Tell us a bit about yourself (name, location, affiliations, personal stuff).
Lucha Workshop is two people: Christina and Ronnie. It is run out of Miami, Florida. Ronnie Rivera draws and prints shirts. Christina draws, designs bags and sews. They both do the photoshop and illustrator stuff, which they hate.
Ronnie: I was born in Cutler Ridge, Florida. I am a member of FB, which is an art group in Miami and Boston. We are responsible for awesome stuff all over Miami.
Christina: I was born in Hialeah, Florida. I'm majoring in Fine Art and I spent the last two years teaching myself how to sew, make/design handbags, screen-print and do taxes. I am also president and sole member of a club that Ronnie is banned from.
What is the first thing you can remember making
by hand? How and why did you make it?
Christina: I remember making lots of forts mostly from furniture and sometimes from cardboard boxes. My most elaborate ones were made from rearranged furniture turned every which way, covered in blankets, complete with pillows for furniture and stuffed animals for company.
Ronnie: I liked to dig holes in my back yard. I was trying to make a pool for my mom but the ground just kept absorbing the water.
What inspires you? Where do your ideas come from?
Christina: I am interested in Folk art, Florida History, old school story quilts, other artists(ahem, Ronnie) and nature documentaries. My ideas for my artwork come from whatever strikes my fancy at the moment. They can come from a bad sixties spy movie or from a dream Ronnie had where he had to fight off five alligators with a hatchet to get to an ice cream cone.
Ronnie: I am inspired by Christina yelling at me to "get to work." My ideas come from the doodles and the staring into space that I do before Christina yells at me to "get to work."
What are your favorite materials?
Christina: My favorite materials are canvas, ink, .05 mechanical pencils (I don't mess with that .07 junk) and kamikaze squeegees.
Ronnie: wood(Southern Yellow Pine), wood composites(MDF), acrylic, paper, pencils, jigsaw, spinach(or Spinuch when spinach isn't available)
What is your favorite color?
Christina: The color of unprimed canvas.
Ronnie: 3003(CMYK) The best color in the world is raw canvas with one coat of primer. Anyone that likes unprimed canvas was probably born in Hialeah or something.
What are your most and least two favorite films?
Christina: Most: The Outlaw Josey Wales, The Big Sleep
Least: I hate lots of movies.
Ronnie: Most: Alien Dead, Paint Your Wagon, Least: Alien Dead, Paint Your Wagon
What are you reading right now?
Christina: I usually read a couple of books simultaneously. Right now I'm reading Suwannee River: Strange Green Land and Murder in the Tropics.
Ronnie: I always try and stay on top of world events by following the Weekly World News.
Any tips on selling handmade stuff?
Ronnie: Be your own harshest critic, read Mao Zedong's "On Guerrilla Warfare", get an EIN and shave your head.
Christina: Staying organized helps me a lot. Oh, and yeah, what Ronnie said, shave your head.
Apart from creating things, what do you do?
We have a lot of meetings over tea and coffee. These meetings are ultimately unproductive and non-work related but fun.
Ronnie: Watch TV/Movies, drink Cuban coffee and browse the internet.
Christina: Drink lots of tea, read, watch nature documentaries and water my Key Lime tree.
How can Etsy be improved? Any feature requests?
Christina: Etsy needs a theme song.
Ronnie: Although, Etsy does a great job of promoting itself; I think Etsy should employ an identity building print ad campaign. Maybe something like: a scene of a man in a business suit sitting at a desk, with lots of obvious office work around him. Meanwhile he's trying to hide that he is knitting for his Etsy store. |
