Our Story

Stylized handwritten text spelling 'Private Glitter' in purple on a black background.
Sky with white clouds and the word 'PINTA CIELO' repeatedly written in blue and black overlaid text.
Young woman with long brown hair, wearing red glasses, a t-shirt with red text, camouflage pants, and a corset, holding a camera, standing against a plain white background.

Pinta Cielo Creative Studios began with a dream that had been following me for a long time: to create a space where creativity, culture, and community could exist under the same roof.

I'm Erica Sanchez-Alcantar, a multidisciplinary artist, creative director, makeup artist, designer, and community builder from Milwaukee. My creative career began in beauty and makeup, where I've spent more than a decade working in makeup artistry, styling, photography, production, and on-set creative direction. Over the years, my work kept expanding beyond makeup. I found myself designing sets, developing visual concepts, producing events, creating brands, collaborating with artists, and finding new ways to turn an idea into an experience.

Eventually, I realized the thing I loved most wasn't any one medium. It was bringing the pieces together.

People. Art. Stories. Music. Culture. Ideas. Spaces.

That's where Pinta Cielo came from.

Pinta Cielo means "paint the sky." To me, it represents the permission to imagine something that doesn't exist yet and then start building it anyway. It's about refusing to believe that creativity has to fit neatly into one category, one career, or one definition of success.

The dream for Pinta Cielo is bigger than a traditional art studio. I want it to be a place where someone can walk through the door and discover something they didn't know they were capable of. A place where an artist can find a collaborator, a young person can see their work displayed, a community organization can find creative support, and someone who hasn't made art since childhood can sit down at a table and make something just because they feel like it.

It's also about creating opportunities that aren't always easy to find.

Through Pinta Cielo, I'm building programming around creative workshops, community gatherings, cultural events, outdoor art experiences, film, networking, and collaborations. Projects like Crafty Cinema, Art in Nature, Creative Mixer, and special community events are all pieces of that larger vision.

I'm especially passionate about creating space for artists and communities who have historically had to build their own tables when they weren't invited into existing ones. That spirit is also part of why I helped build MUSE MKE, a creative platform celebrating BIPOC and LGBTQ+ artists and giving emerging creatives opportunities to be seen.

Pinta Cielo is still growing. Some days it looks like a studio. Some days it looks like an art class, a gallery, a park gathering, a movie night, a community table, or a room full of people meeting for the first time.

Eventually, I dream of a permanent creative home where all of those things can happen under one roof: studios, workshops, exhibitions, events, photography, creative production, community programming, and space for people to simply come in and make something.

Until then, we're building it piece by piece.

Because sometimes you have to paint the sky before you have a place to put the painting.

Welcome to Pinta Cielo.

Let’s Work Together