CANNABIS CULTURE – The sacred canna-visions of Asia Taber
Asia Taber is the owner and creative force behind High Pilot Design, inspired work that redefines cannabis art through photography and painting.
In an interview with Cannabis Culture, Taber said she loved to “make pieces that make people think cannabis, and consider whether or not it’s right for them too.”
“I think there are a lot of people that won’t allow themselves to use cannabis because of the stigma or the belief system that they’re maintaining. That is probably a false narrative, not only in society, but for themselves so.”
“I love breaking the barriers of what people think an everyday cannabis user is, and so that’s what I started to do with my art.”
Taber did not support cannabis use. Having grown up in the D.A.R.E. era as an athlete, she believed indulging would carry a stigma. In fact, after she first smoked, she told her future husband that she felt as though cottonmouth, paranoia, and munchies were not worth the high.
As a 3rd-generation cultivator, her husband knew that she was smoking “bad weed,” and after introducing her to his cannabis collective, she not only discovered the healing properties of marijuana, but also how varied it could be.
“I was so naive to anything about it, and when I walked into a grow room, I saw all these beautiful colours. I was like, ‘Oh my God, you mean this plant isn’t just green?!’”
“I quickly learned that it had a whole spectrum of colour itself, so I started to smoke better weed and experience a different aspect to the plant that I had never experienced before.”
Taber had always gravitated to art as a means of expression. Having a background of depression, anxiety, an eating disorder, and insomnia, but also being well educated and having accomplished much in her short life, she felt drawn to the idea of finding others like her and communicating to them through her art.
When she entered the grow room, she felt the calling to work with cannabis.
I’m the type of person that when I see something that I can take action on, I put my creative fingers on it,” continued Taber. “I asked my husband if he wanted me to start on an Instagram page for his work, and so on my days off on the weekend I would get creative with products and with the plant.”
At first Taber was using her iPhone 6 to take photos, and eventually upgraded to a professional camera. Her work was meticulous, gorgeous, and getting attention. However, her anxiety was not improving. It was when her husband recommended smoking a small amount before bed that she was awakened to the medicinal benefits of cannabis as well.
“I had it in my head this belief that smoking during the day would make me a ‘stoner’ and everything negative that falls under that stereotype I was trying to avoid, because I wasn’t that. I was an intelligent, hardworking woman that didn’t want to be put into this corner of, ‘She’s a drug addict, she’s lazy,’ or whatever it was that people had in mind about what a stoner is.”
Taber looks to break the stigma of cannabis in parenthood
“I suck at navigating my emotions, but when I use a little bit of cannabis, I can get anything done and nothing stops me.”
From this revelation came the name of Taber’s company, High Pilot Design. She found she could indeed be the pilot of her own emotions, using cannabis as a tool to reach new heights for mental health and social awareness.
Striking out on her own, Taber’s art began to develop into statement pieces. Some of her more recent installments have included combining flower with animal skulls.
Having been raised with a lot of Native American shamanism, she stated, “Smoke is multidimensional, and so when there are smoking ceremonies, you inhale the smoke and with that you set an intention before, and the exhalation of the smoke is helping you rid of or release the prayer of whatever it is that your intention.”
In my developmental psychology class, we were going over the seven basic human emotions,” stated Taber. “Sometimes I look back at my experience, my life experience and how much I’ve struggled and then to think about how simple it is to maybe flip between one emotion and the next, the thought of how basic it could be when I think like my emotional experience has been so complex.”
As her brother was a hunter, she watched as he would always give back something to the earth with each kill. She was particularly drawn to the skulls. “They all just had this energy to them.”
She decided to assign animals to various human emotions, naming her pieces “Anandamals,” a name that taken from the plant molecule anandamide, which stems from the Sanskrit word “ananda,” meaning “bliss.”
“Each animal has symbolism and medicine behind it, so before you consume cannabis, you can call upon one of these sacred animals to help guide you on your cannabis journey when you smoked that in that moment, so it was more of bringing awareness to having intentions with smoking.”
“Spirit animals would help guide you back to your bliss.”
Taber’s sacred anandamals highlight intentional consumption
“I would love to bring the awareness of cannabis medicine back to having intentional use when you’re consuming.”
Taber’s work with cannabis has involved sculpting and staging plants in many ways, but one of her favourite pieces thus far has been “Venus.” Originally commissioned to do a cover for a well-known cannabis magazine, she wanted to create a piece where women were given back their “divine femininity.”
“I remember being at work and Instagram had just started to get popular, and I remember looking through cannabis photos and cannabis profiles, and it was really disheartening as a female that used cannabis daily to see what was being put out there for cannabis consumers.”
“It was like highly sexualized women or it was just really poor-quality photos or just lack of creativity.”
“Media in modern times has been influenced by art culture from the beginning, and so I specifically loved the story about Venus because it was created by a male for men, and it was the very first time a female was depicted in the nude,” said Taber. “Before that, it was only men allowed to be depicted as nude because it was a sign of strength, dominance, and power.
Venus – a reflection of divine femininity
“Women were not allowed to be viewed that way, and so Botticelli did the Birth of Venus. One was more fully clothed, and the one we know today with the exposed breast.”
“My automatic vision was redoing Venus as a female artist, laying in a bed of flowers.”
Her piece later went on to grace the cover of Grasshopper Magazine in Germany and Austria, and she has future plans of creating more marijuana-inspired goddess art as a way to reach out and empower women.
Other pieces we can anticipate soon include highlighting motherhood and cannabis consumption. Taber recently had a son, and as an advocate for cannabis-based therapy, she hopes her work helps break stigmas and sheds a positive light on consumption as a parent in today’s society.
Soon to be unveiled as well is a massive painting installment in a 100-year-old building where cannabis plants are “literally growing on one of the big steel beams and then spreading out over the concrete floor.” The building has been purchased for use by a collective, and Taber is excited by the concept of “beauty in contrast between this disheveled building, but yet beautiful greenery flowers are growing and sprouting, taking over the building.”
Ultimately Taber hopes to be a beacon of change, defying society’s current standards for what both cannabis and its users look like.
Asia Taber’s cannavision has taken her to new artistic heights
“My intention with my work was to connect with people on a deeper level, like I had with cannabis, by putting out more beautiful and classy images of the plant because it was more representative of who I was.”
“What I hope my art is doing is allowing other people to see that they’re high pilots as well. Whether they’re struggling in life or they’re having pain or sickness, that maybe cannabis could help them navigate a little bit.”
More of Asia Taber’s visually stunning work can be found on Instagram as well as through her website and YouTube channel.
Original Article
