We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Michael Toombs. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Michael below.
Hi Michael, appreciate you sitting with us today to share your wisdom with our readers. So, let’s start with resilience – where do you get your resilience from?
I attribute my resilience to my mother, Barbara, who raised four kids on her own while attending college full-time and working a full-time job, this was a very difficult time in our life, and she was forced to rely on me who at the time was 12 years old, but she was determined to get us out of our public housing situation somehow, at the time I didn’t understand why I was asked To do so much but as I grew older, I was able to understand more.
Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?
My first memorable experience with art was when I was in elementary school, somehow I was given some clay, and I remember sculpting a surrealistic human being, and an anatomically, correct heart, I gave them to my mother, and she looked at them with a sort of hummmm on her face, it was several years and a lot of changes in my life Before I would have another experience in art, I was 12 years old. My family broke up, being the oldest my mother had to depend on me to help raise my two brothers and my sister and I hated that, we moved into a housing development and it was around 1969.. it was difficult making friends, and being the oldest it was my responsibility to watch over my family while My mother worked full-time, and went to school full-time, she was trying to make change in our lives, I was having a real tough time at garrison‘s school, specifically with one kid that just would not leave me alone, this was the first time I remember dealing wthis was the first time I remember dealing with racism directly, as one of his favorite things to call me was Nigger, I remember one day the schools principal, Mr. Scott asked me if I’d be interested in being in a special art program, I was excited to participate, It would involve me having to take the bus every Saturday from Choteau court to the Nelson atkins museum, and they would give me bus tokens to get there and back.. I’ve told this story a lot over the years, about how I met Matthew monks, and how his perspective on creating and interacting became foundation for my life,
As an African-American artist, it was a real challenge trying to make my mark. I’m sure a lot of accomplished artists have shared this experience., early on in my career, I realized that if I was going to make a difference as an artist, I was going to have to take an alternate route to succeed, so I felt that if I could educate young people on how important Art is to our lives it might help them to overcome some of the same challenges I had to overcome growing up, I think what inspired this was an experience I had early on at a middle school, a teacher friend that I knew was working at a very difficult school, Every time the bell rang to switch classrooms all the young people would get in fights in the halls, and once they arrived to their classes, getting them to settle down was virtually impossible. She asked me to reach out to them as an artist and offered me three days with perpetually changing classes to present to the young people. The classes were overloaded, 50 to one teacher, they were unruly and very difficult, and the majority of them look just like me when I was at garrison, but I was determined to reach these young people, to get them to see me, and to learn how important creativity, which we all possess is important to the quality of our lives.
So now that I’ve giving you the foundation, I offer you the evolution of my art form which I like to refer to as IAE “interactive arts education”, this is when I began Storytellers Inc. This process allowed me to do amazing things, I’ve worked at schools, community Centers, juvenile detention facilities, state, and city municipalities, mayors, and governors and people from all over the world, this philosophy that I first recall experiencing while working with Matthew monks became a bridge for working with communities, and People of all walks, especially those facing and dealing with difficult challenges.
I worked very hard to develop a creative delivery mechanism that would allow people to come together and experiences one another, in a way that was inviting, memorable and fun, and I always continued to paint my pictures to hone my abilities to communicate creatively in a way accessible to all, but IAE is a process I continued to embrace, I feel it’s an art form we truly need today. It allows us to create a bridge to access one another, in a time when others are trying to make that simple act impossible.
From Bartel Hall murals, to our topeka Kansas brown V board mural , to our new Mural painting at the new Washburn law school in Topeka, evidence of our successful effort to communicate visually is validated, also supported and endorsed by four mayors, two governors, two chief of police, the regional Director of the FBI, the state Attorney General and the support of the Jackson county prosecutor of Kansas City, with a number of letters of support and endorsements from school princand or programs which I have have been supported by, I have benefited greatly from a number of dedicated supporters, who saw the vision, as I did and traveled this path with me. There’s so many that I can’t name them all but I want to bring special attention to my wife, Marcia Pomeroy whose creativity in the areas of community social services and education as well as creative interaction, magnified the impact of the projects and creative efforts which I’ve developed a greater understanding of, the inter-workings of mentoring made a big difference in what I do m, Cathy Burchett who has worked as my site coordinator for many projects and many years I thank her for hanging around and contributing so muchI feel that we are about to embark on a time in our lives when Creative efforts designed for bringing people together can become a very useful and invaluable tool, and I hope as the world wakes up to reality I will be in a place where I can do the most good
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
1. Exercising and or practicing your skills in order to improve in every aspect of your creative nature,
2. develop a broader understanding of human interaction and social development and evolution, since people are a big portion of what is important for the successful delivery of our craft and the message we’re trying to send,
3. it is important to understand the anatomy, and Or Dynamics of mentoring in order to have the ability to be successful, especially in cases where Creative placemaking and interactive arts. Education apply, these disciplines require creative contributions from a broad range of individuals to be successful.
How do you work to develop your skill sets, and your creative voice, remember that a large portion of the things you must know in order to be affective will come from others, so don’t be afraid to take advice, as well as give it, to admire others abilities and. Allow their ideas when you agree with them to become a part of your efforts..
Be genuine, and committed these of the things that will bring focus to your efforts and provide others access to the message your trying to send., and above all, learn to develop patience, it can sometimes take a moment to hear the messages of the heart, and to convey them as accurately as you hear them.
What would you advise – going all in on your strengths or investing on areas where you aren’t as strong to be more well-rounded?
I feel that it is important to spend a considerable amount of time on developing areas that you feel are in need of extra effort, I have learned in the past 30 years that of every project I ever done. There was always a percentage of difficulty during the process of its completion, you might even say challenges that presented themselves that had to be overcome in order to be successful, as we embrace this inevitability, and develop the patients needed to deal with these challenges we’ll become more effective in the implementation of our process, and the successful outcome of our goal.
Most creative placemaking Initiatives or interactive arts, education, projects involves numerous contributions from a large range of participants, and with this many individuals, there are bound to be challenges in that you may not see eye to eye with everyone on everything all the time, but in a project that requires contributions from so many in order to effectively present a effective message, there must be room for dissenting thoughts, while at the same time, providing you the opportunity to maintain focus on the message that has been generally agreed-upon prior to the start , managing this balance is what will eventually create the outcome needed for everyone to celebrate the collective accomplishment, which would provide a resonating affect.
Contact Info:
- Other: I am deliberately stayed away from social media sites. I’ve dedicated my life to being in grained in our social system and my community a number of my accomplishments can be reviewed by simply searching Artist michael Toombs in any search engine.
Image Credits
The top left photo of brown v board taken by :Nick Krug The top right photo taken by :Hector Bernal All others take by my self
