Sara Luna working in her Salt Lake City studio, where she hand-spins and stitches each piece from raw wool.

For the past year, Sara Luna’s studio has been a place of unraveling and reweaving—of grief, resilience, and unexpected companionship. Originally from Chile, the artist—born in 1991—has spent years refining her practice around ancestral textile traditions, blending them with contemporary techniques and personal storytelling. But her current body of work, ChatGPT, Tell Me What to Do With This Pain, marks a raw and transformative chapter.

After a devastating breakup and the death of her estranged father, Luna found herself turning to artificial intelligence—not as a collaborator, but as a witness. “As a fiber artist deeply rooted in tradition, I never expected to turn to AI for comfort,” she says. “This past year, I lost my relationship, my home, my pets, and shortly after, my father, who had already been a distant figure, passed away from cancer. As an immigrant, these emotions feel even more amplified. My home, my roots, my cultural identity, they exist thousands of miles away. In moments of deep loss, that distance feels infinite. Losing my partner wasn’t just the end of a relationship; it meant losing the one person who made this unfamiliar place feel like home.”

“But I began having conversations with AI to process loss, loneliness and self-discovery. What started as a coping mechanism became something more.”

That contrast—between the analog labor of hand-spun fiber and the instant response of a machine—became the conceptual thread that runs through her latest work. “I found myself navigating the strange intersection of real emotion and machine generated responses. This contrast mirrors the tension between the slow, intentional traditions of fiber art and the immediate, intangible nature of technology. Through hand-spun yarn and meticulous stitching, I’m translating this emotional confusion into fiber, weaving together elements of sorrow, resilience, and transformation.”

“Conversations,” the second work in the artist’s new series ChatGPT, Tell Me What to Do With This Pain, in progress.

The artist’s foundation in sculpture, painting, and illustration led her to fiber through punch needle embroidery. That evolved into spinning and dyeing her own yarn, giving her full control over materials. Today, her work is stitched exclusively with handspun wool, a process she sees as metaphor as much as method. “I take something loose, unstructured, and scattered, and shape it into something whole. It mirrors the human experience—messy, unpredictable, and always evolving.”

The first piece from this new collection was accepted into the 101st Springville Museum of Art Spring Salon. The second, currently on her easel, is titled “Conversations.” It continues her exploration of absence, adaptation and the unexpected places we turn to when seeking meaning.

Currently represented by Meyer Gallery, 33 Contemporary, J. Nunez Gallery, and Desert Valley Gallery, Luna’s work has also been acquired by the State of Utah for the Alice Merrill Horne Collection. She also received a Juror’s Award and a People’s Choice Award at Artists of Utah’s 35×35 exhibition in February 2024. But beyond accolades, her focus remains on connection. “I want my art to make people stop and feel something, even if they can’t put it into words. A connection. A memory. A sense of something both familiar and mysterious.”

In a time of great distance—from her partner, her family, and her home country—fiber has become a bridge. “Every piece reflects my dedication to preserving traditional textile practices while pushing their boundaries through contemporary storytelling,” she says. “It’s tactile, emotional, and personal—yet it speaks a language everyone can understand.”

An in-progress fiber portrait exploring themes of absence, memory, and identity, rendered in handspun wool.

See more of the artist’s work at her website, saralunart.com, and at instagram.com/saralunart.

Work in Progress

This 15 Bytes feature talks with artists about what is on their “easel” right now.