We caught up with the brilliant and insightful DIA LUNA a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
DIA , thanks so much for taking the time to share your insights and lessons with us today. We’re particularly interested in hearing about how you became such a resilient person. Where do you get your resilience from?
At the beginning of 2020 I had recorded an EP with my band that I was excited about. I had been playing shows in great venues in Brooklyn and I finally felt like I had some palpable momentum for my solo musical releases after a long stretch of performing in collaborations. Then the pandemic happened. Like many other artists, I felt all of the stability I had created for myself slip away. The boutique jewelry store where I worked as a salesperson closed indefinitely, and my consistent touring gigs fell away as well. My community was afflicted by illness, death, loss, and uncertainty. After months of unemployment, I moved from New York back to my parent’s house in Sacramento, California. The stress and upheaval of this time also took a toll on my relationship, which ended. I picked up an 8-5 job for the first time in years, and when I wasn’t working, I wrote sad songs trying to process what had happened not only to my life but to the world. I didn’t recognize or understand anything anymore and I certainly didn’t recognize myself.
I spent a lot of time feeling very alone and very unmoored. I found solace in humble things like taking my daily walks in the neighborhood and going to a weekly dance class. I reconnected with my family and old friends, enjoying nourishing moments like home-cooked dinners and backyard film screenings. Still, my mental health suffered immensely under the idea that somehow, everything I had painstakingly built over the ten years in New York was lost. I felt like I had failed.
Eventually, as the world started opening up again, I also started to rebuild myself internally and externally. I saved enough to move down to Los Angeles, which is what I had wanted to do before the pandemic. I started to work on healing my heart and addressing the recurring thoughts, behaviors, and beliefs that made me feel disempowered. I kept dancing, and working on my songwriting and music production. As the world started to open up again, I began finding new opportunities to perform and build new relationships with songwriters and performers on the West Coast. Other opportunities found me too. During the pandemic, I created a music video for one of the songs off the 2020 EP called, “Wilderness”, with two of my closest friends, both of whom are women and incredible artists. It was selected to be screened as part of several film festivals, which was a welcome recognition for the work I had put into the song and the music video concept. This November it was also screened as part of the Bowery Film Festival. I had the opportunity to return to New York to see it screened in person in an art gallery in Chelsea.
Returning to NYC for the film festival felt like a full-circle moment for me. Of course, many things have changed since 2020. I know I will never be the same person I was before then, but I also know that not all was lost and that my journey was not in vain. Life is constantly reconfiguring itself, but we get to decide our attitudes and relationships to change. Before 2020, I was so scared to fail that I didn’t allow myself to take bigger risks or experiment because I was so caught up in my mind and so concerned with what other people might think. Now, my tolerance and motivation to push my creative limitations are much stronger because I know without a doubt that life is short. I want to create as much as I can while I’m still here, relish the process, and embody the gratitude I felt when we were finally allowed to get back to “normal” life.
Reflecting on the past three years, I have learned that the only real failures for an artist are not giving yourself full permission to try or allowing yourself to give up entirely. The path will always go dark at times, but it is important to remember that sometimes that is just a part of the process. What matters is how you allow that darkness to transform you and serve your evolution.
Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?
I am an artist specializing in songwriting, vocal performance, composition, and creative direction. I enjoy using all of the tools in my arsenal to craft music, videos, images, and art projects that connect people to the natural world and their emotional lives. Music and art are unifiers and I believe this is what makes them both sacred and essential to the human experience. I have been playing shows and releasing soulful art-pop music under the moniker, DIA LUNA. Over the past three years, I have been working diligently on a series of songs that will be released across digital platforms in 2024.
During the pandemic, I started a production company with my dear friend, and visionary photographer, Dani Gros, called The Heathen Temple. We have released three collaborative music videos together, all available on my DIA LUNA YouTube channel for viewing. Our video, “Wilderness” made in collaboration with our other dear and talented friend, Charlie LaRose, has won various awards and was featured in several film festivals including the San Luis Obispo Film Festival. Recently it was also screened at The Bowery Film Festival in NYC, where it was given an honorable mention for best music video.
Since working more with video, I have broadened the scope of my songwriting by composing for film and experimental art pieces, which has been very exciting and invigorating! I am thrilled to continue my journey as an artist, pushing the boundaries of my creative practice and improving as I go along.
There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?
Out of the many qualities I have developed in my journey, several have made meaningful impacts on my creative practice. I have always been a curious person, and I think this inherent curiosity has helped me explore and expand my artistry and also helped me assess and investigate various ways of achieving my goals. I started songwriting on the piano and would have never guessed how many hours I would later spend experimenting with a voice looper, learning Logic X and production techniques, and going deeper into other aspects of the musical process. I think staying open to new ideas, new technologies, and new ways of creating will always prove to be extremely beneficial.
Another quality I have learned to cultivate is intentional faith in the process. I have actively embraced the idea that if I’m not “failing” in some way, I’m not trying enough or challenging myself past my comfort zone. I have learned to reframe rejection as proof that I am doing the work of going out there and pitching my ideas. On my better days, I can fully view my willingness to engage in the process itself as a success and to view whatever result I receive as additional information I can use to refine my process going forward.
Finally, I would say that for me, learning to trust what I have to offer and find new ways to fully inhabit who I am authentically, both in my art and in my life has been very deep and necessary work. There was a video of a woman floating around Instagram who likened each artist to a special butterfly in the Amazon forest to illustrate the idea that all of our contributions are worthy and unique. Similarly, I often think that artistic expressions, like flowers, are all different, but there is beauty to be appreciated in each one, no matter how different they may be from one another.
What do you do when you feel overwhelmed? Any advice or strategies?
It is extremely easy to get overwhelmed, particularly as an independent artist who has to wear many hats to sustain the creative aspects of the craft as well as the business side.
I have found I work best when I take care of the daily habits that support my well-being. It is easier for me to focus when I center pleasure first, so I tend to start my days with something I enjoy, like going for a walk, or playing fifteen minutes of piano before I dive into whatever administrative tasks I have to do. At the end of my day, I make a short list of what needs to be done the following day and block those things out in my calendar so that I have a clear idea of what I need to do, and when. This helps me prioritize items that are more immediately pressing and gives me a sense of clarity when I start feeling scattered or lost.
Having friends who are artists and entrepreneurs has also been a huge help. I have learned a lot from them about practical topics like budgeting for larger projects, for example. They are also a great resource to have when I need feedback or encouragement. Part of the appeal of being an artist is having the freedom to define how I work, so I try to be my own best boss and experiment with how I can work with the most joy and efficiency. I highly recommend experimenting and finding the ways of working that will function best with your rhythms and ways of being.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.dialunamusic.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dialunamusic/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dialunamusic/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCz6FwyfLsvPqBL3J717S-4A
- Other: spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/2xfk4Hc0n5Q5C9fwr5xTUI?si=8Z6Di9iYQ_y0_KeTC1Avqw
bandcamp: https://dialuna.bandcamp.com/album/camellia
Image Credits
Dani Gros (Headshot Photo)
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