Published by Leonardo Calcagno
Who are you :
Sophia Gao, full time artist based in Toronto.
Your current job :
Painter and Photographer
In which city are you located?
Toronto, Canada
A word to define what kind of worker you are :
I dream. And I dream a lot. A lot more than others. May be not the most. I present my dreams in various formats, media and approaches. I am a dream realizator! I carved out my dream and paste in on the canvas. When it is not possible, I use my camera to capture the similar.
What tools are essential to your life (app, software, etc..)
Oil colors, Acrylics, brushes, Canon EOS 5D Mark III, ets…
What does your office space look like?
Quiet, full of sun shine and myself. A 800 square feet working space with a CD player at a corner. My new studio will relocated in midtown during this summer.
What kind of music do you listen when you are working ?
Classical music, jazz and new-age music.
Do you have a way to organize your day to maximize your work ?
Write down to an agenda especially the chores that you are going to forget!
What tips would you give to improve productivity ?
Productivity is a term of relativity for beholders! The more you put your thought, mind, soul, sweats and blood in it, you will see the output is actually increase exponentially. It is the inner mind satisfaction and self actualization defined your very own “productivity”.
You’re better than your colleagues to :
Well each of us is born with unique talent, insight and gift. “Yin and Yang” mutually complementing each other. I have a coworker who is a great calligrapher that never know how to operate a SLR camera, and another coworker, an excellent mix-media artist but not accustom to calligraphy. But when both of them working together- an ideal dream team!
What is the best advice anyone has given you ?
My mother said when I was a kid: Keep doing what you loved.
What is your best tip for saving time ?
Adaptability. We can never plan out every single step beforehand, but we can always enriching ourselves with knowledge and skills indefinitely to handle different situations with different approaches to circumvent the challenge!
What is your routine start and end of the day ?
Painting to me is like reconstructing my dream with color blocks. So I sleep well at night and I dream well too. Therefore morning is my most productive moment, especially after a cup of espresso with a slice of toast. That will ensure that I will be fully energized to create! Creativity needs energy. I will then put my brush to rest by noon. After lunch, shopping, gyms, reflexion on my paintings and by evening, listen to David Braid’s Jazz.
Aside from your computer and your phone, what gadget can you not you go without?
My Canon 5D Mark III. I try to listen, watch, smell, touch and feel the surroundings; I try to remember every bit of them. For anything else that I am not able to, I have my Canon ready to capture and store it!