Kuna women observe, transform, and represent their world, creating designs drawn from the local environment, global media, and the spirit realm. Few of the world's artistic traditions represent their respective cultures as exhaustively as do molas. The molas constitute a creative realm in which elements of the past are combined with contemporary realities. Images are not merely copied onto cloth...they are transformed into something uniquely Kuna.

- Dr. Mari Lyn Salvador, from the Art of Being Kuna exhibit script