Meet Luz Elena Polanco | Model, Actress, Creative Director

We had the good fortune of connecting with Luz Elena Polanco and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Luz Elena, what’s something about your industry that outsiders are probably unaware of?
How difficult it actually is! Whether you’re a model, an actress/actor, or just overall creative; the media makes it seem a lot simpler that it is. This often causes people to overlook the countless hours of training, failures, and hard work that go into mastering your craft. And sometimes, the journey that actually takes place prior to your success is completely dismissed. As a model, I have trained, failed, learnt and worked just as hard as someone studying towards a conventional career, or training for a sport; yet in the eyes of society, and through the lenses of media, it’s seen as easy going. It’s “turn on your camera and click!”. “You just smile!” Or even just “pretty girl privilege” sometimes. But in reality, anything artistic that’s done in excellence requires as much discipline and dedication as any other profession or sport. I think anyone involved in anything creative as a career be music, production, editing, film, fashion, drawing, the arts in general; they do it with joy because of the passion they feel over their craft, but this joy is often translated into “it must be easy” to the person behind the screen. I think a big misconception, is that if you love what you do, it must be easy for you. People rarely associate joy with hard work, unless or until it leads to a massive, Hollywood-style success story. It’s either the grinding at a job you actually hate, or the “follow my easy seven-step guide to becoming a millionaire and have freedom” culture. But passion and hard work can – and should – coexist. You can work really hard at it, you can give it your all and you can love every second of it.
For me, as I learnt how to model; it was way beyond looking good in photos. I had to master posing, acting, content creation, hair and makeup, types of lighting, camera angles, runway techniques, facial expressions, etc. I also had to learn my angles, teach my body to be more flexible so I can diversify my poses, or random things I never thought of like body shifting or mood shifting on command etc. I remember screaming in the mirror for an hour once because I wanted to learn how to look appealing while showing anger on camera for fashion. Then I had to learn how to show anger for real without being angry for acting. I often look at the BTS footage after a day of modeling and analyze my own poses, runway walks and expressions to see how I can perfect them. Sometimes I don’t like a pose and I go to the mirror to learn how to fix it. Nothing in the arts industry is as easy as it looks. And while I don’t believe we should scare people away from pursuing their dreams by emphasizing only on the hardships, I do think it’s important to talk about them because as an artist who’s slowly progressing; you start to think that everyone is having an “easier time” based on social media. So for creatives who might feel discouraged; Just because something is difficult, it doesn’t mean it isn’t meant for you. Social media often makes it seem like success happens overnight, but in reality, it’s a long climb. People usually hear about the beginning and the end of a journey, but the real story is in between.
It’s definitely a journey.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
A lot of my artistry comes from a deep need for self-expression. My life experiences, struggles, cultural background, and the constant desire to see different versions of myself come alive. As a model, one of the biggest challenges is that your career is entirely tied to who you are. In most careers, your job and your identity are separate. You can dislike your work, feel frustrated with your boss, or even hate your job entirely – but at the end of the day; you can clock out, go home, and still feel like yourself because your personal life, your self-worth, and your passions exist outside of what you do for a living.
In the arts however; everything is about you, who you are and how you feel. So for me as a model, your job is you. Your face, your body, your expressions, and even your personality are part of what you’re selling. If you struggle with self-doubt or insecurities, it doesn’t just affect your confidence; it affects your work. If you dislike your appearance, it can make it harder to appreciate the images you create. If you’re emotionally drained, it can be difficult to bring energy to a set. And if you don’t see your own value, it can be hard to convince others to see it too, unlike a typical job where you can push through a bad day and still perform well on sales or tasks, having the results of your work be a separate topic; modeling requires you to be fully present. It requires for you to love what you see. If you don’t believe in yourself, it shows. If you’re holding back, the camera catches it. Therefore it’s important to care of yourself so you’re also taking care of your craft. Your confidence, energy, and emotional well-being all translate directly into your work. Learning to love and accept yourself isn’t just personal growth, but it now becomes professional growth too. For a long time, I believed I wasn’t built for this no matter how badly I wanted it. I once hated many parts of myself physically, emotionally, and circumstantially. But through a leap of faith and countless “do it anyway” moments, the arts became my way out. Modeling made me seek for a better me and fashion allowed me to appreciate myself in ways I never had before. I learned to love the work I produced, even when it wasn’t perfect, and that felt beautiful. I slowly loved all of me, and was able to start separating self growth and professional growth to an extend, but they will always coexist in some way for as long as I model – so I’ve accepted the challenge to continue to grow as a person, directly impacting how I’ll continue to grow in my career.

In acting and other arts/creative pursuits, it’s also difficult because acting happy on camera when you’re not happy that day will never feel right to your body or mind. Being optimistic for a client on a creative idea can be hard if you don’t feel it; if you don’t love it, or if you don’t trust you. This job requires you to be a little crazy almost. It requires to love it. To want it, and to want to express something. So if used as an outlet, it can be liberating. I often create concepts that represent my state of mind, story or anything I want to let out, speak on, feel for or tell and I direct it for myself.

As for how it all started! Aside from always wanting to model and loving fashion, another thing I always really enjoyed was arts in general. I was the artsy kid in school who turned every school project into an elaborate craft. My teachers would praise my creativity but mark me down for not following direction. Whenever we had written projects I’d make these massive craft books out of cardboard or anything at all really, and present my topic in some sort of artistic way because I found it boring to just write my thoughts on paper. After high school, and beginning of my 20’s, I started working at a retail store where I was always asking if I could change the mannequins because I also found them boring as they were. I would layer them, come up with all these cool ideas, and eventually; I got a visual merchandizing role at another store that allowed me to do it all the time. But although that was fun, I was getting older; all while my life outside of that was what I would describe as a nightmare, so I slowly started to choose between my reality, and the dreams I had; putting all my creative ideas – dreams of acting, designing, modeling, dancing, on the back burner almost without realizing.

During COVID, I took a chance and decided to model for a friend who was starting an online wig store. This reignited my dream and made it face me. From there, I started looking for opportunities and applying; sporadically at first. Sometime later; another friend gave me a free ticket to a collaborative fashion event, where I met a photographer, and this led me right back into it all. He wanted to do fashion and practice shooting more, and I wanted the chance to start, to learn how to improve my modeling skills and start to make a portfolio, so we started working together regularly. Now the runway model dreamer – turned – artsy kid in class – and the girl who loves dressing mannequins was living the best of both, if not all worlds. I would come up with creative concepts weekly – sometimes even twice a week, and we would shoot them in his basement-turned-studio. As I was getting better at modeling, posing, and concept creation, he was improving his lighting techniques, and photography skills. We started asking local designers if we could borrow their stuff and I would come up with campaign ideas for them with just me as the model, which allowed us both to stay on the fashion side of things with our work. It all became a space where we both pushed ourselves creatively; experimenting and learning in real time.
Sometime after, I ended up in another studio where I met another photographer, who introduced me to a few creators and artists and everything took off from there in terms of me exploring myself creatively in all areas of what I wanted to try, do and learn. As I started to look for gigs, we guided one another, refer each other places, or worked on collaborations together. So now not only did I have a growing network, but I also had a portfolio filled with unique images and hands-on experience and that helped me book work!
Was it easy? Not at all! But it was fun because I love it, because I found joy in it! But it also meant sleepless nights, long commutes, working for free, and constantly adjusting to the unknown. I had to learn to be okay with every challenge, every setback, and every moment of uncertainty because it was part of my growth and where it was taking me. To forgive myself through the process, and to give myself grace. it was about evolving, refining my skills, and trusting that every step was leading me somewhere.

As the story of my life and career continue to grow and develop; I look most forward to just being myself! I look forward to expressing myself and continuing my art now in a local show or film, and I look forward to expressing myself in the future and continuing my art then, for bigger brands, a big movie role and fashion week in Milan. I look forward to collaborating artistically now, as much as I look forward to the model jobs I have now, and look forward to directing for my own brand in a few years.
I think this mindset is one of the reasons why I have grown so much artistically in a shorter period of time. It’s focusing on the craft more than the destination. If you love what you do, the success will follow you naturally. So many people chase money, fame, or an end goal, only to lose themselves in the process, and often even hate it in the end, despite of accomplishing what their idea of success or end goal was, and having to burn out or pause and rediscover the person or vision they lost along the way because the goal never really aligned with who they really are.

One of the biggest lessons I’ve learnt is to try everything. Try it all! Even if it doesn’t seem relevant, you never know where it might lead you. I wouldn’t be where I am today if I hadn’t thrown myself into different experiences. I’d walk a fashion show and offer to assist the designer backstage. I’d go to music events that had nothing to do with modeling, yet end up booking music video roles from people I met there. I wasn’t confident on camera, but I surrounded myself with people who were, and I learned by watching them. I met local brands through modeling and started creating content for them – not just as a model but as a creative. That skill led to my first paid brand collaboration; which then led to more paid modeling gigs from clients/brands/designers etc who would find me ether through these, or the posts I had created for others which weren’t even posted on my own social media page. Or how my first experience in acting came! My first acting experience didn’t come from an audition. I wanted to try acting, and a painter who collaborated a designer we worked with initially, invited me to be part of his theatrical art showcase where I had to do some acting. This gave me the confidence to want to continue and eventually led to my first short film, which came through a music video connection – an opportunity I might have not had if I hadn’t stepped into the music spaces I stepped into at the beginning, despite being in fashion.
You really never know! Meet everyone. Try everything. See what makes other creative people tick. See what makes you want to do it all over again. Creativity needs fuel like how plants need water. The more active you are in creative spaces, the more you grow – not just as an artist, but as a person.
And funny enough! This journey, where I was brave enough to try new things to begin with, started with trying new food. After a breakup, I promised myself I’d start stepping out of my comfort zone, and food was the first thing I experimented with because prior to, I’d always eat the same thing. From there, it snowballed into doing the same in the arts and every area of my life! So having that said; try it ALL!

Looking back, it’s incredible to see the growth. Not just mine, but everyone’s. We’ve all carved our own paths and it’s been inspiring to watch.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
definitely Open Concepts in Toronto! They showcase local artists of all backgrounds usually on Tuesday’s. If you are looking for a more artistic, musician led, open mic night this is definitely the spot. The owner of the event is Khary, who owns Content Day in Toronto. A studio where creators often make content on set days.

For food I’d say go to different parts of Toronto and instead of going into one restaurant; order smaller plates in different places. Our city is so diverse it allows the opportunity to try all foods from all countries yet while in one city! If you’re a sweets lover, I usually get BeaverTails!

If you are a model or photographer and want a spot to shoot outdoors I’d say Port Credit lakeshore or Guild Park. It’s a bit of a trip outside of the city but 100% worth it! For indoors one of my go to’s is ThatTorontoStudio in Toronto!

Right now I’m also falling in love with pottery! So whatever it is you try in the city, make sure you add something new to the list!

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
If I were to dedicate my story to anyone or give recognition it would definitely be to my mother, and the incredible community around me. When I came to Canada as a teen from the Dominican Republic, up until my 20’s I never really felt that I belonged until I felt I could express myself through the arts or creative sides of my work. It would have never happened if the people I found along the way weren’t, or if the city hadn’t opened their hearts to the arts and creative sides of us we share. The amount of support I’ve received is unreal, and this led me to tap into all areas of myself creatively through their spaces, guidance, knowledge and support. My mother, is the #1 believer in me. We have this beautiful long distance relationship we’ve carried for almost a couple decades now because we were separated twice due to circumstances that didn’t allow us to be with each other; yet, she’s made such a huge effort at always being there and supporting from afar, and I love her for that.

Instagram: @luzelena.polanco : https://www.instagram.com/luzelena.polanco?igsh=MXBzbWxpamVkeGFxcw%3D%3D&utm_source=qr

Image Credits
fnsphoto.toronto

Content day

Prevalentfocus

House of Hendo

Fashion Art Toronto

Tyra Jutai

Kensgns

Menelick Akoto