On learning to call yourself an artist

Back in your teenage years, you published your first books, Defenseless Waters and Abejorros: Madurar. At the time, did you have any expectations about what publishing those books would bring?

Since I was a teenager I was obsessed with writing and being creative, the idea of having something published was success enough. It already felt so surreal that I think I had no expectations regarding the outcome or the experience. I was genuinely just in love with the process and open to new experiences. I had zero expectations, and I had no notion as to what a successful release or what a release even looked like. Everything was just a gift, and I did work hard. I mean, I did write everything. We edited everything. I illustrated one of the books. We had a book tour. I was performing music and reading throughout the summer, meeting writers, and going to workshops. I was committed to the process, and the environment in California and the Bay Area if you want to double-click, was so rich for writing and cultural stuff. So I felt inspired and really oblivious, doing whatever felt was exciting and a good opportunity. I was lucky to meet great people who guided me through the process.

You started your writing practice with poetry. How was the process of transitioning to writing songs?

It was pretty natural, but it was different. I always feel like a writer first, and I think words and storytelling are the most important thing. Then, in parallel when I began to write music, it didn’t have words originally. I was doing a lot of music, like jazz-inspired or more kind of contemporary kind of piano pieces. Eventually, it occurred to me to bring them together with more intention. I was always writing songs in parallel to poetry with the guitar more than the piano because I only knew three or four chords on the guitar versus the piano, which was a kind of methodic, classical upbringing. So it was interesting, because with the guitar, I would be playing three or four songs, and I’d write songs imitating other songs. So I’d write songs about love and sunsets and fantasy, and I remember I wrote a song about a lost sock. I lost one sock, and I had the other one. Where was the other one?

I’d write all these songs, and then eventually it made sense to explore with more intention, the piano-songwriting aspect and the idea of making songs. Then, my approach was very poetic. It was very wordy, and I would imitate a lot of the songwriters that I loved. From Alanis Morissette to Leonard Cohen and Mariah Carey, to musicals. I was more attentive to rhythm and repetition. In poetry, I was very in love with the words and with the vocabulary and phonetics. So the silence of the page allows you to build in a certain way that a song doesn’t and vice versa. It was kind of an instinct and a natural transition.

Looking back at your previous work, how do you feel about it? Is there a creative element that has particularly evolved since you started?

There has been a very strong evolution in many aspects. On one hand, there’s an overall process of self-exploration and self-acceptance that helps with the creative process. Everyone creative, unless you are prodigious, struggles with who you are as an artist and who you are as a creative voice, and sometimes the only way through that process is just doing the stuff. On the other hand, there’s an overarching process of, through exploration and creation, coming to my own as an artist, and understanding who I am and my point of view. You see that exploration throughout the different stages, and in more concrete terms, there is an evolution in skills and ability. What I was able to do at the beginning of my career towards what I can do now is a natural progression of someone who’s dedicated time and effort consciously to a craft.

Also, in the process of recognizing and accepting who you are and feeling more comfortable with that, I have been pushing myself out of my comfort zone. Whether it’s with songwriting, production, live shows, and vocally, musically, or performance-wise, there’s a lot of growth there, and I’ve been fortunate enough that even through the darker or more difficult periods of creativity, for me, there’s always an essence and an identity that’s been there throughout, whether it’s in the lyrical aspect, the storytelling, or the song structure, overall, I’m okay with it.

But looking back, there are certain times when you think, “Ah. If I had done differently, or if I only knew then what I know now, or maybe I listened to other people instead of listening to myself,” and all those things that kind of distract you from that creative connection that allows you to be the best version of the time of who you are as an artist or a creator.

You have released six albums and have collaborated on many projects. Is there a specific time when you started calling yourself an artist?

I am always curious as to people who create or are artists when that happens. I’m always asking everyone. There’s always been a feeling of self-knowing that there’s an artistic or just natural, crazy delirious impulse to create, create, create, create, and put yourself out there, and I think, as an adult, it was much harder to accept and give myself the right to call myself an artist. As a teenager, I felt very artistic, and I kind of knew I wanted to be an artist, but in my early 20s, through my work in music, people going off to college, and kind of professional choices, I did get confused.

I was not allowing myself to feel like I was an artist, and it wasn’t until I would say the third album in, where I was like, “Yeah. No, no. This is for real. I think I am an artist.” I wonder if I had that strength and clarity before in the way I told myself the story. I wonder if it would’ve been different in my approach to certain things because there was this constant insecurity and uncertainty that made me feel like I was less of an artist or maybe I was less capable than I was. For most of my career, I was fully committed to it, but at the same time, there was a lot of self-doubt, and I didn’t think I had earned the name “an artist,” though I had been living a laborious, artistic life, working for many years.

When I ask that question people have different answers on when and how it started.

I fully agree. I left Chile and lived in LA for a while, and I think when I was in LA working, doing music for TV shows and doing all other stuff, that was a worker of the arts that wasn’t just for me, I had suddenly this city and new time and a new environment, I began to understand the life of an artist, like a serious, methodical life. It was interesting. I got interested in the creative process and met so many professionals in the arts. And I had never really met, or been exposed to any adults that were artists in any capacity before, so it was interesting when I finally began to meet people that were professionals in art and had careers, and it wasn’t just a hobby that had to end eventually and you had to put on a student’s tie or put on some sort of suit, some grown-up work.

Have you always been this comfortable performing live?

No. I think I always loved the idea of it, but I struggled, for sure. On the one hand, I would get very nervous. It’s very natural, very nervous and flustered, and had stage fright. In the beginning, it was very hard for me to focus. I’d be so just hyperventilated. To regulate my breathing and seeing, it took a while to get comfortable and not only get comfortable, but enjoy, feel pleasure, and understand that the closer I am to feeling good, the better show I can put on. When I started, it was nerve-racking.

Then, I got really into it, because I was really into the fact that I had a live band with me, and it was a lot about performing and playing instruments, but I think it took me a second to feel confident and feel like I could trust myself and trust the show. The exposure to people also is really demanding, like the energy, and opening yourself up. It can be scary. It took me a while to get to that place, but I understood, that if there is a sense of empowerment and joy, you feel pleasure, and you feel like you’ve prepared enough to let go, something happens that makes sense, and you feel it on the stage, and I think you feel that people feel it, hearing, watching, or being there with you.

You released your most recent album Adentro after a breakup, and the lyrics feel very personal. Did you have any hesitations about releasing something so different from your previous work?

I did. It’s interesting because in previous albums I had been personal in one song maybe, here and there, but not in a body of work that was so cohesive and clear with a story. I don’t think, since the first album that came out, I had been so consistent in that openness and that emotional openness, whether it was through lyrics and through music because sometimes you also make songs that have to do with more the style of the song, the production of the song, and not necessarily the story. So I think that it’s probably the body of work that feels most raw and emotional, and I was hesitant at one point.

It’s interesting, I’ve had hesitation through different eras of my music with songs. I’ve trained myself to be like, “This hesitation is not justified. It’s not a logical one. It’s more just a natural fear of exposing yourself.” And what I do in those moments is I trust who I’m collaborating with, so whether it’s producers that I’m working with, engineers, friends, my band, or someplace where I feel seen and I have some sort of reinforcement and some kind of point of reference.

With Adentro, my dear friend, Francisco, said, “It’s good to be embarrassed. If you’re embarrassed, it’s good.”

You founded Ruidosa, a music festival and community platform focused on creating more equity, representation, and participation for women in Latin American music. With a recent edition at the Lincoln Center in New York and eight years since it started, what do you think has contributed to the festival’s sustainability?

I think the idea of creating a space that celebrates female and dissonant voices, while addressing the issues they face, resonated with so many people that continuing the project made sense. Still, it hasn’t been easy, as managing a creative project on your own is difficult enough as it is.

As an entrepreneur, it is difficult to make a sustainable project in a whole different area that is a collective kind of communal, independent thing that’s interdisciplinary and has a social objective. In practical terms, it operates under the label and the production company that I have as an artist, and that I’ve been lucky enough to build to a certain point. The fact that a space like this didn’t exist, and seeing the opportunity to create it, with the unique characteristics of Ruidosa, has allowed it to continue.

I’ve been conscious of creating something that feels and makes sense in every aspect. It’s not only saying, “Yes, there’s a problem with representation and we need more women, and here’s a show with more women,” but it’s diverse women. And it’s about hearing the stories behind those projects and those journeys. And then it’s looking at the data. It’s also about looking at the opportunity to really empower and create community, not just sit there passively, but feel like you’re a part of something, so I think all that work, that focus, has allowed it to make it sustainable.

You are so articulate and have a lot of clarity in how you describe yourself and your work. Do you think being able to communicate effectively is an important asset for artists? It’s not always easy to talk about yourself.

The idea of being able to articulate a point of view that complements the art or the creation in itself was a learning curve for me because as an independent artist, I had to learn how to do everything, build all the teams, and make my point of view come across. Trying to learn how to see yourself in the environment you work…I think what happens when you create something or are passionate about building something is that you’re always looking from the inside of yourself.

That’s the way you should be doing things because you want to listen to yourself, but there is a point in whatever project, where you go into the outside world, and it’s important to understand who you are or where you stand in that reality and where you want to get to. So it’s like these two brains. You have one of the artistic, flowing, safe, delicate, vulnerable sides, and then the more executive side. Once I understood that that was operating, I began to try to understand how to respect and strengthen, each side. In the beginning, I didn’t know how to do it. I think I also was really intense, and people would be like, “Oh my God. I can’t. I don’t know how to digest all this information that you’re giving me.”

I was super on top of everything, and I was nervous all the time. It took me a while to understand how to navigate, not only music, but the extra-musical stuff and how to communicate, and also how to try to feel like I can present myself in a balanced way with what I want, who I know I am, what I’m capable of doing, and then also what’s really happening in the world outside of myself with who I am or what I’m making. It’s been a trial and error also, but I do think that, at a certain point, I did commit to the idea of being an artist, as we talked about before, and that included thinking about who I am as an artist and what that looks like.

I would add to believe what you’re doing. To also trust your point of view and your authenticity. One of the things that would make me very nervous and would make me shut down before was that I didn’t feel like I was anybody else, right? I think we all go through that. I was like, “Well, I’m not this kind of artist. I don’t talk like this. I don’t dress like this. I don’t say these things,” and so I was all the time trying to kind of fit in. Once I owned, not only my identity, but the way I wanted to work, propose things, and be okay to pioneer or open things and do them differently, that was really liberating and also very effective.

Are there any big creative revelations that have helped you in your creative practice?

One discovery is that the closer you are to yourself, the better it will be. It sounds so selfish and kind of out of place because everything else in the world seems that it’s not that way, but it really is. As an artist, if you are the truest to yourself, the more powerful it can be.

The other one is legitimizing in your mind, the love to live an artistic and creative life. I think it took me a minute to be like, “It’s okay that I’m different, maybe than my family, my classmates, I can choose and be an artistic person, live a poetic life, and choose those things,” and see what does that look like. Then, I can build that, and it sounds kind of maybe specific, but it’s really hard because you do feel like you have to go into a grind of a way things should be in your life or who you should be, so to clear that out and commit to living artistically or having a poetic life or your own rhythm or point of view. The last creative revelation is that there are no shortcuts to your own story. You have to just put in the work, and remember that, between you and the idea is the making of the idea, and that making can only get better the more you work at the idea. Believe in the craft from that sense and not be afraid to put in the work.