Custom Painted Guitar Pedals

My dad has played guitars for over 40 years. He has only recently rediscovered the joys of electric. With that he has also rediscoverd the fun of effects pedals.

Unfortunately I don't know that much about effects pedals. For a more indepth explanation of the kinds I painted here, see the entry in my dad's blog "Something Completely Different."

I studied visual art for two years at Bard College under a number of working artists who have exhibitions in musuems around the world, including the Guggenheim and the Tate. I also studied art history under a pulitzer prize winning author and a groundbreaking Asian art historian. I continue to paint, draw, make paper, design books, and cards as well as paint commissioned works for friends.

This is a picture of the first guitar pedal I custom painted. My dad purchased a make your own pedal kit and wanted it decorated. A friend of mine is putting the guts together.

I chose the colors for this first pedal because I thought they would bring together the colors my dad already has on his effects board (see his blog entry linked above).

The design is drawing on impressionism. I thought of later Kandinsky works while I was in the midst of making it. Like many impressionists, and certainly Kandinsky, I was thinking of the way music makes a person feel. The design then, was meant to recreate some of the feelings and ideas that come to mind with the different textures of sounds made by various effects pedals.

The second pedal I painted was a pedal my dad got through a trade online. It was orange originally, and instead of putting a coat of primer on it, I used the orange as a background and worked with the model paints I already had. This was difficult because I didn't have very many warm colors to work with.
This pedal was designed with similar concept in mind as the first. Except rather than thinking of a variety of textures as I did with the first one, I thought more of lava and fire. I also thought a little of the way leaves look in autumn for some of the dappled patterning. The shapes recall lava flows and rock formations. The color concepts were, as I said above, partially due to the palette in addition to the original orange background color.

If you or a friend are interested in having your effects pedals custom painted, either comment on this post or shoot an email to: alexis.tara@gmail.com

Please, serious inquiries only!

Sin: A Higher Cost

I've been thinking a lot about sin. What is sin? What is the damage it causes? Are the 10 commandments really a viable set of laws for our time? How should we interpret sin in our times? What are the things that God would really consider sinful?

Yes, these are a lot of questions. Where did this line of thinking come from? It came from being hurt recently by someone close to me, from someone whom I would never have expected this kind of damaging act. I am not considering murder or rape out of the category of sin - there is no doubt the wakes those acts leave in their paths are horrible and I would never question the pain they could cause. I am much more concerned with more subtle and slow-acting sins such as lying, cheating, and perhaps even stealing.

You may wonder, why be so concerned with lying, cheating and stealing? Sure they're bad, but everyone tells a little white lie every now and then. There's no harm in that! I'm going to do something I abhor, I am going to come out in a fairly absolute way on this. If you think a little white lie does no harm, you are wrong. Denying truth is a slow thing. If you allow one thing to pass, soon others will.

I am not arguing that if your mother comes home with a terrible hair cut you should bash it in a harsh manner. Rather, say something like "I'm glad that you like it. It's always good to try something new." This is not a lie. It also does not make your mother feel badly about her new cut. Just because you don't like it, doesn't mean she doesn't, and your blatant dislike could turn her feelings off of the style which would be a disaster.

No, I'm not talking about those kinds of things. It's little lies that do the most damage. They make it possible for you to tell large ones. Pretty soon you begin to live in your own fantasy world, concocted in your own mind through a web of lies which have no basis in reality. The worst thing is not just that you are damaging yourself, but you are also damaging your relationships when you lie to others. When you tell a lie, you are causing a breach in trust, whether the person you tell knows it is a lie or not. You felt you needed to keep something from them, out of fear or some other negative feeling.

Get over it. Bite the bullet and tell them the truth. You maintain your relationship, or at least you are respected for coming clean. I am not saying you need to tell every person everything - that would be social suicide and could potentially ruin many a relationship (romantic, familial, or friend). Still, lying, the pain it causes and the mess it brings both communally and individually is heart-wrenching. It's a sin.

What about cheating? Really, cheating is a different kind of lying. It is trying to short change the system - finding some kind of short-cut out of ill-gotten means. Exploitation is a kind of cheating. What else is looking at someone's paper but exploitation of the other person's work? It causes dependency in you, and potentially ruins your reputation as well as makes them feel underappreciated.

This is not to say if you find a better way of doing something which is more efficient and just as positive you shouldn't do it. If I could remove half of all bureaucracy, I would. That would increase flow in countless organizations, and by no means is cheating, rather people would benefit all across the board. Cheating can be as small as looking at someone else's answers, or as big as sweat shop labor to cut labor costs in a transnational corporation. The damage it causes to a community and to individuals is catastrophic. That is a sin.

Stealing. I think fewer people would contest that stealing is a sin. Even lying and cheating are both more socially acceptable than stealing. Perhaps it is our American sensibility when it comes to issues of private property that makes stealing such an easy element to categorize as sin. However, now more than ever, it becomes easier to 'steal' information. Intellect has become a prized comodity. For some reason, perhaps it is because I am of a bridge generation (just on the border of X and Y), I do not find stealing of things on the internet to be as bad as stealing a concrete material. I DO, however, find plagarism to be appalling (probably because there is the potential of me to fall victim to this as I am a member of academia).

Some might say that Robinhood actions are ethically acceptable. I would say that in the event of all other possibilities being exhausted, yes this is acceptable. How come? What makes this different? It is intention, and one might argue, stealing back already stolen property. WHAT?! Stealing back STOLEN PROPERTY?!?!?!?

Extreme wealth is a kind of sin. Greed is a kind of sin. What do you really need? It's not talked about as much as it could be in this highfalutin town of Santa Barbara. But really, making huge amounts of money at the expense of the poor is a kind of cheating. It's a kind of sin. That's not in the 10 commandments, but it could be just as damaging as lying, if not more so. This is why, as a culture, as the Church, we need to have a discussion of what is really damaging to the community. What is important? What do we value? What would break Jesus' heart? Those are the things we need to consider. When we consider those questions, we can begin to weigh the worst of actions and decide how we need to change.

God help us as we prayerfully struggle with these things.

Put down your weapon. Step away...

So much has been happening that has made me reconsider just what I am doing in this world. There is so much violence. Violence is all pervasive in our culture, in our society, and in our world. When did it become okay to show countless murders in movies and rate them PG-13 while a single sex scene with a bit of nudity renders a movie R?! What about videogames? Some people might think that first person shooters are entirely fine for kids to be playing. That might be okay if you're game involves shooting bottles, but by creating human targets it's a short step to shooting real people psychologically.

I began to think about it more in depth as the Israeli-Lebanese conflict escalated. I thought about the effects violence has as I was listening to gangster rap. Listening to the depricating comments and abusive language people so often use both at themselves and others makes me wonder how we got to this place. Why is violence so socially acceptable? Why have people become so desensitized that they think it's okay to throw out Just War theory? Why is it okay to punch your friend as you see a car go by with a different state's plate?

Some people might say I am being too sensitive. They might say I am being ridiculous to point at these things and draw connections between them. The fact remains that everything we do, say, think, affects how we think about the world and how we interact with our environment. When we condone violence in our everyday lives, it makes it easier for us to commit atrocities on foreign soil, and the same could be said in reverse. Yet, we no longer care about the evils committed by our soldiers like Abu Ghraib. Once was enough.

I urge you to rethink what you watch and listen to. I urge you to rethink what games you or your children or friends might play. I urge you to rethink the words you use on a daily basis. I want a world of peace. Peace starts in the heart, not out there. Peace starts with you and with me, and is spread through our compassionate actions.

Friend Survey

I have decided to write a book about friendship. I made this decision based on conversations I had with various people, observations of people, as well as my own experiences. The book is primarily for people who have recently come into the 'real world.' So 20 somethings who find themselves in a strange city with few or no connections. I've sent out a survey to some of my immediate contacts, but if you know of anyone who might be interested in taking the survey and being part of this work (perhaps even getting their friendship story in a book), please drop a line through the comment shoot (or read on for further possibilities).

As I go through the process I will keep people updated. I also intend to maintain some kind of dialogue with those who respond to my survey. Any questions regarding the survey or the project I will by any means entertain. I will not include any contact information in the published work, nor will I include your name. The survey is for informational purposes only.

It is divided into three short parts which will take a total of perhaps 15-20 minutes of your time. Below you will find the first part of the survey:

1. Male or Female:
2. How old are you:
3a. In what city and state do you live?
3b. This is your __hometown __college town __summer experience __job location
4a. Approximately how many acquaintances do you have (in the city where you live)?
__0-10 ___11-25 ___26-50 ___51-75 ___76-100 ___100+

4b. Approximately how many of those acquaintances do you interact with on a weekly basis?

4c. You met them primarily because they are (choose one)
__ co-workers
__ connections through friends
__ involved in same activity groups
__ neighbors
__ members of the same religious organization
__ other (explain)

5a. Approximately how many comrades/associates do you have (in the city where you live)?
___ 0-4 ___5-10 ___11-25 ___ 26-40 ___ 41-60

5b. Approximately how many of those comrades/associates do you interact with on a weekly basis?

5c. You met them primarily because they are (choose one)
__co-workers
__ connections through friends
__ involved in same activity groups
__ neighbors
__ members of the same religious organization
__ other (explain)

6a. Approximately how many friends do you have (in the city where you live)?
___0 ___ 1-5 ___ 6-10 ___ 11-15 ___ 16-20 ___ 21-30 ___ 31-50

6b. How many of those friends do you interact with on a weekly basis?

6c. Of those friends, how many of them are close friends/confidantes?

6d. Please explain when, where, and how you met them.

7a. Have you ever placed a personal ad online? __yes __no
7b. Have you ever used craigslist? ___yes ___no
7c. If so, for what purpose?

7d. Have you ever used meet-up.com? ___yes ___no
7e. If so, for what purpose?

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You may either copy and paste it into the comment section (which does remain anonymous if you so choose) OR you may email your serious response to me at: alexis.tara@gmail.com

I will post the second and third parts of the survey up for you to do at your leisure if anyone chooses to take part in the survey via comment. Otherwise I will email you the second and third portions within 2-3 days of your email.

Thank you so much for your participation!!