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Process: Carlos Diaz Stoop and the Magic Behind Trying Everything

Betsy Podsiadlo | 8/1/2023

This month, Art Grove Newsletter met with artist advocate, creative producer, and arts administrator Carlos Diaz Stoop to discuss his journey from post-grad life to freelancing to starting his own artist advocacy and creative producing business. Carlos’ work is inspiring for many reasons, but perhaps most notable is his focus on advocating for the needs of the artists on his projects.

A deep dive into Carlos’ background unveils a love of trying new things. The encouragement Carlos received from his parents to develop contrasting and complementary skills dovetailed into many more discoveries and opportunities; from his decision to study Musical Theatre at West Chester University of Pennsylvania, to his M.A. in Arts Administration from Drexel University, and the work he’s found himself in now.

“As much as I'm a producer, I’m really an arts administrator,” Carlos said. “What I thought my true passion was – performing – was actually my love of the collaborative process.”

Over the years Carlos has found many ways to further build on his passion for collaboration. This includes working with an arts and culture regranting institution, various arts organizations, theatre companies and festivals, a set fabrication shop, and an opera company.

Simply detailing Carlos’ career path could be one way of telling his story. But its most striking element is how every redirection ultimately led Carlos to something he is passionate about and excels at: producing.

“I realized that producing was an interesting mix of all of these other jobs that I’d had that seemed really random and unrelated,” Carlos said.

It got us thinking: Does the encouragement to build ourselves a niche end up pigeonholing our full spectrum of skills, talents, and interests? Carlos is living proof that the toil behind the human experience ultimately emboldens and empowers who we are as artists and what makes each of us interesting. Our uniqueness as artists comes not from things we do in school or the things we’re most proud of. It comes from our willingness to harness our own trying existences into something profoundly unique in its expression of that.

When asked for some advice for our readers, Carlos first mentioned his feeling that the opportunity to attend a liberal arts college over a conservatory allowed him the freedom to learn more about a larger body of subjects. For those out of school, Carlos recommends you “Try everything.”