Today we’d like to introduce you to Carla X.
Carla, we’d love to hear your story and how you got to where you are today both personally and as an artist.
I am a self-taught costume/fashion designer, makeup artist, visual performance artist, and model. I was born in Montevideo, Uruguay to two loving parents who worked as travel agents. The house I grew up in had a separated garage on the lot that was converted into an efficiency where my baba (grandma on my father’s side) lived. There, with her, was where my spark of creativity began to grow. While my parents were at work my baba would babysit me, she kept me busy teaching me how to sew, paint, draw, and mould little animals out of clay. My dog, Killer, was my first model. At the age of 4 or 5 I had sewn him a hat, one of my first master pieces, a square piece of fabric with an elastic band I sewed on by hand.
At the age of 7 my mother and father brought me and my brother to the United States in search of the American dream. We left our family and pets with little to nothing and landed in Miami, where we lived for the first year until moving to Fort Lauderdale. They say artists are born from hardships and well, all the troubles and hardships that came with leaving behind everything you knew at that age were certainly a shock to the system. Through it all I had supportive parents who for the most part allowed me to be my weird self even though they didn’t totally understand the cultural and psychological changes I was going through. Regardless, they nourished my creative side, always providing me with drawing and craft supplies despite our limited means. I continued to draw and craft but mostly put sewing on the back burner until I grew out of my tomboy phase at the age of 14.
Inspired by the anime and manga comics that I loved, I began making outfits to bring those worlds to life, before I had any idea what cosplay was. From there my focus shifted to self-expression, turning myself into living canvas through wearable art, fashion, and makeup artistry. As I got older I became involved with the South Florida EDM scene and was eventually asked to create a dance team and costuming by Jason Daniel, Brandon Deranged, and DJ Rabbit for an event they held at what was Club X-it in Hollywood Florida. Again, that little flame of creativity became bigger; being on stage and creating costuming for an event was an enlightening experience that catapulted me to where I am today. This was where my artistic path began to become clear.
Now 25 years old, I have had the pleasure of working with many of South Florida’s most outstanding events and entertainment companies (such as Fetish Factory, Kikimora Studios, and CircX). I’ve also been lucky to have had incredible mentors along the way, Defenz Mechanism in particular being an amazing friend, mentor, and muse. I’ve been grateful for the opportunities and have made a name for myself, becoming known for my unique dance style full of energy and edge, but also my ability to be versatile in terms of working with corporate and alternative events. I love the intersection of fashion design, theatrical makeup, and performance art, it allows me to create any vision the client desires and create a truly interstellar experience. I seek to create moments in time where the audience can transcend the space they’re in and truly immerse themselves in the spectacle surrounding them.
This year I’m working on bringing to life my vision of an artist network and production company, focused on creating immersive end to end experiences for my clients, while providing work and exposure to my global network of amazing creative artists, performers, fabricators, DJs, and other future forward visionaries. I’m also accelerating the fashion design and costuming portions of my work as a part of this initiative, and plan to provide more costumes and accessories inspired by my personal aesthetics to the public.
We’d love to hear more about your art. What do you do you do and why and what do you hope others will take away from your work?
While I weave in and out of many creative outlets, at heart, I’m a performer. I love to dance and a lot of my work through the years has been a fusion of freestyle dancing (gogo dancing) with a theatrical twist of extravagant costuming and elaborate makeup looks. My passion for the stage has shifted within the past three years to creating conceptual performance art pieces, character creation, and specialty acts. I offer specialty skills such as grinder spark shows (where I shoot sparks from a metal bra and other metal wearable art with an angle grinder), side show acts (such as balloon swallowing, and human blockhead), and many more “classic” acts such as fan dancing (silk veil, fire and LED) and stilt walking. I am also training diligently in Lyra and Contortion in hopes of being more involved with circus performing arts.
In terms of being an experience creator, I am heavily influenced by the theatre and productions such as Cirque du Soleil, Queen of The Night, and New York nightlife and events. The fusion of costuming, visual production, performance art, and music is where my current ambitions lie.
Another of my pursuits is as a self-taught costume and fashion designer. My aesthetic is well balanced, heavy in detail, and elaborate. I love working on beautiful Victorian era inspired costumes as much as I love working on tattered, post-apocalyptic designs. All meticulously thought out with as many layers as possible, I’m a fan of designing things that are modular and can come apart to become multiple small costumes or one heavy layered masterpiece of textiles and accouterments. This allows me to make costumes that are versatile for stage performances and as a living art pieces adorning the room. This year I’m working on a variety of costuming for upcoming events. I’m currently a few weeks into creating a new circus costume for my clownsona and will then start fabricating new pieces for my dystopian and post-apocalyptic collection to wear at Wasteland Weekend, where the Copperhead Caravan camp has asked me to perform. I love using all kinds of materials from standard clothing textiles, vinyl, and leather, to unconventional materials like drawer pulls, metal pieces, and decorative fixtures.
I’m currently in the planning stages of a fashion show I’d like to produce in the next year, featuring 7-10 cohesive looks designed entirely by me. I’ll be announcing the theme in upcoming months, so keep your eyes peeled on my social media for that announcement.
Additionally, I am a makeup artist, and Florida licensed cosmetologist. Specializing in fantasy color, theatrical and Avant Garde hair styling, face and body painting. Known for being able to adapt my look for corporate events to the most alternative parties. I can serve glam and beautiful as easily as alien, creepy, and otherworldly. I like to think myself as a shapeshifter and I love wearing my art on my skin, getting into the character I’ve painted and feeling confident and proud of my creations and the reactions they generate.
The idea that we can transcend and reshape reality with the things we create and the technologies available to us is very attractive to me and so I am very captivated by how immersive art can be in all of its forms. I’ve become somewhat obsessed with the Stendhal syndrome and so that’s the reaction I strive for when I create.
I am an all-around creative type and so have a lot of different skills varying from movement art to fabricating and designing. At this point in my life I’ve realized that I don’t need to justify my path to myself or others, I spent a lot of time second guessing myself but it’s just who I am at my core and to be true to myself is to let myself get lost in the creative flow and allow it to take me where I need to be. So that’s what I try to do, my will is to love and create in order to shape my reality so that I can one day use my skills and knowledge to help elevate others and hopefully be able to give back to our earth and all living things on it.
Have things improved for artists? What should cities do to empower artists?
There’s an odd inflection point for creatives today. While tools like Patreon and Kickstarter have enabled artists access to tools and to their audience in ways they’ve never been able to in the past. However, it’s easy to get lost in the sea of noise, and ensure you stand out in the ground. Self-marketing and social media expertise are more important than they’ve ever been, and artists need to interact directly with their audience more than they have in the past, which can be a challenge for some people. Creative skills don’t always translate into social skills. So, the answer is, life is simultaneously easier *and* harder than it was before.
As technology advances I believe demand for creative skills is going to be driven higher than it’s been throughout history. What I believe will be important is for artists to collectively work to ensure fair rates, and to avoid the undercutting that is often done in the name of “exposure” for people trying to break into the industry. I believe It’s important to be inclusive and guide creatives that are just starting out in the right direction so they can know their worth and keep industry standards for payment fair.
Cities need to incubate thriving communities that place art face forward and ensure it’s not simply pop art that seems to dominate many of the South Florida art festivals. Art should be challenging, and not simply something to consume and put on the wall. Seeing communities like the Hive in Flagler Village, that are really trying to do something independent and different are naturally going to encourage artistic communities to thrive. More local community support for creatives in general (buying local, booking local) can go a long way in ensuring the long-term health of the local artistic community. This also means not just booking your friends but taking a shot on new talent to give the community room to grow.
Do you have any events or exhibitions coming up? Where would one go to see more of your work? How can people support you and your artwork?
A lot of my upcoming conceptual performances and specialty acts are currently booked in other states, but I have one of my bigger freestyle dance gigs in Florida May 24th-27th dancing at the Fetish Factory’s 23rd year anniversary parties. Keep updated through my social media for upcoming events and booking availabilities or email me through my website forum.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.carlaxofficial.com
- Phone: (512) 522-6636
- Email: carlaxofficial@gmail.com
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/carlaxofficial
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/carlaxofficial
- Other: www.intergalactic.media / www.youtube.com/user/carlaxofficial
Image Credit:
Scott White / www.visualvortex.com
James Holmes
SGH Photoart
Tech Your Picture
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