Life & Work with Gabriella Padilla

Today we’d like to introduce you to Gabriella Padilla.

Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
My journey started when I was a student at Parsons in NYC. I thought my career would be in fashion design as I was extremely passionate about sewing and designing. I loved using fashion to build a world of characters and tell a story. Unfortunately, that path didn’t really work out for me as I just couldn’t deal with the wildly competitive and cold nature of the fashion industry. So after dropping out of fashion design I redirected my passions to the illustration program where I was encouraged to work on my individual style and to tell all the weird stories I wanted to share. As time went on, and with the amazing support of my program staff, I wanted to integrate my drawings into physical objects to really push my skills and play around with the concept of illustration. I wanted to bring my love of sewing and sculpture into my work and it ended up manifesting into puppetry.

Since my junior year of college puppetry is all I wanted to do. I integrated that process into every assignment I could and I formed my entire two year long thesis project around it. I took the two years to build a massive, life-sized puppet of myself for a live-action performance and a miniature stop-motion version of the same puppet. I built all the sets, costumes – everything! I loved the whole process and knew I wanted to do this for as long as I could.

I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey have been a fairly smooth road?
Well, not exactly- but that’s okay! I didn’t go into this journey for the road to be perfectly laid out and smooth. I knew that aiming to have a career in the arts wouldn’t be easy. You have to work extremely hard to carve out space for yourself in this industry. You have to deal with a lot of not-so-fun silliness. You have to know your worth and trust yourself, which is something I’m still working on and will definitely continue to work on for the rest of my life. Things can/do get super hard and it’s easy to feel discouraged. That being said though, I am SO lucky and blessed to have had moments where the road was smooth. Often when I felt like a door has closed, another one opened up and behind it was a really amazing opportunity and a person to guide me.

The smooth parts on the road to my career have been laid out with such amazing people who have taught me so much and have given me the opportunity to work on some really cool projects and learn a lot of important skills. What I’m trying to say is the road will be what it will be and you will grow from all of it. There will be times where you’re driving and suddenly there will be a super sharp turn, or the road will get bumpy and there will a storm up ahead. Oh and your car will break down. You just gotta brace yourself and keep moving forward. You’ll pass through the storm, fix up your car and the road will open up. At the end of the day, there will be a beautiful sunset and all the people you met along the way will be riding beside you on this journey with you through it all.

Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I think my work is mostly just making things and drawing. Aside from building puppets, I love to draw. I love getting lost in that process and getting into the details. I like to think I specialize in very detailed, very colorful illustrations. I like to use as much color as I possibly can in everything I do. I’m still working on how I can integrate that process into my puppets, as well as my sculptures to perfectly integrate my 2D style into my 3D work. It’s a long process, but I’m getting there and figuring it out as time goes on. I’m trying to be patient with myself, play around with materials and try not to take myself too seriously. I’m proud that I stick to my style and what I like to do. I feel like with social media it’s easy to see what styles are trending and what the algorithm values. I’m glad that I’m taking the time to grow my “following” by just doing my thing.

Ultimately, what I want most from myself in the work I do is to not only be able to have the life I want for myself both creatively and financially, but to also provide for others. I want to cultivate creative and fun opportunities and give them to folks who want to go into the arts and help them follow their dreams as much as I can.

I want to be the best version of myself and continue to grow and to help others on their journey like people have done for me. I am very grateful for all of those amazing individuals.

Let’s talk about our city – what do you love? What do you not love?
What I love about Los Angeles is the diversity. I love meeting new people! Everyone is so different and that is really really cool. Each city has its own style with its own unique experience and this place is never boring. As someone who loves to bike ride, it’s so cool to take bike tours around the cities and beautiful parks.

LA as much as I love you, you NEED better, more accessible and reliable public transportation. As someone who hates driving and does not own a car, I hate the grip the auto industry has on you.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://gabriellanicolepadilla.com/
• Instagram: teethlikemilk