Today we’d like to introduce you to Tobi Beck.
Hi Tobi, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
Totally! I’m originally from the Old Harbor Projects in South Boston. We lived on the 4th-floor penthouse of a brick apartment building. Just outside our front door was access to the building’s roof, studded with white rocks that connected to the other buildings on the street. We used to have birthday parties up there and hang our laundry up to dry.
Boston is very much a walking city, so we’d hoof it up to Broadway for shopping, passing through different neighborhoods and tons of alleyways. We’d often walk to the train station, known as the “T,” and ride downtown to Faneuil Hall. I have awesome memories of growing up, and still get squishy when I think about Boston.
My family moved to California when I was an early teen. The suburban desert landscape was drastically different from what I was used to. Cookie-cutter tract homes, lizards, and cactus. Wild and weird.
While then, and still today, surrounded by the beloved SoCal sun, the textures of growing up in the city have always stuck with me and are what I find to be my home…concrete, brick, chain-link fences, and stickers on light poles. Everything is vertical. Big, but small. Hardscapes with fluffy tree fringe for pops of nature. SO GOOD!
I started painting in 2014 as a way to combat stress, working in full-time corporate America while my wife and I raised my nephew, who we eventually adopted – now about to be 20, which is INSANE! I had never painted before, aside from the random craft project. My creativity until this point was more visual composition and arrangement of things: graphics, design, events, magazine collages, and other “putting things together” as a means to find beauty, balance, and create impact. But, one night, I broke and found myself wildly grabbing for craft paints and stacks of scrapbook paper. Through tears of grief, I smudged globs of my feelings on 45 sheets of paper, which eventually became my first series of paintings.
In 2015, I was diagnosed with uterine pre-cancer that led to a hysterectomy – one of those moments that make you question where you are in life and where you’re going with it all. By 2016, I had returned to work after a 6-month break and left for good after 3 months. I didn’t fully have a plan on exactly what I wanted, but I knew that it was time to hone in on my creativity and give myself a chance to fulfill dreams in this second chapter of my life. With full support of my wife, I was set free.
We all face challenges, but looking back, would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Heck no. Walking away from a well-paying, full-time, secure gig with all the benefits seems obvious, but some of the not-so-obvious is also leaving behind stability, routine, a crew of people that kept me social and engaged, along with the simple day-to-day things like focus, discipline, and having a schedule to keep with someone to answer to. It’s like a clock that keeps you ticking. Losing that and going on your own – you’re the clock! The batteries, the hands, the ticks, the timekeeper, and the time waster. EEK! Anyone who has ventured off the common path knows exactly what I mean. It’s ROUGH!
Then, there are universal struggles of being an artist – inconsistent income, lonely days, and a lot of questioning yourself.
Imposter Syndrome, in all its weird forms, is real. Stepping into a new realm where you literally know nothing as a self-taught artist is very alien. I was confident in my abilities in the corporate world, and what I didn’t know, I was resourceful and creative to figure it out. Thankfully, I am scrappy in that way, but not without stress and wandering pretty aimless at times. As a perfectionist and avid overthinker, it has been a very slow process filled with tears and grace, trial and error. Becoming a beginner again isn’t easy, nor is working for yourself.
These days, I find my struggles are mostly mental, and I don’t mean that flippantly. I think being so isolated for so long, and not just covid but becoming a homebody who lasers in for 12-14 hours a day, I have become much more insecure in my decision-making and ability to withstand challenges. Like a branch that doesn’t have the wind to force strong growth, if that makes sense. I have learned that isolation, both from people and the general daily hardships in working through things to keep skills and mind sharply moving, can create a deficit in our ability to handle friction. I don’t often hear people talk about that, but it’s been my reality for sure.
This year, I have started combating that by joining my local artist association, volunteering more, and putting myself into more social situations to re-learn or re-sharpen those skills to gain confidence again and get some stronger footing in those areas. As uncomfortable and awkward as I feel, it helps!
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
I am a self-taught abstract painter. My work focuses on emotion and visual texture. When I start to paint, there is no plan. Not for final design or even colors. It’s all very much a conversation and a simple “start” filled with self-connection and real freedom, which is the major draw for me in creating abstract art. It’s a reactive process for me that evolves throughout the creation process. One mark starts the dialogue, and then each decision from there informs the next. I find a lot of comfort in this space of not knowing and not having expectation. I often struggle with anxiety in daily life, and abstraction is a safe, wide-open space for me to just be. I can play in quiet or breathe through strokes, scrape out frustration, or smooth myself into peace. This freedom gives me the room to explore myself honestly – it takes a lot of self-trust and vulnerability. It’s special to me.
In August, I held my first-ever solo exhibition, “Coming Home,” at the Santa Clarita Artists Association 6th Street Gallery in Newhall. It was super exciting for me to introduce a new body of work and see it all displayed together in one space. This collection reflects my observations of growing up in the projects of South Boston, known as “Southie,” and pulls from all of those city textures we talked about before. It’s very grungy, colorful, and reminiscent of walking down a city street. I’m super proud of this work! It was amazing to have had the gallery packed for the closing reception, where we celebrated together. Getting to meet new collectors and talk about my process is always a thrilling experience.
I’m also crazy proud to have 7 of my paintings purchased for the set of the new Peacock TV series, “Based on a True Story,” starring Kaley Cuoco, Chris Messina, and Tom Bateman. It’s such a great show – my family loves it! The paintings were purchased last year by the show’s set decorator, and when it released, we were squealing and hooting every time one popped up on screen! We found 6 in total and are still hunting for the 7th. I wrote up a blog post on my website so folks could do their own little scavenger hunt and find them. SO MUCH FUN!
I have another solo show happening now at the Canyon Theatre Guild in Newhall, “A Retrospective”, that highlights 59 select works spanning all my years of painting from 2014 through this most current 2023 collection, “Coming Home.” The show runs through October 29th and is free to view at the theatre during their regular business hours Tues- Sun. It’s been a really exciting year!
If we knew you growing up, how would we have described you?
Growing up, I was very inspired. I found a lot of creativity through music, music videos, fashion, and magazines. I’d collage a lot of magazine photography. My favorite were the quirky ones where models would be dressed in beautiful fluffy dresses with combat boots, smeared makeup, and ripped-up tights, draped over fire hydrants or old washing machines, splayed out on dirty floors.
Cyndi Lauper made a huge impression on me. I gravitated towards the unique and left of mainstream. The textures in her videos, where punk meets nostalgic tones, really sang to me; full of vintage clothes, cars, suitcases, loads of plaid, and gender-crossing fashion. Even the lighting and shots all had this old, muted feeling to it when full of color. It’s so good and still juices me up. It really made me want to be in the fashion industry and pushed me toward styling, ultimately leading me to attend the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising in Los Angeles (FIDM) for Visual Communications.
It’s cool to now see these same tones, textures, and feelings throughout my work. To see it all come full circle in what lit up little girl me swinging back to electrify me today. It’s really, really cool.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.tobibeck.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tobiannbeck
Image Credits
Tobi Beck
Gina Mazzolini
Ava Osborne
