Sara Conca

"If you are going to be a successful model," says Sara Conca, "you have to be business oriented, because you have to be your own agent. You can only depend on you."

Working steadily since she was fourteen in commercial print, showroom, fitting (including for Ralph Lauren personally), look books and television, Sara has seen the modeling world morph into something quite different than when she first came on board.

"All the models looked like models," she says of the supermodel era in which she began as a young teen. "You knew they were models. Modeling right now is just so different. It's a lot more work and a lot less pay."

The Florida native and French-speaking Sara came to the business through a regional competition.

"I won The Look of the Year for South Florida," she says. "It was an Elite/John Casablanca contest. I didn't go for the whole thing because my family didn't want me to go. I was only fourteen at the time. They didn't want me to go to Japan at fourteen for the finals."

Eventually, she did go to Paris, which would feel like a fairy tale at any age, but Sara was all of eighteen.

"At eighteen, I was self-sufficient. It was a total fairy tale. When I went to France I did well and had my own place in what was still a foreign country to me."

After her stint in Europe, she came back to Miami and worked for catalogs.

"In the early nineties, it was just making-money time," she says. "It's different now. The economy has changed."

Technology has changed as well.

"Now, with digital photography, every click can take forever," she says. "You are standing there longer due to the fact that the whole editing team is there, debating about which shot is the shot and that kills the spontaneity that once existed when it was just the photographer and you.

"Digital film changed everything. It made models who wouldn't normally be models have the opportunity to get the look that they were after. It became more readily available to them with digital photography as opposed to the days of film. Before, it was a bit more exclusive. Now, it's like anybody's game, as long as you have the desire."

However, not all of her modeling jobs involved the camera. She made steady, major money as a fit model.

"Ralph Lauren gave me this leather coat," she says, gesturing to the jacket draped over her chair. "He gave me this with a vest, as a gift, because I was working there so much, at one point. They were so stressed over there; they always treated him like the king: 'Ralph is coming. Ralph is coming!' And I'm like, 'just calm down, please. I work with him every day too, just like you. Why do you guys flip out like this?' Ralph was really a gentleman. A class act. Now looking back at it I probably would be as stressed as they were. He truly is a legend in design."

What also makes her happy is her burgeoning painting career, which is gathering steam downtown.

"I was getting really frustrated with modeling," she says of her eventual artistic inspiration. "You have people poking at you and touching you all day, pulling on your hair. But they are not really talking to you like a human. Those were the times then: 'Oh, she is just a model.' It left me where I needed to express myself. I started painting portraits of the other models I was working with.

"I'm self-taught. I started painting the Russian models who have the whole seduction thing going on, or the girls who pretend they're your best friend but they really have an agenda. I just wanted to remain me. I didn't want to be taken advantage of anymore, that's why I started painting those portraits. It's scary, but that was the true soul of most of the models I was working with. But I had to continue to model because that's how I was supporting myself.

"In '95 and '96 is when all the Russians started coming," she says, "and they were really competitive. They would do anything. They had an air of class and education, but they were also more desperate then we spoiled Americans at the time. Now you have the Brazilian and the whole South American allure going on."

In addition to selling her paintings (she recently sold one for upwards of $6,000), she also continues to book a great deal of commercial work, including television spots for Marshall's and Kohl's.

"I've spent thirteen years in New York, but I've always had another job. I would be playing gigs in a band, or I'd be doing art shows on the side. Or getting my license for this or for that or interior decorating work. I was always pushing myself to do other things.

"My schedule was so up and down that every time I would take a course or do this or that, like a real estate license, which I did get eventually, I had to put it on hold. Or I would have to do a shoot for Elle magazine and have to go on a trip for ten days. Some out of the blue booking. I can really use that money, maybe next month or who knows when."

On the eternal stress of attending castings, she says, "You just need to stay focused on what it is that the clients want, and what it is that you're there for. Don't look around at the other people who are there, who you are up against. Don't think of it as a contest. Just think of it as what the client wants and just portray that. You are just an actor in a weird way. You behave the part of what they want. If you're going in for Crest, you are going to be smiling a lot. You are not going to be an airhead about things, but you are just going to be happy and smiley and pleasant. Focus on what it is that the clients want, not that it's a competition."

For more about Sara, and to see some of her artwork, go to www.saraconca.com.