ArtStorming
Ever wonder what makes really creative people tick? Where do their ideas come from? What keeps them energized? What kinds of things get in their way? In each episode of ArtStorming, we’ll explore how new ideas come to life, and how the most creative among us stare down a blank canvas or reach into the void and create something new.
Host Lili Pierrepont takes us on a journey of discovery; inviting us to ponder what drives and sustains the creative spark within each individual.
With great appreciation for music written and performed by John Cruickshank.
ArtStorming
ArtStorming the City Different: Sienna Luna
Sienna Luna, a Santa Fe-based artist, discusses her artistic journey and the influences of her New Mexican heritage on her work. She describes how she overcame the vulnerability of identifying as an artist and committed to her craft, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Music for ArtStorming the City Different was written and performed by John Cruikshank.
Ever wonder what makes really creative people tick? Where do their ideas come from? What keeps them energized? What kinds of things get in their way? Is their life really as much fun as it looks from the outside? Hello, I'm your host, lili Pierpont, and this is ArtStorming, a podcast about how new ideas come to life and become paintings, sculptures, plays or poems, performances or collections. Each episode I'll chat with a guest from the arts community and explore how the most creative among us stare down a blank canvas or reach into the void and create something new. Today, I'll be art-storming with painter Sienna Luna.
Speaker 1:As you'll hear in the early part of this episode, I first got to know Sienna when I was first here in Santa Fe about eight years ago. Over the years I've seen her occasionally at art openings and I've always loved her sweet disposition. And when I saw she was having a show at the Bobby Beals Gallery, I wanted to surprise her and say hello and see how her work had progressed over the last eight years. Well, I was the one who was surprised. I mean, I guess it's been eight years, but her work has really matured and I am so proud of her. So I asked her to do an episode on the spot and I'm so glad I did. I loved this conversation and I think you will too. Okay, so I am here with Sienna Luna. Is that your formal name?
Speaker 2:That's not your formal name because you have a different last name, don't you? Yeah, so my name, my full name, is Sienna Padilla, heinemann, luna. So Padilla is my mother's maiden name, heinemann is my dad's name and Luna is my mother's last name, which is the name that I started using when I basically when I moved out of the house when I was 17.
Speaker 1:Okay. So I mean I know you as Sienna Luna, but I wasn't sure if that was like an old plume or whatever.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly my secret identity.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, and so what I want to just start by saying is that it's so much fun for me to have you on this program because I feel like I've been watching you. Believe it or not, it's been eight years. I know it's wild. So I met you because you came to babysit for a friend of mine who had a child and was staying with me at the house, and I guess I met your mom at a book club and she and I were in a book club together and when I had this conundrum like oh my God, I've got this person visiting with a kid, what am I going to do? And your mom offered you and you walk through the door with a sketchbook and colored pencils, which was great because I think the child was three or so at the time and you guys forged a fast friendship and so we had you several times to come visit.
Speaker 1:But over the course of that I got to see your artwork kind of unfold and I bumped into you again, most recently at your very own show at Bobby Beals Gallery and um. So it's just so much fun to watch this progress. If you have, I've been to one of your other shows, I think you know. I guess it was pre-COVID, when you had it at um, uh, what was something that sort of consignment clothing store?
Speaker 2:oh, right, yeah, you came to. That was my first solo show, um, at artifact. Artifact, which is on baka street, right, yeah, they have a a cool little like gallery space at the back of their store. Um, and that was through I believe it was through Curate Santa Fe, which I'm actually working with them again next month. Oh, great as well. For the first time since about eight years ago, when we worked together for that first solo show.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's great. That's great. So what? I guess what's fun for me is that obviously you were already a blossoming artist when I first met you, but tell me how it's gone for the last eight years. Have you been able to devote yourself full time to your artwork?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so when you met me, I was pretty fresh to Santa Fe and I was really interested in starting to do my artwork more. I also learned how to do graphic design, so that was kind of my bread and butter and I would take odd jobs here and there, like how we ended up getting to hang out with each other through babysitting and I think that I really committed to my artwork around COVID. I know this is a pretty common thing for people, where they were able to lean into their passions when they had all of this extra free time. And basically it came around to nobody really needed graphic design at that time because everybody was kind of slowing down or shutting down their business. They didn't need someone to design a logo for them or a website or whatever.
Speaker 2:So I took that time to start trying to sell my work. I became a little bit more aggressive with it and I did have representation before that. I've been represented by Keep Contemporary downtown for about seven or eight years. But I really wanted fine art to become my bread and butter instead of graphic design kind of being my main, the way that I was primarily spending my days. I knew that it was time for me to start focusing on my artwork more, and so I started pushing myself.
Speaker 2:I knew I needed to push my skill, I needed to push my understanding of form and layout and all of these things, and I knew that I wanted to take a risk on myself. I felt like there was something inside of myself that needed to be illustrated. You know, and I had always felt that feeling, but I think it's really vulnerable, um, when you're creative, to say I'm an artist, you know it's like one of the biggest hurdles. And once you get comfortable saying that and owning that and everything that it comes with and um, then you know you really start to believe in yourself. Or at least I did for myself. When I started to put myself out there more confidently, um, I saw my work start to grow interesting.
Speaker 1:And so what was that internal dialogue like for you? I mean, like can you sort of play, act sort of both sides of that conversation?
Speaker 2:yeah, I think that there, that there, you know, there's like I at least felt. You know, like I'm trying to think of the right word, I apologize, no, I guess it's imposter syndrome. Oh yeah, where I did go to a community college to learn a little bit about, you know, form and figure, and that's how I learned about graphic design. But I'm primarily self-taught and so I felt intimidated owning that title of artist.
Speaker 1:Because you had a conversation that an artist was somebody who had gone through all the preliminary steps of learning how to do things or like what was what? What made you discredit this, this thing that you knew you had this talent inside you, or at least an urge.
Speaker 2:Totally. Um, I think that you know, because it is just a vulnerable space to hold and to say I am an artist, this is what I do. You have to have confidence in yourself. So it was once I found that kind of seed where I realized I would rather try and push myself out there and completely and totally fail than have never tried and put myself out there. And I've gone through different phases in my life where I felt that when I felt brave enough to start studying art even though it was just in a community college, it wasn't anything crazy I kind of denied that part of myself as I became a young adult where I wanted to find, you know, a smart job, something like that, that was a good career choice or whatever. And I just realized that I am one of those people. I'm a diehard artist. I can't help it.
Speaker 2:I, whenever I meet other artists, I immediately know it. I see it in the way that we speak, in the way that we see the world, in the way that we interact with people, like and once you make that realization, you're like okay, I need to put this time into this thing, because it's going to take way more time, way more effort, way more balls. Pardon me for um putting yourself out there because it is such a competitive field. It's an ego driven field. Um, it's a field that people don't technically need quote unquote to survive. You know's a level of um, the people who are going to be buying from you are comfortable, and you have to find those niches of collectors. And you know playing that line of how do you make work attainable for people, how do you make it accessible? Because I hate the idea that art is only for people who can afford it. Um, you know what is that fine line between surviving and having value for your work and then also, um, having value for your community. And I'm still trying to figure that out.
Speaker 2:I'm, I'm particularly interested in getting, uh, more tuned with my interest in murals. Because of that reason, because of the accessibility component, yeah, at least for me. Growing up in Santa Fe, there were different murals around town that really struck a chord in me and I think that sometimes people, they don't get the opportunity to go to museums when they're growing up, they're not raised around a lot of artwork, they don't have a palette for it, and you start to open up how expansive the world is through art, you know, and if a mural is for the community and you get to ride by it every day, it gives you a perspective on where you could be. Yeah, you know it, just it. It shows you that there's so much that the world is like this beautiful feast, you know have you seen that, um, that documentary on the female graffiti artists?
Speaker 1:no, I haven't. I can't think of the name of it at the moment, but I'll forward it to you. It's's amazing. It's women in some country in South America, but also in New York and in Brooklyn, and it's all about a conversation that they're having about the democratization of art and how they got to it and how women broke into the field of public art spaces and stuff like that. Have you gotten involved with the Lena Art Project at all?
Speaker 2:I haven't not specifically. No, um, I do work with a couple of other people locally and we're starting to um look for walls, we're starting to put murals up. Um, I've helped other people with their murals and then I've done some small ones on my own.
Speaker 1:Probably the most public one would be at the El Rey theater in Albuquerque, um yeah, albuquerque has got a huge, uh, public arts or I guess what you'd call it graffiti arts or whatever, whatever that word is for totally yeah, they have a very well organized kind of group of people that are really active in the community.
Speaker 2:Um, and I was lucky enough to be able to do a project there. That was my first fully solo kind of mural, um, so I was really proud of of pushing myself to do that and I definitely want to keep pushing myself to keep going bigger, to keep taking, you know, the jump of pushing myself to these larger ideas. Um, again, with that can fail or maybe it won't turn out the way that you hoped, but you're always going to learn something, you're always going to expand yourself. You're you never know who you're going to meet, how they're going to push you. You know how you're going to push them. You know just building that community.
Speaker 1:Well, your work, the work that I saw at Bobby Beals and that I know of your work, is it's so tiny and so intimate. Which?
Speaker 2:is one of the reasons that.
Speaker 1:Uh, I think you know we were having this conversation simultaneously. I was looking at your work at the, at the opening, and thinking to myself God, I'd love to see this in egg tempura. And I turned around and Michael Burke, who works in egg tempura, we're having about that same conversation at the same moment yeah, so you know.
Speaker 1:I, because they're like little, almost like little altar pieces. I can see them, just they, they beg that. Now that's not to say that egg temper can't be done in a larger format. Sure, I can see how this, the style of your work, would lend itself to very, very big, but you're comfortable going from little, little little to wall size.
Speaker 2:That's pretty amazing yeah, I mean it's. It's been a learning curve. I feel pretty comfortable with it. It's been more about um resources and also um, the more big paintings that I paint, the less storage space that I have. So I think I've been trying to find that happy medium. Um, the reason why the pieces for this show were so small is because Bobby Bobby Beals, who um curated the show, um, we started talking about the idea for this show about two and a half months ago. So, to produce five paintings in a short period of time, I wanted to make sure that I was able to imbue them with the detail that I wanted, the level of quality and craftsmanship that I expect from myself, and I knew that I could produce five pieces in that period of time if they were fairly small. Well, the beauty of that size.
Speaker 1:Is that somebody like me who's bursting at the seams with artwork? I can find a place to stash a little piece. I can make a place for that. It's harder when I fall in love with a piece that's too big for my space.
Speaker 1:It's a problem and it goes back to what you were talking about trying to strike that balance between making something that there's a demand for and you were talking about it in a slightly different way, but when you were saying that, it made me think of this thing I saw today. Apparently there's a new scientific study out that says that and they can measure human emotions and that the strongest emotion that emanates from any human being in terms of vibrational frequency is authenticity, and I love that.
Speaker 2:I love that Because authenticity is.
Speaker 1:You know. I think it's something that you know. I can spot it a mile away. Most people probably can. Yeah, I didn't know that, which you obviously are. And that leads me sort of to my next question, which was how did you find your particular voice and style and how did you know it was yours?
Speaker 2:um, well, I would say that maybe that is one of um the sources of luck I've had in my career is that, while I've had to grow my skill, I've had a natural style my entire life, um, and I think that I've expressed my experiences through my work, my entire life, and so finding a voice for my work, um, it felt like it was something that naturally came, although I do feel that, specifically with this particular show, I did go with a very vulnerable thematic line throughout each of the pieces, in that it's about my, his, my familial history in New Mexico and also during a time when I'm kind of mourning the loss of my grandmother no longer living in New Mexico, and it was something that we did as she's getting older, she needed to be closer to more family.
Speaker 2:She's in Arizona and it was ultimately the best decision.
Speaker 2:But there was something there, and I feel like, if you're New Mexican I've talked to a lot of New Mexicans about this that if you're New Mexican, you feel this really deep connection to um, the land here and to the culture here, um, and there's no other place that's quite like it.
Speaker 2:You know, it's its own little bubble. There's something really special and I'm biased because I'm from Santa Fe, I'm from New Mexico, I'm from northern New Mexico, um, but there's something really special, and I'm biased because I'm from Santa Fe, I'm from New Mexico, I'm from Northern New Mexico, um, but there's something really special here, and I know that whenever I lived anywhere else, I always felt like a piece of myself was missing, and when I would come to visit New Mexico, I would mourn it when I would leave, when I'd go home, um, and so I mourn that for her and that she can't be in her homeland in her final years, and this was where she was born and raised as well yeah, yeah, this is where she was born and raised and where she spent the majority of her life Albuquerque not Santa Fe, but just New Mexico as a whole.
Speaker 2:I think was it had a very deep connection for her. And so, you know, it's about maybe what accepting what is, what is versus what you hope would be, um, and also commemorating, like this, this sense of beauty that I received from her. You know, um, she's not someone who had a lot of resources, but she always made things so beautiful, so special, um, and something about that palette transferred to me, and so I feel a lot of gratitude to her.
Speaker 1:You know, yeah, yeah that's something I'm noticing since the first season has taken place. Yeah, mostly in New Mexico with mexico artists, and obviously it's come through in the conversations I've had with native artists because they had that deep sense of lineage. But it it was true of anybody that I spoke to who grew up and has generational ties to the land of an area yeah it's really.
Speaker 1:It's really. It's very powerful for me because, as somebody who grew up on the east coast and who's been incredibly peripatetic, I've lived in so many different places and I don't have that sense of rootedness. I mean, I feel it more here yeah, it called to you it did call to me, and I think it called to me because when you're, when you're rootless, yeah, the rootedness of the culture here is really comforting.
Speaker 2:You know, there's something about that that's really, really called to me I could see that I felt that way when I've gone to other places or other countries, like um the sense of pride and culture. When I was in it, um specifically in Venice for the Benali uh about six years ago, um seeing how prideful people were in their culture and their food and their language and their music, it I felt like there was kind of like a through line, but culturally, between the two.
Speaker 1:You know, in in that sense of pride and um self within your, your culture so do you feel like some of your artistic um themes are are also tied to the new mexico lineage, more of a personal iconography?
Speaker 2:I would say that specifically in this series of paintings, it definitely a lot of these like images and styles of artwork I saw as a child, like Retablos and Centarios and things like that, where you're seeing this work that's reveling in spirituality and there's like a very specific style in which it's painted. There's a very specific style in which it's carved, and I tried to kind of imbue certain images with that in the series, where it's like they're not specifically made out of wood, they're not specifically venerating saints or angels or whatever, but there is that heart of um, you know pride of this place, some of the shared iconography I mean yeah hand and the heart and the yeah, the sacred heart and things like, things that you might see in a retablo totally the fact that they're
Speaker 1:sort of have a, a flatness of, of the foreground, you know there's, there's a kind of, which is again what I think lends itself so well to egg tempura. I'm so excited to see if you decide to, to go that route. I just think it would be really interesting. And I don't know, is egg tempura a technique that is used by the traditional Spanish artists? I don't, I don't know if it is or not.
Speaker 2:I'm not totally sure. I started researching egg tempura a little bit. Um, I'm meeting with Michael tomorrow actually, um, and you can mix egg into a lot of different things. You can mix it into gouache, um, so I'm kind of curious to see where it can go, how it can be played with. Yeah, the egg is just a binder Um, and I have I'm familiar with using like powdered pigments and things like that. So I'm really curious to kind of see how I can mix egg yolk as a binder with natural pigments or, um, I'm really curious about using like earth pigments from New Mexico.
Speaker 1:I was just thinking that yeah, I was just thinking that, because they're, you know, talk about a way to connect with the land, totally connect with being here, to use those. And I mean, my goodness, you go out there and you look. I mean, when I first came to New Mexico, I remember going out to Abiquiu and seeing the landscapes that Georgia O'Keeffe had painted and of course I sort of thought they were stylized when I saw them as a young person in the museums or whatnot.
Speaker 2:And you get out here and you realize no, that's exactly the color.
Speaker 1:I mean that you really are that color. It's just, it's really what it's mind-blowing. So do you do? Um, are there places that one can go here in New Mexico and collect earth pigments, or do you have to get them through regular means like store?
Speaker 2:um, I'm not totally sure. You know, I I'm kind of a go for it and see what happens kind of person. Maybe it's also that I haven't had that formal education as much that I do whatever I can to get the result that I want. Um, and I have used like I've used holy dirt, that's from chemayo. I've mixed that in with natural pigments to make kind of like a sienna brown color and it adheres to, you know, the substrate and it binds, you know, like a regular paint would. So I'm going to just go out there and start sifting different colors of sand, start experimenting and playing and maybe adding a little bit more texture.
Speaker 2:I'm really curious to do more kinds of landscapes and things like that, and being able to incorporate the literal landscape into the piece seems appealing. And coming back to this idea of like energy, like you were talking about, and how energy has these vibrations, and it tends to be that positive energy tends to be high vibration, negative energy tends to be low vibration I'm curious to take the vibrational rhythms of the land and somehow imbue them literally into the paintings. You know that sounds really interesting.
Speaker 1:You know, that sounds really interesting. Yeah, and so in terms of, like the the um, the content of what you're depicting, where, where do those ideas come from?
Speaker 2:um, so each piece kind of comes from a lot of different places.
Speaker 2:It depends I I love to read, I love to research, um, I keep a long list of just random words and ideas and artists and things I find inspiring and I ended up making all these weird connections.
Speaker 2:You know, like, in a lot of the pieces in this particular series, the flowers are kind of glowing, for example, and the reason that they're glowing like that is it's meant to represent kind of how a bird or a bat or a bug, an animal that is seeing ultraviolet light and is seeing all of these things that we don't see, how those flowers would kind of look to them, how those flowers would kind of look to them. Um, because there's all these markings on flowers, there's all these patterns on flowers that we don't see with our eyes, that animals that can pick up this ultraviolet light, they're seeing all these like incredible spectrum of kind of like neon, incredible colors. You know, yeah, um, and so I'm curious about things like that, about all these things that we can't see. But you know that energetically, we can often sense, well, there's it reminds me of another thing, I mean when I'm scrolling through it there's this other thing I saw recently.
Speaker 1:There was a man who had a fantastic like geode rock collection, collected special specimen rocks and you know they were all in this beautiful lit case. But then there was this room, that a panel that he took us through in the video and it was another room and it looked like a bunch of sort of inert rocks, but then he turned on the black lights, or whatever it is that created what animals would see when they see these rocks.
Speaker 1:It is that created what animals would see when they see these rocks. And it went from these like bland rocks to this like psychedelic, flaccid, blacklight things, and it would be so cool if you could, like I was just thinking like, take the pigments. That are they. You know, at first glance it looks really, you know, mellow and lovely.
Speaker 2:And then you turn on the blacklight and all of a sudden the it's like lichen or something that's on there.
Speaker 1:Whatever it is that picks up in the painting would be so cool.
Speaker 1:That's such a cool idea actually to put scales of lichen onto the painting or something, or whatever these minerals are, yeah, when they're viewed through a particular type of light, take on a quality that is completely different. Actually, there's another guy I'm going to send you some links, but there's a guy up in uh taos. There's a. There's a contemporary art gallery up there and I'm you know my brain my just not thinking of the name. Why can't it's? It's right in the on that main dragon house and there is a room that you go into there and this artist's work is on the wall and you, you walk in and you see the artwork and then they turn the lights off and turn on these other lights and they're like these huge mandalas. Oh wow, crazy psychedelic stuff you need to see that too.
Speaker 1:I'm gonna send you that link please do I.
Speaker 2:I want it all, baby, I. I love knowledge and just I don't know there's. There's something so great if you learn about something you didn't know, like that morning you were ignorant too, and by that afternoon your whole way of seeing the world has changed because of just one article, or a picture or an artist that you meet, you know. It's like your reality can be expanded so quickly by knowledge, and it makes me excited.
Speaker 1:That's what's so cool about this sort of new understanding? I mean, it's a term that gets thrown around a lot, but this whole idea of quantum reality, because oh, girl, don't get me started.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, let's get started.
Speaker 1:I totally want to get started. I mean, you're going to be talking to Michael tomorrow. I mean, get ready. But that whole idea of just that, there is this, whether it's metaphorical or literal, that one second you cross a threshold and suddenly there's this whole new dimension that opens up and that's, you know, again, that can be an emotion, that can be, yeah, you know, intellectual, that can be whatever it is, but I think that that's one of the things that the artists that I've been talking to have access to this field. You know this totally and and that's where all this stuff comes from, yeah, and you know you're a conduit for it totally, I completely agree, and I think that there's a reason why.
Speaker 2:You know, like there's this idea of the collective unconscious, or you think of um. You know these images that repeat over and over again through history. You know, um, that always feel like they have meaning to the viewer and they repeat, going back all the way to like cave paintings, these certain shapes and combinations and layouts that really bond with the viewer. You know, and it's like they're imprinted in our, our mind, without us really being able to understand where they come from. You know, you don't have to learn about them to know that they're there yeah you know, the archetypes
Speaker 2:yeah, like, totally like you're thinking, jungian archetypal imagery, um, that it just connects with the viewer's heart or their soul, or whatever you want to call it, and I think it's through that collective, unconscious or subconscious, where there's all these things that we're kind of connecting to, that we're not thinking about in the front of our mind, you know, but they affect the way that we are interacting with our world. I think it's why, you know, certain colors make us feel a certain way. Again, that comes back to vibrations as well. But I just think that our, our perception of the world is affected by so many things that we don't even realize are coming at us at all times. And artists are able to maybe hone in when they're in that flow state and they're able to push something out of themselves that is so organic, and I don't think it can be learned. There's skills that you can hone, but whatever that natural flow is, it's something that's coming out of you in the most natural way possible.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it can be all five senses I mean. I think as visual artists. Sometimes we tend to think of it in terms of visual landscape or visual world. But you know, there there's a scent of smell that can ignite oh yeah thing, or a sound of music, or a bird song, or you know the the feel of different textures that you're either trying to convey or that are just inspiring you. I think that that's where it becomes so psychedelic, right? Yeah, definitely gets. There's so many places you can draw. One can draw from to get these ideas are you?
Speaker 1:do you listen to music while you're painting?
Speaker 2:yeah, I listen to a bunch of different things. I go through music, podcasts, um, audio books. For this particular series, I was listening to Tyler the creator's new work. I just listened to it on repeat over and over and over again. I tend to, when I'm doing like a specific painting or series, I'll put together a playlist of, like you know, 50 songs and listen to it over and over again until the series is finished.
Speaker 1:And how is it different the first time through versus the 14th time through? Or?
Speaker 2:Um, I feel like it kind of lulls me into a trance or something, um, where I know that when I start to hear certain chords that it's time for me to go back to that place. And I think it also makes it easier for me to kind of pull out of that place when I don't want to be there anymore, as I turn the music off and then I return back kind of to this plane, you know, because there's been other times when I've been creating and I felt like I went into the work and then I just didn't really reemerge until it was finished, and that can be kind of taxing, you know you need to, for me at least, I need to come in and out of that space to recharge.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's interesting. So there's, an inhale and an exhale process Totally.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And you have a life partner right, I do so. You're living with somebody, so it is. I imagine it would be a different type of impact on your relationship if you don't leave that space. Yeah, so, to be able to reconnect with other people and to be social, you sort of feel like you have to come out of that context and and so where do you notice? How do you know? How do you know when you're in that space or not in that space? I mean, is there a visceral kind of sensation?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I feel like I'm not as contained in my body, maybe, um, like I, and it feels like I am hyper aware, like I and it feels like I am hyper aware, but also very separate at the same time. It feels like, um, maybe I'm separating from my body into this place. It's more expansive within the mind, you know, um, because there's so many rules attached to the body and to the physical form that don't apply to your mind, you know, and to imagination and to this organic way of creating, and so, by maybe separating from my body, um, I'm able to reach that place in a more genuine way. And, um, I also just I have like chronic, uh, pain that I deal with sometimes and just health issues, and so I think, also by being able to separate into this other space, I'm not held down by my physicality or maybe what I'm feeling within my physical vessel in the moment, you know.
Speaker 1:Wow, yeah, I mean that's really interesting. So I mean it's not just interesting, it's just I'm sorry that you have the physical pain and how cool that you have a way to give yourself some relief by disconnecting from it totally yeah, um, I think when you you're living with chronic pain, it's something that probably a lot of people have to do.
Speaker 2:It's like I refuse not to live a joyful life and to, you know, succumb to physical limitations. You know, and I think that it's also, if you live in pain, it kind of makes it worse a lot of the time, especially if you're in a situation where you have, like chronic inflammation or something like I do, um, where you can't necessarily really do anything about it. You know, you kind of have to learn how to navigate with it as like a partner side by side to you.
Speaker 1:Um, what an interesting perspective, because I mean to look at you, yeah, you emanate such joy. I would never a million years have have pegged you for somebody who is suffering with chronic pain. I mean, you just don't have that scowl, yeah, anywhere. There's nothing scowly about you that's really kind.
Speaker 1:L Lili. Thank you. No, it's true, and it just makes me appreciate all the more, now that I know that, what a deliberate choice it is for you to focus on the creation part of your being instead of the limitation part of your being. That's really inspiring, sienna.
Speaker 2:Thank you, I really appreciate that. Um, it really does mean a lot, cause I, I mean, I, like I just said, I, I do want to live a joyful life. You know that that's the most important thing to me, um, in this short life that that we all have, you know, um, but it can be isolating as well sometimes, because I think when people don't know what's going on within you, um, sometimes it can misunderstand you or you can feel like somehow something that, at least for me, me, I feel like this almost, um, like I'm putting on a persona or something, even though I don't mean to, because I want to live with joy. But inside, sometimes I'm struggling so hard that it feels like there's this duality of being. And how do you present who you, you truly, are, if you're suffering while still being joyful?
Speaker 2:And so I'm able to do that through my work, I'm able to take all these experiences and maybe day-to-day hurdles that I'm going over, and I'm able to imbue it in the work and hopefully, connect is what I hope to do. And hopefully connect is what I hope to do is that, if other people are, they're feeling joy, they're feeling suffering, they're feeling all of these complex feelings that they'll be able to pick up on that in the work and they will hopefully feel held by it. And I really appreciate that. You said there was something almost like an altar, that these pieces kind of felt like altars to you, because I've been, I've been really thinking about altars and these places that can hold space for people. I give gratitude every day where I talk to my ancestors, where I ground myself, um, where I feel like I can be very genuine in, where I am, um. I hope to give people that through the work somehow, even if I'm not doing it yet, it's something I'm working towards.
Speaker 1:Well, you know, wow, I mean I think of also, you know, altars as being a place where we can, where we make sacrifices and you're sacrificing your pain in order to transmute it into something else.
Speaker 1:And I think that the more you start to feel real comfort with bringing the pain, to feel real comfort with bringing the pain whatever is there, or grappling with it or struggling, I think that's what's going to bring the authenticity even more to your work. You're doing it anyway, but I'm just saying that. You know, I think that one of the things that happens as you get older and I am older than you, but you know's that you you sort of just come to terms with the fact that this idea that life was supposed to be one way, and you know, just like that's out the window.
Speaker 1:You know, it is what it is, and then you realize that it's up to us. It's up to us each individually to to choose what, how, what interpretation of it we're going to give. And so you're already in the practice of choosing the way that you're choosing and. And yeah, I mean, I don't know what else to say about that, except that there is something you know without wallowing in the pain, yeah, to address it and to feel it and give other people permission to feel theirs, yeah, is part of the celebration of life, really.
Speaker 2:Totally. I think that that is what pain can bring you, so into your body, in such a way that you can feel every cell you know and, um, it can give you this presence of where you are and a gratitude for life and also an understanding that this time again, like I said, is so finite and I think that's why it's such a theme in my work is this cycle of life and death and this connection to this greater kind of living being. That is all things you know. It's something you become very comfortable with when, maybe, especially if you're like younger and you start to have all these chronic issues, like it's something your friends aren't necessarily experiencing yet.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know, because you're kind of young to be as as well versed in this dichotomy of life and death, and you know and not to say that it doesn't happen. But I mean I I became aware of it because I lost my parents at a very young age. You know, there are various different things that can trigger that. And I guess chronic pain.
Speaker 2:that's another way in to understanding this duality that exists, that can be transcended which is obviously what you're working to do and are doing successfully is transcending this dual nature, definitely yeah, I think that having lost early in life I lost my brother as well when I was really young and I think having that understanding of somebody is there and then they're not, and having to suss through that with a really young brain when you don't really understand what life and death is yet, it kind of does give you that root within yourself of trying to understand it and work through it in your mind, maybe earlier than other people do. That don't have you know loss like that at an early age.
Speaker 1:Were you drawing when you lost your brother? I mean, was that part of your life?
Speaker 2:I've just been creating my entire life. Both of my parents are creative. My mom was a living artist for a period of her life. My dad is. He has an incredible natural talent for art and was an arts trader for many years. Um, so I think that, just growing up with that palette from an early age, there was, you know, music and art and books and good food in my home. You know, my dad is like he was really good at taking very little and making it feel very decadent, you know? Um, so, like I, I feel very grateful to both of my parents that they expanded my palette in these ways at an early age. So I was always curious about art and creating and, um, wanting to express myself in a visual way.
Speaker 1:Did you? Did you use it, though? I guess what my question was kind of did you use it to to work through the confusion or loss or whatever you couldn't figure out about the loss of your brother Um? Was that not necessarily something that was available to you at that time?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I, I mean, maybe I did in a subconscious way. Um, at that time in my life there was a lot of different changes going on. There was a lot of loss happening there. Well, there was a lot of movement, and so it felt like there was a lot of compounding experiences that I kind of had to start facing as an adult. Um, that were all kind of packed very closely together, and so it's like the loss of my brother was kind of woven in with a lot of other things. Um, so being able to pull them apart, you know, it's kind of like um threading a tapestry or something. They're all so tightly woven together that, um, I think that through work, I'm kind of reacting to these things as a whole. Maybe, yeah, Versus one individual loss or something.
Speaker 1:Well, and my experience is also that these things kind of happen in waves over decades, Totally yeah, and that you'll get a perception one day that comes from an event that happened years before, one day that comes from an event that happened years before and suddenly it'll just kind of come into into uh, relief and or into perspective, and all of a sudden there's a different take on it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, totally. I think that the more experience you have, these things, these experiences are like little pieces of yourself and they go dormant for a while and then they'll come back in a cyclical way, you know, whether they come up at certain times of the year or when you're in certain places on the globe. It's like they're waiting to reemerge and to be worked through in a way where you're like ready to see them. You know, and they're they're such a vital part of what makes you who you are that I always feel welcome.
Speaker 2:When these experiences like come back, I'm like thank you, you know, like I feel like I know myself a little better and maybe can connect to my parents better, my better, my ancestors who are no longer here. You know, like there's things in my great, great grandmother that my grandmother sees in me. You know, like all while I was growing up, she's like oh, this reminds me of her, that reminds me of her, oh, you look like her. And to feel like these um, roots of these people in me living in me, um, I feel grateful and proud of it, but also like when these memories come back cyclically, those roots are in you, you know, and you're able to just feel the sense of like identity and self and also like, maybe under like, forgiveness of your parents and love for your parents and for the humanness that we're all connected by. I don't know, I feel like I'm kind of ranty, I'm sorry.
Speaker 1:No, it's beautiful and, as you're talking, I'm thinking about, and it just keeps. It just keeps unfolding and keeps getting. You know, every decade that goes by you know you have yet another perspective and you know those cyclical things that you're talking about. I can relate to so much. Totally have that experience and I'm wondering so, when you're working on, you know you're in this phase, you're in this thing, and this idea or this new point of view or new frame of reference suddenly comes up up. Do you have a way of capturing that? Do you keep a notebook so that you know you might say, okay, muse, or whatever, right, right, I need you to just sit there for a second while I finish this and then, or do you just hop right over and address that?
Speaker 2:um, I would say that it's kind of a mixture'll. I'll just write random little things that come to me in my journal, um, or I would say, my sketchbook. I don't keep like a, you'd say, a formal journal where I'm writing every day or every week, um, but when memories come to me or I think about something, like I smell something, and this memory just comes past really quickly, I want to capture that because I know that it's something that's fleeting, um, and that it's like this old, old memory that's not going to be there for very long, um, but I often I'll sketch, or when I'm reading something that kind of makes me think about a memory, then I'll kind of try and write about what am I interconnecting between these two subjects, like, what is the connecting line between these two things? It's going to become like a visual manifestation.
Speaker 1:Right, and when you go back to those things, say you know, say it's, you've scrolled away and you've had that, are you able to then recall? Are your notes or scribbles, or whatever you do with it to to capture the yeah, sufficient to take you back to that place when you come back to it?
Speaker 2:yeah, I would say so, um, because there's such tangible memories. It's like if I have those little things that kind of remind me of them, they come back to me definitely, like those visceral anchors. Yeah, yeah, like, um, just like memories from childhood or like going on specific adventures with, like, my grandmother or my dad or my mom, like these things, especially about this terrain. That's what's felt really alive in my memory since I've been painting these five pieces.
Speaker 2:Is, you know, memories of northern New Mexico, going up to, like Tierra Maria with my grandma visiting the Luna side of our family, my great aunts and great uncles, and what the church looked like there, what the church smelled like there, what the one bar in the middle of town, like the scraping of the chairs and the way people greeted my great uncle, you know, because it's this small town and he was kind of like he'd walk in, he was like the dawn, you know, and he'd flirt with all these women and it's just like these really specific things, like the smell of like almost like box wine on his breath or the smell of pozole cooking and um I don't know well, and those are such unique experiences because I can tell you, growing up in new york city, I don't have.
Speaker 1:Well, and those are such unique experiences because I can tell you, growing up in New York City. I don't have those kind of things, right. So I mean, but say a little bit more because it's so romantic for you know, people sitting and listening, wherever they're listening and sitting, you know, describe a little bit more, because it just piqued my interest, like what specifically about the church? What specifically about the church? Was it the smell of the frankincense from the altar? Or was it more specific to New Mexico?
Speaker 2:Well, I would say I haven't been in a ton of churches necessarily. I've been in some of the really famous ones in Europe, in New York, but none of them smell the same as the churches in New Mexico. I would attribute it one to the smell of the candles. There's kind of like this rose smell. I don't know if that's. It might just be kind of like a Catholic church thing, but I would say, specifically, the most unique scent that I get from churches in New Mexico is the smell of dirt, and a lot of times there's dirt floors and then there's also the adobe walls, and so there's like this temperature change when you walk into a church. That I think is really interesting.
Speaker 2:I'm not personally religious, I wasn't really raised religious, but I do find spirituality fascinating, um, and I do find it interesting how people interpret that feeling of spirituality and the iconography that comes with it and the way that people venerate this feeling by making these big empty echoing spaces for that feeling, um, and all the art that comes with it.
Speaker 2:You know that it was. You know, historically, the way that a certain demographic of people you know, ie poor people is the only time they really got to see art in their life, except for, maybe, things they made within their own home, you know. And so that expansive feeling of being able to see something beautiful, um, it's in these spaces and it's stayed that way for hundreds or thousands of years. And you can feel this like energetic change, this hushed kind of feeling when you walk into these places and there's just something really special about that. Even if you aren't Catholic or Christian or whatever, there's just something to that, at least for me, that I think is really sacred and beautiful, and I've seen how it can hold people when they have insurmountable pain or loss or hardship.
Speaker 2:They have to turn to something bigger than themselves, you know, and these places can hold that for them, know they can go and they can be really vulnerable and they can work through that loss or feel hope, or cry out to the heavens for help or whatever it is, you know, and it's like a place that they know they can always go and and it will be available to them yeah, I love that about the churches in New Mexico.
Speaker 1:They're so accessible. There's a different quality than going into a cathedral in Europe where you know you have the you feel really small. Here you feel really hugged. You know it just feels really intimate, like you were saying.
Speaker 2:And there's always the smell of piñon, which I don't know if that you that's something, that that you that's something that that you um pick up on, and I don't mean necessarily burning wood piñon, but just like the smell of juniper, and piñon is something that I'm very aware of here in new mexico oh, definitely that makes me think of more like the ferrito walk and, um, you know, the big bonfires and everything that people are standing around, um, and that really specific day, you know, right around christmas when you go and you walk this walk that people have been doing for such a long time, you know, and the idea of feralitos even is like very foreign to people until they come here. You know, it's basically only in new mexico, basically only in santa fe, that you see them, um, and so that smell tell people who might not know what feralitos are.
Speaker 2:Right, yes, okay, so feralito is. Or some people call them luminarias. My family says that is wrong.
Speaker 1:I don't know, I don't know, I'm not gonna well, after you say what you're gonna say, because I I've always heard that the fires were one thing. My family says that is wrong. I don't know, I don't know, I'm not going to die on that hill After you say what you're going to say, because I've always heard that the fires were one thing and then the other.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's what I always thought too, but fernitos are basically, they're little paper bags that have sand and a candle in them, and they typically line the edges of walls, of the flat kind of roofs that you see here along the roads, and there's specifically a ferralito walk that happens downtown on canyon road, where all of the galleries are, and the ferralitos cover all the buildings and there's just this almost like twinkling fairy light everywhere, um, and then there's what I would call luminarias, which are the bonfires, um, which are positioned, you know, every block or so, and there's people standing around them. There's people singing, laughing. It's this very like communal feeling. Um, even though it does draw a lot of tourists, I do feel there's a very strong, uh, vein of locals that still come every year to do the walk and to stand around and to catch up. And, um, there's also like this artistic element, because it is around all the galleries that I love.
Speaker 2:The galleries are usually open and there's people playing piano and there's such a feeling of what the holiday is in a more ancient way than maybe a more like consumer based, kind of like contemporary idea of what Christmas is or the holidays. You know. Yeah, that I really like and that smell of pinyone and juniper and stuff is super tightly like tied into that that memory for me. And like walking when I was, you know, really small, like with my parents, with my brother, with a lot of our friends, my parents would have these, like you know, big parties and stuff, particularly particularly around those times, and that's when we would, um, we would do the walk, and so it's like it brings back that really tangible memory for me.
Speaker 1:Yeah yeah, well, it's amazing for me to think of somebody you know is being born and growing up here and having that is just like their. I mean, I used to come visit when my mother moved out here in the late 80s. You know I'd come for christmas and it was the highlight of my my visit out here in the late 80s. You know I'd come for Christmas and it was the highlight of my my visit out here, and now that I live here I've gotten to enjoy it. But you know, thinking of you as a little person growing up and having that was your Christmas and and you know Indian market was and the Spanish market and all these summer markets were like that was just the background of your life.
Speaker 2:That definitely was in a big way, specifically because of my father um, because he was, he was an art trader. That was how he ended up in the seventies here, um. My familial lineage that goes back multiple generations is on my mom's side, um, and so my dad um was, so he fell in love with the culture here the second that he came here and I can see in him this really genuine appreciation for what Santa Fe is. You know, like he isn't here, but he has this deep love for this place and it's never faltered, like once he came here. He's like this is it, this is my place, and he was able to um really express that love through meeting a lot of artists, through invest, like trying to um I don't know like raise up really young artists that he met, take a risk on them, and he was doing this with not a lot of resources himself. You know he was just like a very big risk taker and would just kind of take like the plunge. You know to go.
Speaker 1:That's where you get your risk taking.
Speaker 2:Yeah, probably.
Speaker 1:I feel like I have a lot in common with my dad in that way yeah, probably, I feel like I have a lot in common with my dad in that way. Yeah, well, you are absolutely the quintessential Santa Fe artist. No, it's great. It's really wonderful, and I'm so glad you got to be a part of this series yeah, thank you so much.
Speaker 2:It was an honor to um, you know, be able to speak with you and I had a really good time.
Speaker 1:Me too, yay Yay. Thank you so much Thank you Well. Thanks for joining us today. Please like and follow us on ArtStormingorg, where you'll find a list of our shows, a transcript of this episode with links to the guest page, as well as our other projects. Art Storming is brought to you and supported by ArtBridge and listeners like you. Look for us on your favorite podcast platforms.
