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

@tobymorfinarttobymorfinart.comThe 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 eldersA 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 screw your credit up.”Support the showThank you for listening!  Please subscribe to support this project.Love, Sagewolf xoxo