Today we’d like to introduce you to Sarah Pigion.
Hi Sarah, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
When I was a kid, my family moved around a lot. This was initially uncomfortable for me but became a routine I voluntarily continued as an adult. After graduating college with a performance degree, I was hired to work in Tokyo and then NYC before coming to LA to pursue work as a singer-songwriter. I’ve been in LA over a decade now, longer than anywhere I’ve been my whole life, so California is definitely a place that has stuck with me. I still have the urges to pick up and start anew, but as an adult, I’m finding those impulses are cues that it’s time for something in myself or my life to shift, rather than for me to seek out a new place.
I am a person of many passions, and I have done my best to stay true to the urges that motivate, inspire, and strike me with awe. This is sacred for me. So as I mentioned staying put in LA, I have ventured through many paths that have challenged and shaped my way to the life I have now as a visual artist.
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?
Some places have been smooth, but I feel my path has been more divergent and littered with value tests. I don’t believe suffering is a requirement for creativity, but I do believe experiencing pain informs us about our truth and increases our appreciation for beauty in whatever form. The act of creating can also be incredibly healing in itself.
My struggles have influenced both my professional and personal experiences. As a working artist, I have sacrificed the financial security that I might have had with another career. Yet, through this process, I have called upon my other skills and interests. As a performer, my body was my instrument, and I learned how to train, maintain, and care for it. The working complexity of the body became a muse, and I began studying many healing modalities including Pilates, bodywork, energy work, and CranioSacral Therapy. If I hadn’t had the necessity of putting a roof over my head in between and alongside the ups and downs of my artistic path, I might not have grown as much as I have in this area.
One critical passage for me personally was becoming a mother nearly four years ago. I wanted dearly to have a child, but I suffered through some physical and mental health challenges in the postpartum period. I don’t have any family in the state, so when the pandemic hit and my daughter was 11 months old, my work shut down, and my marriage fell apart all within a two-week period, it made an already tough situation pretty dark. I questioned everything. I focused on surviving a day at a time.
As things trudged on, I felt a stronger obligation to provide stability for my daughter in the long term. All of my artistic pursuits began to feel selfish. I felt the need to be of service to the world I saw around me falling apart. So, in the summer of 2020, I started taking the premed classes I would need to go to osteopathic medical school. My discipline and love of learning served me through late nights and challenging projects, but a year later, I was burnt out, and a large part of me ached to create and connect with the world.
I dropped my classes and devoted that entire time allotment to painting. Alone with a small child at home, I could disappear into my little studio after she’d go to sleep. In that quiet dark, I began finding myself again. My worlds of observation, physiology, neuroscience, energy process, motherhood, and healing circled together. I renewed my trust in my creative impulse and did my best to follow without judgment.
Deliberately showing up for myself in small honest acts cascaded into opportunities to show and sell my work.
We’d love to learn more about your work. What do you do, what do you specialize in, what are you known for, etc. What are you most proud of? What sets you apart from others?
My current work is exploring the continuity of form and movement of our internal and external environments. At first glance, this might be physical, but it applies to the mental and emotional layers as well. I feel we have become separated in many ways from our natural origin, and this work seeks to bridge that gap, as a way of remembering.
In my process, I source materials found in the natural world, usually plant, stone, or crystal, that remind me in some way of our own cellular forms, and then arrange them on panels with layers of paint. I bring my own vision and intention, but leave room for the materials to show me how they want to land.
The nervous system and the embryological process are a strong influence, as are my hikes in the mountains around LA, and tending my little yard. I have a series that highlights individual neurons, called “neuron dances”, a series for the glial cells, our central nervous system’s lymphatic system, called “support and repair”, and a series that follows cells through process, called “cycles and transformation”. These works have long been on wood panels, but I am currently putting forth new work on metal.
I am most proud of the moments of awe and connection I have shared with others while exhibiting. There has been discussion, tears, hugs, laughter, ponderation, calm, and joy. It is my hope that these works can continue to be a tool for attunement.
I am looking forward to sharing new work March 30- April first as part of The Other Art Fair, which will take place in Santa Monica at the Barker Hangar.
What were you like growing up?
I was a super shy child. I loved to daydream, wander through the woods, get my hands dirty, challenge my body…that much hasn’t changed! My interests especially through dance, music, and art were outlets to express myself, which ultimately led to me feeling more comfortable in my own skin and connecting with others.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.sarahpigionstudios.com
- Instagram: @pigion_musings
Image Credits
Stephen Borasch
