a way of processing my life experiences and my emotions. Sometimes I feel that simply thinking or talking about things isn’t enough—I also need to release them from within. It helps me understand life and understand myself, and through that, keep improving and growing as a person.
How did you decide that you wanted to dedicate yourself to this?
I think it came from this very strong need I had to understand myself and to understand life. Especially because during my childhood and adolescence, I was very angry about everything that had happened to me. There was a deep sense of misunderstanding and loneliness that I felt all around me. And I would think: this is all so horrible, so intense, so painful, and I believe no one else understands it—and I’m alone with it. So I decided to start making things—drawings, writing; basically doing things that would let it come out of me and that I could share with others. Now I do it not so much so that people will understand me, but so that whoever feels the same way can feel less alone.
I also studied visual communication design in Mexico (at UNAM) for four years, two of which were more focused on illustration. There I realized that I should have studied art. Once I finished my degree, after feeling a bit lost in life and in other things, I decided that what I want to do is art, not graphic design, so I started looking for that new direction.
How do you organize your creative work?
Well, that’s something that has always been my Achilles’ heel, because I think that in general all of us who are creative struggle a lot with organization, since our minds are constantly thinking of ideas and things to do. Chaos is where the magic comes from.
How do you face the moment of creating and getting down to work on a project?
What I usually do is try to schedule things. I calculate how long it takes me to complete a task, but not just the total time—I break it down step by step.
I divide every part of the process. For example, to get to a printmaking piece, I first have to think about the sketch, preparing the plate, the time it takes to transfer my sketch onto the plate, and then starting to work on it. It also depends on the technique. For each project, I break it down in the same way. I write all the steps in a little notebook, number them in order, and then assign each number to a day of the week when I’m going to do it.
If in one day I can do two items on the list, then I do both. If I realize I can only do one, then I do one. So I keep assigning each number into my planner to gradually structure everything.
Of course, sometimes — actually most of the time —artists tend to think we can do a thousand things in a single day. That’s what I used to do, and it’s something that has really helped me improve, because it allows me to actually carry out projects in a realistic timeframe.
It seems like a very rigorous system to me. I like it. And I’m interested in knowing how you bring ideas or inspiration into your work—what you do in that moment when ideas start coming to you and you realize it’s going to become something else.
Yes, that’s very much about technique and how your mind works, the connection between mind and hands. When you find your technique, your medium of expression, it comes very naturally. In my case, ever since I discovered printmaking, the image comes to my mind already as the finished piece, the final result.
So I just have to start bringing it down onto paper.
Because I have all these things I need to process, my unconscious somehow sends me the image, and that’s what helps me express or process what I’m feeling. So the idea arrives, I see it, and I think: OK, I have to bring this down. And I think about what technique would be best, how something should look, or how I can reach what I already see in my mind.
You can also write things down: I want this, I want it to look like this, a landscape like this, with these colors, in this season of the year—all of that helps you figure out how to make it the way you imagine it.
Before interviewing you, I interviewed Silvia Madari and asked her to help me think of a question. She suggested this one: How does your mood influence your creative process?
Well, a lot. I would say it’s practically a reflection of my mood. But I also feel that, again, it depends on the technique, because there are very long processes. In my case, printmaking pieces can sometimes take four months for a single work.
My mood changes over those months; it’s not always the same. But I think what really matters is the emotional state you’re in at the moment the idea first appears. The piece will always be linked to that state. Ideally, you return to that feeling every time you work on it, because that’s what connects you to the piece. That process has helped me heal things, because I keep working through them in that same emotional state or memory—until I finish the piece, and then the emotion or memory is finished too, and I can let it go.
What moves you?
Everything, really. I would say I’m a very sensitive person, and I think that’s exactly why art has helped me so much. Feeling so many things around me can be overwhelming. And that emotional overload isn’t healthy either—carrying everything you feel all the time.
So yes, I’m moved by life in general. I’m moved by the fact that we are all alive and that there is something called life, something within all of us; and that this life—whatever it is—moves everything, connects everything, and at the same time affects us all. And I think what moves me most is that even a microbe has life, we have life, even the planet has life—it’s like a shared soul in some way. I think I’m deeply moved by being alive to witness everything, and to coexist with other lives, crossing paths and existing together.
What would you ask your favorite artist or someone whose creative work you admire?
In what way would you like to live in the world if you didn’t have to sell your art? I think many people fall, or sometimes we’ve all fallen—including me—into making things in order to sell them, and I think that’s a big mistake that does us a lot of harm. So I wonder: if this very capitalist world didn’t exist, what would your art, your process, and your motivation look like? What kind of artist would you be if you didn’t need money?
At the end of the interview, Manuel and the students at El Armadillo invite me to have a snack with them. They give me a cup, I choose a mint tea from a huge box, and I accept the chocolate bonbon they offer. I stay there, both inside and outside their conversation at the same time—like a spy in someone else’s world. I thank them for everything, put on my three layers of coat, and head home through the street that has been under construction for months.
And you—what would you ask an artist you admire?
Brenda is a Mexican multidisciplinary artist living in Florence. She studies illustration and various printmaking techniques. She aspires to illustrate children’s books. With a strong sensitivity for her homeland and its traditions, she weaves them into everything she creates and sets out to do. You can learn more about her work here.
Many thanks to Brenda for her openness, and also to everyone at El Armadillo for opening their doors and letting me peek into what happens inside.
About Florencia
Florencia Miranda is a multidisciplinary artist. She was born in Argentina but lives in Italy. She trained as a social communicator and as a photographer. Additionally, she has dedicated herself to researching the role of women in history, creating projects such as a collection of photo-embroidery works, a podcast about women, and interviews with Argentine musicians for radio. Florencia has been developing Microklima Projekt for three years, a street art, collage, and workshop-based project.
