TiltShift, ToyCamera, CameraBag ooolala!

I love the camera Apps on my Iphone. I was browsing LK Ludwig's blog, The Poetic Eye, the other day and stumbled across her excited blogs about a bunch of Iphone camera apps. TiltShift, ToyCamera, and CameraBag are the ones I latched onto.

I stayed up WAY too late taking pictures around my dimmly let bedroom and pulling existing photos to tweak. I LOVE IT! My Iphone has just taken on a new dimension for me. I often do strange lighting, vignettes, and filters in photoshop on my desk top, but that process is removed because it is often days before I download the picts from one of the cameras. This is instant and fun! I can immediately email them to the people I am snapping.

A note about LK Ludwig. I took her 2-day class at Art and Soul Retreat a few years ago. She is magnificent teacher. On top of being an talented artist you can hear her academia background coming through. I have enjoyed her books immensely but nothing replaces taking a class from her. I learned so many basic yet flexible techniques that I could incorporate into my tool box. It looks like she is now teaching classes over the web...could be interesting. I think I might try one and report back.

On the Desk

I am working on some new Bedouins. I am attempting to do an assembly line method of constructing three at once. However, I seem to have stalled. Maybe I should give up the ghost and just finish up the hare before moving onto the wolf and the raven.

Mom gave me some detail brushes for Christmas. I cracked them open last night and OOOOlala! I have to say that if one is considering what art supplies to spend money on- brushes! For me I prefer a short handled 1-1.5" synthetic and the tiniest detail brush I can get my hands on, also synthetic. I use a big brush for most every thing. Mr. Hicks taught me long ago that if you learn to manipulate the brush CORRECTLY you can paint anything with a nice fat 1.5" brush. His mantra was "the fewer brushstrokes the better".

Over time I have come to appreciate a good detail brush for a good reason. I often want to write or draw on my work with a pen, but all of the layers make it VERY difficult. Often time I just end up ruining a good pen because it picks up paint off of the piece. So a detail brush allows me to create fine, yet dense lines that somewhat mimic pen lines.

Artist Statement

Sugar Skulls for my Office Day of the Dead Alter 2009

Here is a stab at my artist statement. I am going to revisit it this weekend so feel free to comment.

Artist Statement

Taska Sanford

My aesthetic is a defense mechanism. Places and objects that are clean, crisp, and brand new make me crazy because they appear empty to me. These pristine things drive me to crumble the edges; rub dirt, paint, wax, and oil into their corners; tear them to pieces; rearrange; and reassemble. I feel the need to fill every inch of space with color, symbols, words, and mystery. I am compelled by a burning need deep inside me to transform the objects that come into my grasp and the spaces I occupy.
Currently I am exploring two themes in my work, my relations ship with myself and with animals. I create art about myself in an attempt to explore the surprise, anger, frustration, and disappointment I feel when examining my lack of control over my life and my body. In turn I create art that reveals my relationships with animals, and how I hold them sacred. They act as my guardians offering comfort and guidance when I am at most vulnerable, examining myself. From this body of work also comes the crossover pieces that reconcile the division I experience as I swing from one state of emotion to another and back again.

What Rizo is Up To

Rizo doesn't work at Timbuk2 anymore. He got a job in the East Bay. Good for him. Sad for me. I miss him terribly. Here is is out having fun at Tahoe. Photo courtesy of May, his mommy.

And here is the bear he danced with at the Christmas party.....

To everything - a purpose: Mindfulness

Ferry from Kalymnos to Telendos, Greece - page from Greece Travel Journal

Well isn't it funny the way life fits together like little(and something gargantuan) puzzle pieces. This book is being called into existence for several reasons. The reason that will help this book be desirable to others lies in my idea of helping people extend their adventures and journeys beyond the time they catch Bart to the airport and long after they have washed the last bits of sand out of their hair. This book is about coming to be mindful of your experiences through art.

Mindfulness, Depression, and Art

One way to fight depression, a dance I am learning new moves to everyday, is through the transference of my focus from inside to outside. Instead of drowning in self doubt and self hatred I force my focus to things outside of myself. This is sometimes called mindfulness. Like many others who find themselves lost, I have learned to attain mindfulness through things like yoga, meditation, climbing, and art.

Here is where it gets interesting to me. Art helps me achieve mindfulness, but it takes acute focus to create satisfying art(I use the word "satisfying" here because the word "good" is too dangerous to throw out willy-nilly in this conversation). I find that the more I focus on my subject, internal or external, the more I look up and down from the canvas to the subject, I gain more control over how I express said subject. The tree I am drawing looks more and more like the tree in front of me. The anguish I am portraying with paint and maps grows stronger as I continuously examine my own recollections of pain.

It becomes a strange circle of defeating depression with mindfulness. I do this with art that helps me expand mindfulness. And I find one of the most effective ways to express this mindfulness is to explore my depression.

Complex, an artist book

A New Project: Travel Journals. If there is no hold, grab it with both hands.

Travel Journal: Greece

So two months after my last post I'm feeling rather guilty. I guess part of the reason why I have not put the energy into the blog recently is it seemed that I did not have too many readers, and those that did see this are people I know. I somehow thought that magically all these people would come flocking, riveted to my every word, begging for new post after post. What was the point if no one was reading this? Well I do have to admit that I am a lousy writer and when it comes to writing about my work...I am even worse than lousy.

How does Taska deal with this....? One of the best quotes I ever read was in the little newspaper you receive when you enter Joshua Tree National Park. I do wish I had saved it. The paper is typical of a US park: little tidbits on what to look for, rules, and what ranger programs are coming up. There was an article on climbing that was a little farce on climbing ratings. It said, "5.11: if there is no hold, then grab it with both hands"

Here I am grabbing with both hands. I want to write a book, and I will use my blog to work this little project out. I don't promise it will be riveting, but it will show you and me the process. Besides now the point of this blog is to write a book, not extoll the untold virtues of my artwork to a miniscule audience.

Paying Homage

Dreaming of ELECTRA



This is my Timbuk2 bag that I painted, paying homage to the primordial soup pot of western art and culture at the Acropolis. Despite the crowds it is pretty amazing up there above Athens.

Even more so at night all lit up!