We are thrilled to share we’ve partnered with multidisciplinary artist Ludi Leiva to create a very limited edition tote bag to celebrate Pride Month. This June, we’re gifting a tote bag with every purchase over $500, while supplies last. In stores & online. Limit 1 per customer. We're also excited to support The Trevor Project this month, an organization that provides life-saving counseling services to LGBTQ young people. We will be announcing a special event that will support their efforts - Stay tuned for details! As a queer, Latinx artist, Ludi creates art that is inclusive, exploratory, and a beacon for positive change. We caught up with Ludi to share more about her inspiration, creativity, and activism. What inspires you as an artist? Right now the strongest force influencing my art is the desire to explore and express feelings, emotions, and consciousness. It is an outlet to bring these things into the physical realm, and that is something very sacred to me. Additionally, I'm always inspired by the idea that my work can have an impact on those who come into contact with it and that giving myself the freedom to express and create from an authentic place can have a positive influence on the world around me. Could you share how your own self-expression shines through your art? The art I create is the purest form of self-expression I can have as a person. I work in several different mediums, right now I'm mostly focused on illustration, printmaking, and painting, but I also write and make music. No matter what I'm doing though, what I create is an extension of my consciousness at that moment, it's a snapshot in time of the person I am right now and what I am experiencing. I think that sharing that honestly and authentically, putting that into physical form outside of myself, and offering it up, is what self-expression is about. Your art feels very inclusive, exploratory, and a beacon for positive change. How would you describe your form of activism? And how does it tie into your artwork? Thank you. My activism has taken on many different forms in my life, and right now I have different practices in my life, both within my art practice and outside of it, that seek to create positive change in the world. In the past, I created a lot of work that explicitly dealt with issues like environmentalism, racial justice, gender equality, and other issues that I care and feel strongly about, and sometimes I still do this type of work. But I think that my desire to make the world a better, more loving, more just place is woven into my artwork. Regardless of whether specific themes or topics are explicit in the work, the things I care about are in the work in some way because these are things that are always in my heart and mind. Ludi just finished up her MFA where she started an ongoing project called A Home is a Portal reflecting on diaspora, ancestral displacement, colonization, and migration, and whether rooting in a place is enough to conjure the feeling of home. If you're interested in following Ludi more, you can subscribe to her free newsletter to keep up-to-date with her work and practice: https://ludileiva.substack.com/ Or follow along on Instagram: https://instagram.com/ludileiva You can find a collection of illustrations "from the archives" available for purchase on Sunshine Shop, including prints, t-shirts, totes, and other merch.https://www.sunshineshop.la/collection/ludileiva/
