What It Takes to Be a Working Artist in Miami | Isabella Bru
Isabella Bru · Interdisciplinary artist, Miami
What does it take to build a creative life—and make a living as an artist in Miami?
About This Conversation
In this episode of City Built Sessions, host Irvans Augustin sits down with Miami-based interdisciplinary artist Isabella Bru to explore the creative choices, and business realities, behind becoming a working artist.
Isabella’s work examines memory, grief, identity, and belonging through sculpture, installation, performance, and drawing. Using found and recycled materials, she takes objects apart, studies how they were made, and rebuilds them with new histories. As she puts it, “Miami is literally my material.”
The conversation also goes behind the romantic image of life as an artist. Isabella discusses gallery commissions, pricing work, production and framing costs, self-promotion, and the need to be ready when an opportunity appears. She also shares what Miami gets right for emerging artists—and why affordability and access to creative space will help determine whether they can build lasting careers here.
In This Conversation
What separates artistic practice from simply making something creative
The difference between personal work and art created with a buyer in mind
Why galleries may retain 40–50% of an artwork’s sale price
How artists price their time, materials, framing, transportation, and other hidden costs
How memory, grief, and found objects shape Isabella’s creative process
Why good art leaves room for the viewer’s own questions and emotions
The expanding opportunities—and persistent affordability challenges—for emerging Miami artists
How artists help people notice, remember, and connect with a city
This conversation is about more than making art. It is about building a creative life, learning the business behind the work, and remaining honest about who you are and what you want to contribute.
About the Guest
Isabella Bru is a Miami-based interdisciplinary artist whose work explores memory, grief, identity, and belonging through sculpture, installation, performance, and drawing.
Know someone we should talk to?
Suggest a guest, business, project, place or story City Built should know about.
