Mobile Photography and Art ‘Hope in Adversity’ Interview with Linda M Toki from Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, United States
Today, we are publishing our twenty third interview in our new series, Hope in Adversity. One that’s based around art, artists and isolation during the midst of Covid-19.
This one is with Linda Toki, award winning mobile photographer, artist and friend whom I met at Kew Gardens, last year, when we could at least all travel. She’s a wonderful woman with a great sense of humour, enjoy!
To read others in this series of interviews with Jill Lian, Vicki Cooper, Gerry Coe, Sarah Bichachi, Sukru Mehmet Omur, Phyllis Shenny, Alisa Smith Williams, Joy Barry, Fleur Schim, Fiona Christian, Peter Wilkin, Ile Mont, Lynette Sheppard, M. Cecilia Sao Thiago, Rob Pearson-Wright, Catherine Caddigan, Cintia Malhotra and Susan Latty, please follow this link
If you are social distancing or social isolating at this time, are you using any additional time you may have to create mobile digital art or photography?
Fortunately I am able to tele-work so I am still working. It’s tough to be connected to a computer when the days are growing more beautiful this spring.
I am lucky to have a big property that is well planted with garden areas and the back half is wooded. I keep bird feeders to attract many varieties of birds. I am still creating mobile art/photography, but it has not been the priority.
If so, have you noticed the style of art that you’re creating changing from what you would normally create?
I don’t think my style has changed but I have been trying to infuse magical and whimsical aspects into my photos to offset the current health crisis.
If yes, to the above, can you explain how your art has changed?
In general my art has expanded in that I have started painting again and doing some more hands-on type art.
Have you found additional inspiration to create at this time?
Living in the moment and enjoying the moment has inspired me and my art. I think I am really drawn to photographing the things that bring me joy, like my dogs, rather than creating a piece that is social commentary or anything like that.
Is creating mobile digital art/photography, helping you at this time specially, how and why?
The act of creating and creating art and photography has always been therapeutic for me. I even at one time considered art therapy as a career. That is likely the reason I got an art teaching degree so that I could empower others.
Do you feel that sharing mobile art/photography at this time is spreading a unity of peace?
I feel like all artistic and creative endeavors being shared now support the collective peace. People are coming together.
Anything else you would personally like to add…
I believe that everything that happens, happens for a reason. We are a global community that is still connected and will always be.
When people of the future study art history, they will study us and how we contributed to the mobile art/photography movement and how we stuck together and continued even during this challenge to our way of life. We are infinitely adaptable!
Please read…
TheAppWhisperer has always had a dual mission: to promote the most talented mobile artists of the day and to support ambitious, inquisitive viewers the world over.
As the years pass TheAppWhisperer has gained readers and viewers and found new venues for that exchange. All this work thrives with the support of our community.
Please consider making a donation to TheAppWhisperer as this New Year commences because your support helps protect our independence and it means we can keep delivering the promotion of mobile artists that’s open for everyone around the world.
Every contribution, however big or small, is so valuable for our future.
Joanne Carter
Joanne Carter, creator of the world’s most popular mobile photography and art website— TheAppWhisperer.com— TheAppWhisperer platform has been a pivotal cyberspace for mobile artists of all abilities to learn about, to explore, to celebrate and to share mobile artworks. Joanne’s compassion, inclusivity, and humility are hallmarks in all that she does, and is particularly evident in the platform she has built. In her words, “We all have the potential to remove ourselves from the centre of any circle and to expand a sphere of compassion outward; to include everyone interested in mobile art, ensuring every artist is within reach”, she has said. Promotion of mobile artists and the art form as a primary medium in today’s art world, has become her life’s focus. She has presented lectures bolstering mobile artists and their art from as far away as the Museum of Art in Seoul, South Korea to closer to her home in the UK at Focus on Imaging. Her experience as a jurist for mobile art competitions includes: Portugal, Canada, US, S Korea, UK and Italy. And her travels pioneering the breadth of mobile art includes key events in: Frankfurt, Naples, Amalfi Coast, Paris, Brazil, London. Pioneering the world’s first mobile art online gallery - TheAppWhispererPrintSales.com has extended her reach even further, shipping from London, UK to clients in the US, Europe and The Far East to a global group of collectors looking for exclusive art to hang in their homes and offices. The online gallery specialises in prints for discerning collectors of unique, previously unseen signed limited edition art. Her journey towards becoming The App Whisperer, includes (but is not limited to) working for a paparazzi photo agency for several years and as a deputy editor for a photo print magazine. Her own freelance photographic journalistic work is also widely acclaimed. She has been published extensively both within the UK and the US in national and international titles. These include The Times, The Sunday Times, The Guardian, Popular Photography & Imaging, dpreview, NikonPro, Which? and more recently with the BBC as a Contributor, Columnist at Vogue Italia and Contributing Editor at LensCulture. Her professional photography has also been widely exhibited throughout Europe, including Italy, Portugal and the UK. She is currently writing several books, all related to mobile art and is always open to requests for new commissions for either writing or photography projects or a combination of both. Please contact her at: [email protected]
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