We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Sasha Casta a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Sasha, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Can you talk to us about how you learned to do what you do?
When I first started photography, I wanted to mentor under every photographer who’s work resonated with me. I wanted to marinate in their creative wisdom and hope to absorb their insight and ability to create powerful images. I’ve had some truly incredible mentors, but those who helped me most were those who pointed me back to myself. Art is subjective, and what makes an artist brilliant is not in who they study under, but in their willingness to unearth themselves in the name of art. If we as artist’s keep our work at arms length because we are afraid to show ourselves, we are doing our work a disservice. People don’t resonate with artist’s who appeal to everyone, they resonate with artist’s who speak from the power of their own experience. But in order to speak to our own experience and translate that into our work, we have to first look at our own stories and view them as worthy of sharing. Our creative eye depends on the acceptance of and the immersion in our own stories. I don’t believe that artist’s can tell other people’s stories. All we can do is find the connection point between someone’s story and our own, then illustrate that. Learning your craft is an exercise in self-acceptance; accepting where we are in the moment, where we came from, and where we long to be. When I realized this, my photography began to feel authentic and in integrity with who I am in my bones. But I also believe that learning your craft is a lifelong experience. The moment you stop learning is the moment you stop growing as an artist.
I have two pieces of advice for those who want to grow in their craft. The first is to apprentice under failure. Trust that failure is not a commentary on your worth as an artist, but is an indicator of effort. The more you fail, the more effort you are giving to your craft. Failure is only failure if you give up. If you do not give up, if you engage with the messy process of trying new things and you continue to do so, what you are doing is learning what does not work, which means you are that much closer to learning what does. I felt this way when I was learning how to use slow shutter creatively – which has a painfully personal learning curve. You have to experiment in order to discover what motion blur happens at each shutter speed in relationship to the movement or your subject as well as yourself. This process results in alot of shit photos. But you learn.
The second piece of advice I have is to immerse yourself in your own story. Where did you come from? What parts of your childhood shaped how you view yourself? What are you living now? What are your struggles? What parts of your experience haunt you? What questions or challenges do you have that long to be answered? What do you find beautiful? You should be the anchor of your own artistic experience. Stop looking outward for inspiration or validation and go inward. The deeper you go, the more personal and impactful your work will be. Every artist should be self-absorbed (not self-important); completely immersed in their own view of the world.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
Half-feral, earth-mystic with a thirst for academia, I tread the boundary between modern knowledge and wild knowing. Raised in poverty without basic essentials (like electricity or running water), I learned the kind of gratitude forged by attunement to nature. But I ran away from my humble roots, desperate to separate myself from the dirt I thought was my identifier as a poor person. In an attempt to put a name to my stories, I got a BA in English with an emphasis on Mythology and Psychology, but quickly realized that words often fail to communicate the depth of our human experience. Photography was for me, a reclamation, a coming home to who I was in my bones. The moment I turned my camera around and started photographing myself was the moment I stepped onto holy ground; that sacred space of healing that art offers us. Gone are the days when Mind rules over Matter. What the world needs is artists who are making logos take the backseat and sinking down into their bodies where our most primal wisdom dwells. I want to start a revolution inside of you that alchemizes how you view yourself and how you tell stories.
Are there any books, videos, essays or other resources that have significantly impacted your management and entrepreneurial thinking and philosophy?
I could write a dissertation on this question, but I will try to narrow it down.
Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way. I read it when I first started photography and it helped shaped how I view the creative process as well as how I approach my own story with art. I remember her inviting the reader to write alternate lives for themselves, then challenged the reader to find ways to incorporate those lives into our now. One of my alternate lives was a forest witch and that’s the life I chose to integrate into my current one. I began studying the history of paganism and animism which led me to the most profound and beautiful indigenous ideologies of the connectivity of nature and her cycles.
Another powerful book I read that shapes my artistic ideology is Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer. It challenged me to consider how I might live my life in alignment with nature, and in doing so, create a truly artistic life. Life itself can be art, and everything we create artistically stems from the way we live our everyday.
Sally Mann’s Hold Still was pivotal for me in owning my own story and trusting that everything I needed artistically was already inside me and my experiences. I loved her insights on nudity, and the usage of nudity in images that feature children. Her insights helped shape how I view the nude in general, and the delicate nature in which we need to approach them in a hyper-sexualized world. Nudity is such a powerful artistic tool as it speaks to vulnerability and our willingness to be seen, and I aspire to create images that reflect the naturalness of our bodies and the celebration of the human form.
What can society do to ensure an environment that’s helpful to artists and creatives?
Is the crumbling of patriarchal ideas and capitalism an option? I think the best thing society can do to support creatives starts in kindergarten. Stop asking children to sit still and learn to read and write and do math at a desk at such early ages. Focus more on outside interaction with their environment and learning through movement. Teach them embodiment; to respect their instincts. Focus more on developing empathy and social skills in grades 1-3 than we do academics. Children are natural artists and critical thinkers and we educate that out of them. A deep overhaul of our public education system that focuses on embodiment and critical thinking, while fostering the unique insights of children would create not only a thriving creative ecosystem, but a beautiful new world.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.sashacasta.com
- Instagram: @iamsashacasta
Image Credits
All images by Sasha Casta.