Toby Morfin: Painter / Curator / Philanthropist / Art Collector / Heart-of-Golder

@tobymorfinart
tobymorfinart.com

The scene:
We are sitting in Toby’s studio in Española, near Santa Fe New Mexico, on his brother’s property next to the house he grew up in. His studio is a mini gallery of many local artist and friend works that inspire him. I met Toby’s mom. Toby is all family, all community. He has a heart of gold. He offered to help me with a minor car fix after I’d known him for only an hour. Join us in the studio gallery for an open-ended conversation about his come-up, family, controlling your art sales, and life lessons.

Highlights:
+ Charity work in the community
+ Local artist plate-painting auction from big names
+ A growing private art collection of 200+ pieces: James Blackstone Lofton, Mike Giant, Jim Vogel, Cara Romero, Joseph Lopez, Moises, Paul O’Connor, Magoo, Vince Herrera, Erin Currier @erincurrierfineart (who introduced us!), etc.
+ Toby curated the “Santo Low Rider” Show at the Harwood
+ The origin of 50s religious iconography painted on lowrider cars: Santos artwork of the 1800-1900s
+ 13 years of curating his annual “Day of the Dead” show (November)
+ Artists are unpredictable
+ Dad taught him “If you’re on time, you’re late”
+ 21 yr-old brother OD’d when Toby was still in high school
+ Stay neutral with everyone because “we” are not better than “them”
+ Shoutout to Ralph Martinez for community work together
+ Life taking turns, learning to roll with the punches
+ Letting the art flow - unscheduled, not planning, not stressing
+ Painting off canvas - on anything
+ Having your art in the ghetto and in million dollar homes
+ Teaching others to appreciate the differences in others through art
+ “If people copy your work, you’re a badass”
+ “We’re all here in one world together”
+ Started drawing on brown paper bags from the grocery store
+ Influenced by wood and marble sculptures and large paintings as a kid (Larry Fedor)
+ The youth jobs we have that help make us
+ Worked for the Mae Corporation as a phone operator
+ CEOs bought 60K of his artwork for the corporate buildings
+ Sadness and heartbreak can be powerful life and art inspiration
+ Working with what you’ve got / not needing a lot to do what you love
+ Creating the feeling of where you want to be in the place that you are
+ Not listening to others’ opinions of your art
+ Controlling all aspects of your art and your shows
+ Shoutout to Nicholas Herrera @artedenicholas - you’re a badass
+ Being an outgoing person can backfire
+ Expectations in the art world, low-balling an artist
+ Being a business-minded artist with an LLC
+ Artist’s working with each other to build their business
+ Toby’s paintings are shadow-box framed and painted by local car painters
+ “Everyone here [in the Santa Fe/New Mexico area] is connected”
+ Having discipline and fuck-off time
+ Learning everything we can from our elders

A taste:
“I saw all this paper they [Mae] were wasting so I talked to the main dude [...].  Everyone was always all scared of him […] I started to talk to him and said, ‘Once a week we’ll pick up all the paper and recycle it.’ […] There were all these bilingual Mexicans that worked there and I said you guys should get more money for being bilingual and I approached him about that so I got more pay for the bilingual people.”

Favorite saying:
“Don’t