Today we’d like to introduce you to Sara Luna.
Hi Sara, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
I was born in Chile, and since I can remember I’ve been involved in everything related to the arts.
I grew up knitting with the women in my family and helping my mom with the designs of new lamps. She owns a lamp factory, and the entire process depends on her: from coming up with a new idea, finding suitable materials, fabricating the lamp, and then coming up with a way to mass produce it.
In Chile, we don’t have 40% off coupons so you have to constantly be thinking outside the box to get what you need.
Throughout the course of my studies, I began to experiment with a variety of materials, from watercolors to digital tools until I found my niche with punch needles. When I moved to the US in 2018, I rediscovered the technique and honed my skill.
For the last 4 years, I have perfectioned my style of greyscale portraits, creating a style that is easy to identify.
Later, I started to experiment with dyeing my own yarn and later creating colored pieces. Using my two degrees, I mix the digital and the analog to create unique pieces.
My last discovery was the spinning world. I was gifted a spinning wheel for my birthday in 2021 and since then, I’ve been making my own yarn. Starting with the same white roving each time, I dye, spin, and create a wide variety of yarn and textures, which I use to create my pieces.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back, would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
We all have struggles in our lives and for me, art its been a safe place to hide. I never expected life to be easy as an artist. I didn’t even know that being an artist was a real career.
You can study arts in Chile, but that doesn’t mean that you will make a living. so for me being an artist was always a cool dream… “Maybe one day I will sell one of my pieces.”
When I moved to the US I realized why people call it “where dreams come true” you can literally do anything and you will find someone that will pay you good money to do it.
So a realized that making a living from art was a possibility.
By the end of 2018, I had to decide if I wanted to stay here or go back to chile.
Going back meant, probably living and working with my mom in her business, being close to friends and family, and having arts as a hobby.
Staying in the US meant having no friends, no family, no money, and barely speaking the language. But it also meant that I could be an artist.
3 years after making that decision I handed one of my pieces to Snoop Dogg and another to Michelle Morgan. I have shown my work in Salt Lake City and New York.
I am currently showing my work in the Springville museum and working on some other pieces for a gallery.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I am a visual artist and illustrator with a specialization in fiber art.
I started making punch needle portraits in my last year of college. I found this technique while researching materials for my degree project. I fell in love with it right away, but my teachers didn’t like it. They suggested I return to photography, so I put away my yarns and needles and came back to an ordinary project.
After I moved to the US, I started working with the punch needle again.
Even though I love Michaels and Joanns, I don’t like to be limited by what is available in the store, that’s why I prefer to buy white roving and acid dyes and from there I create a wide variety of yarns and textures for my work. Same with my tools, I love making my own punch needles, that way I can create exactly what I need, without having to rely on what’s available, or what someone else’s created.
Do you have any advice for those just starting out?
My advice for new artists is probably to find something that obsesses them. It could be a medium, a concept, or an idea. I think that without an obsession, it is hard to get a good body of work or even a good piece.
Also, you don’t need to use expensive materials to create art. you basically don’t need money to be an artist. Stop waiting for someone to teach you how to do something, just try a million different times until you find what you need.
to all young artists reading this, I challenge you to do this exercise: find one material (it has to be something that you can get for free) and find a way to use that material to create art. try to not spend any money, or if you need to, only buy the “glue.” Then continue with the next exercise: use the same material in 5 different ways, and create 5 different pieces of art.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.saralunart.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/saralunart/
