Claudia Sahuquillo is always remembered with a pencil in her hand. “Since I was a child, she used to paint in the margins of books and newspapers. I couldn’t stop”, she tells La Vanguardia proudly. Painting and reading have always been her two passions and she is fortunate to be able to devote herself to the former professionally. And, furthermore, with notable success, since there are many big brands, such as Fendi or Desigual, that have been interested in this 28-year-old girl to collaborate artistically in some campaigns.
However, although he was clear that he wanted to dedicate himself to art “despite the harshness of this world”, he was not sure how he was going to express it. “Everything arose by chance, like everything I’ve been doing in my career. I let myself go, ”he admits. The different crises that have been plaguing Spain, and more specifically her generation, led her to look for a job as a waitress to be able to complement her hobby of painting.
For a time, Sahuquillo combined work and studies because, after finishing Fine Arts, he decided to continue with a master’s degree and it was there that he began a new way of conceiving his artistic gifts, exploring drawing beyond the pages. “I started painting walls, floors, rocks, nature… until I got to the human body, and that’s where I stayed. I began to paint hands, feet, face, torso and breasts, even collaborating with a project related to breast cancer”.
Everything he did was uploaded to social networks, where it soon went viral due to its originality. From there, the interviews began. “The Japanese edition of Elle magazine called me and I was blown away. I did not understand anything, ”she confesses. It was followed by Vogue, Cosmopolitan, Forbes… and soon her first job opportunity as an artist arrived.
“I remember that one day when I finished my shift as a waitress they called me on the phone. It was Nike. They asked me if I could go to interview them that same day. Without thinking about it, I went, but dressed in my work clothes, because I had time to go home. They told me they wanted me to work with them on a campaign. That shocked me even more than the interviews themselves. Of course I accepted,” she recalls.
A few days later she stopped being a waitress and, while preparing the project with Nike, she opened her online art store. “In one month I earned twice what I had been earning to date. It is true that it is not something common to make a good living with art, but then I understood that it could be a simple coincidence and that I had to make an effort so that this was the dynamic if I really wanted to dedicate myself to it. So I started signing up for many business courses, because I learned that it was essential to get ahead and for that opportunity to become something stable.
Now, years later, Sahuquillo is grateful for having made that decision and reflects: “It is not common for an art professional to understand business, especially in its beginnings. There is a lot of talent that is lost along the way for not having received good advice or for having focused exclusively on the creative part and not so much on the numbers. One thing has to go hand in hand with the other,” he explains.
This philosophy and all the opportunities that he was accepting before the pandemic meant that, when confinement arrived, he did not suffer as much as other colleagues in the profession. “I will not lie. I took it as a break. Of course, the future was uncertain and I didn’t like that very talented people gave up their skills to start working on something else to survive. Since I couldn’t travel, and in my job it was essential, I decided to ask my audience what they wanted from me. The response was overwhelming, since almost everyone was interested in knowing how I had managed to make a living from my art. It was from that moment on that I took advantage of the confinement to start a mentoring and advice service for other artists that I still continue to do today”.
Sahuquillo acknowledges having found the balance, combining art and creativity with business and admits that “it is likely that without the pandemic, this other approach and business model would not have started. Doing both things pleases me and I can say with my head held high that some time ago I found something very similar to happiness”, he concludes.
