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PI LUNA | AN ARTIST’S STATEMENT
PI LUNA | AN ARTIST’S STATEMENT
To me, recycling is more than repurposing our stuff. It is about radical transformation on all levels, including the mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual realms.
When I get an idea for a piece, I often choose something in my life or our society that I want to heal or transform. Then I grab magazines and start chopping. With each clip of the scissors, I imagine cutting up the problem. I break apart the ideas, emotions, and belief systems that hold me back. The magazines, often loaded with cultural conditioning, get so destroyed by my process that the messages are no longer coherent. Fragmented, they lose their power.
What is left is simply a pile of scraps. From there, I create something new—something lifeaffirming. Piece by piece, I assemble an image that feels alive and full of possibilities. I often choose nature as my subject matter because it symbolizes our most natural and harmonious state. It represents how I want to be: interconnected and whole.
“Sine of the Moon”—About This Issue’s Cover
Is time linear? Or does it follow a different pattern? As an entrepreneur, I wear many hats— from making art to marketing, bookkeeping, fulfilling orders, shipping. It’s a lot to manage and trying to make it fit nicely into a consistent linear calendar never seemed to work. I seemed to find myself pushing when things were slow and overwhelmed when things were busy.
Seeking a new way of approaching time, I looked to nature for inspiration. The moon showed me another way. Time is a wave—half light and half dark.
Ever since, I’ve been experimenting with time by mapping my to-do lists with the moon. When it's full, I focus on more outward tasks, like networking, events, marketing, and sales. When the moon is dark, I focus on the internal tasks, like cleaning, making art, bookkeeping, and planning. My stress levels have gone down, my productivity has gone up, it's easier to focus, and I feel more in sync with the natural rhythms of the Earth. The moon’s energy is a gift to all of us and we can use it to help us in our daily lives.
At first glance, Pi Luna’s art looks like paintings. But come up close, and you’ll start to see the textures and shapes. She cuts up tiny pieces of paper from the pages of recycled magazines and arranges them into works of art. She first developed her process when working on her M.F.A. at Goddard College. Originally a realistic oil painter, Pi wanted to explore metaphor and storytelling in her artwork. She started branching out to explore new media, working in acrylic and mixed media. Eventually, she discovered paper and fell in love. Learn more at pilunaart.com.
