Alfred Paredes shared their story and experiences with us recently and you can find our conversation below.
Alfred, so good to connect and we’re excited to share your story and insights with our audience. There’s a ton to learn from your story, but let’s start with a warm up before we get into the heart of the interview. What is a normal day like for you right now?
A normal day for me these days is a bit different than what it was just six months ago. I’m working from home full time now as a freelancer, so I have the freedom to set my own schedule. but I do like routines, so I try to keep my schedule consistent. I get going around 6:00-6:15am. I make sure my daughter is up and getting ready for school (she’s a freshman in high school). I’ll spend a few minutes checking any messages on my phone and then I usually spend a little time with our dog, just walking around the backyard. Before my daughter started school, I would jump on the computer by 6:45 or so and start my day. But she likes it when I drive her to school so I wait to start my day until I get back around 7:30. Once my actual workday starts, I stay glued to my computer for hours, just sculpting away on projects. Lunch tends to be short because I like to get right back to work. Then I keep going until about 6:00pm. That’s when I call it quits for the day, and I shift in to spending time with my family. We have dinner, watch tv as a group or play video games (Mariokart is a family favorite). After everyone goes to bed, I usually take some time to myself and watch tv or scroll through Instagram for a while before I go to bed and start the whole thing over again.
Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
My name is Alfred Paredes and I’m a native Southern Californian. Been here my whole life, although I’ve moved around a bit. I grew up in the San Gabriel valley, but as an adult I’ve lived in San Diego, Orange County, Pomona and now I’m out in Thousand Oaks. I’ve been an artist since I was a kid. Always interested in drawing silly stuff but never thought of it as a career. Eventually (senior year in high school) I thought “why not try to be artist” and I applied to go to art school. I went to the Laguna College of Art and Design (LCAD), although it had a different name back then. It was there that I was introduced to the world of sculpture, and it’s been a lifelong passion ever since.
I started out doing fine art sculpture. Figurative bronze statues. But after a while, I started to have a distaste for the Fine Art world and the Gallery System. The public monument side of things was also getting tiresome because of city bureaucracy, politics and favoritism. So, I decided to step away from that world and pursue a career in commercial sculpting. I looked for work in the film and television world as well as the Collectibles and Toys world. I eventually got a foot hold in the collectibles world and made that my focus. After a few years working as a freelancer, I landed a job at Sideshow Collectibles (one of the largest collectibles companies in the world). It was a great experience and I worked there for 10 years, until this past March when I was laid off due to some restructuring of the company. Since March, I’ve been back to working as a freelancer full time. I’m very fortunate to have a lot of friends in the industry and they have all kept me very busy the last six months and I’m doing more work than I ever have.
My career has not been a straight path by any means and even the stuff I walked away from draws me back in from time to time. I’ve created two public monuments. The most Recent was back in 2021, when I created the Anita Baldwin Monument for the city of Arcadia. I also had the honor to sculpt the tribute bust for the late drummer of Quiet Riot, Frankie Banali. The Bust lives in the Rainbow Bar in Hollywood. One of the other great meandering turns in my career has been the privilege of working for director Guillermo Del Toro. I’ve been creating personal works for his collection for several years now and I even got to create some props for his movie “Frankenstein”. It has truly been a highlight of my career to get to do work for him but also to get to know him and become friends.
Overall, I’ve worked on things form the very small to the very large. I’ve created work for fans and collectors and for cities and celebrities. From the cutest things to the scariest of monsters, I’ve had the pleasure to work on a wide variety of projects. I’m looking forward to continuing this meandering journey as a sculptor for as long as life will allow me.
Appreciate your sharing that. Let’s talk about your life, growing up and some of topics and learnings around that. Who taught you the most about work?
When it comes to work, I had the two greatest examples of work ethic that anyone could ask for. My parents. Both my parents came to this country from El Salvador, escaping a growing civil war and seeking a better future. They became citizens and my dad joined the Navy as a “Sea Bee”. They both had a very entrepreneurial spirit, and they started their own businesses early on. My dad had a landscaping business that he grew to a big success and eventually expanded in to being a contractor/handy man. I grew up doing a lot of that work as well. Mowing lawns and carrying a leaf blower back when the leaf blower weighed more than I did. I also helped on the construction side of things, helping to build lots of projects with my dad. My mom opened a restaurant. “El Comalero” restaurant in El Monte. She operated two locations until she eventually streamlined and focused on just one. She ran that place as the chef, the waitress, the dish washer, the manager and food buyer. She had help of course but she was never one to sit back and let other people take on all the work, so she would be right in the mix making sure everything got handled. She ran that place for 33 years!! Which in the restaurant business is an eternity. She made it through recessions, food shortages, multiple burglaries that destroyed her business, and when covid came around, she even survived that by doing takeout orders. She finally retired in 2023 at the age of 76. But she never stops and is still keeping herself busy every day.
My father passed away 11 years ago, but luckily, he got to see my success as an artist, and he was at the unveiling of my first public monument. He was very proud. Both of their hard-working spirits passed along to me, and I too work long hours and most days. I carry the lessons that they taught me about diligence, doing my best, not being afraid to fail and always striving to do better than the day before. I hope I can continue to make them both proud.
Was there ever a time you almost gave up?
Giving up is something that doesn’t come easy to me, but that’s not to say that I haven’t had my fair bit of struggles. As a teenager, I suffered with depression and suicidal thoughts. I even tried to take my own life twice. But I came away from that with a newfound appreciation for the beauty of the world and how much life really has to offer if you just go out and get it. Since then, I’ve had a very positive outlook on life and have worked on a lot of personal growth and improvement. But that doesn’t mean that life has been without its struggles. Back when I was trying to make a go of becoming a commercial sculptor, I had to walk away from a 10-year career in Construction. It wasn’t easy to leave a steady paycheck for the uncertainty of the commercial art world. But I was not happy doing construction and I needed to get back to art and sculpting. So, I walked away and committed to becoming a commercial sculptor. That first year was very humbling. I only made $640 that year. The next year I only made about $1200. I was second guessing my decision to leave a steady paycheck. But then as they years went on, I gained more success and more recognition and soon I was doing more and more work and I started doing work for the Ellen Show (as a pumpkin carver for their Halloween shows), and I even was hired by Katy Perry for a private commission. Things were going well. But there’s always an ebb and flow with work as a freelancer and I was getting into a fairly slow period. I wasn’t finding the kind of jobs I wanted, and I was strongly considering going back to construction or finding work in another field altogether. But luckily, that feeling was very short lived, and I pulled myself up from that despair and got back to work with an attitude of “The work WILL come”. And then it happened. My friend offered me some freelance work at Sideshow Collectibles and after a couple projects they asked me to come in and work from there. It wasn’t long before they offered me a full-time position, and I was able to work there for 10 years.
So a lot of these questions go deep, but if you are open to it, we’ve got a few more questions that we’d love to get your take on. What would your closest friends say really matters to you?
I’m fairly certain they would say it’s my family. I would do anything to keep my wife and daughter safe. If I had to, I would walk away from art to make sure I could keep a roof over our heads and food on the table. As much as art is a part of who I am, it’s nothing in comparison to my family and friends.
Thank you so much for all of your openness so far. Maybe we can close with a future oriented question. What is the story you hope people tell about you when you’re gone?
I think about this one a lot. As a person who has lived a fairly stoic lifestyle for most of my life, I reflect on my mortality and the value I place on things, often. I use that reflection to guide me towards what’s important in my life. I also try to live according to those values as much as possible. I would hope that the people in my life, and even strangers who see me in the world, would get a sense of my value system and how much I tried to make the world a better place for me having been in it. From the littlest of deeds to the ones I don’t share because I don’t do them for any kind of praise, I work to make everyday a better day in the world. I also try to bring joy into people’s lives by making them laugh as often as I can. So, what story do I hope people will tell about me when I’m gone? I guess I hope they say I made the world a better place. I brought smiles into people’s lives. I loved and cared deeply for my friends and family. And maybe… just maybe… they’ll say I made some cool art.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.APSculptureStudio.com
- Instagram: @APSculptureStudio
Image Credits
Eric Stoner
Cassie Fuertez
Jeanette Villareal
Sideshow Collectibles Photo Team
