January 2026

Sometimes it takes a lot of living to figure things out. Or things that all of the sudden seem obvious are things you’ve never noticed before. And that’s how it is with me and painting. I’m always following the outline of the shape, I’m always blending the colors a little bit, and going in the “right direction.”

But I know it wasn’t always like that. I had a Rin Tin Tin coloring book, and I still remember loving to make Rin Tin Tin purple, with the crayon lines going in all different crazy directions. I was so fond of purple, I used up my purple crayon coloring the whole top step of the stairs going down to our family room. But I was a little older and I was careful to keep all the crayon lines going in the same direction. These were some of those times that my parents would say they hoped that I would have three kids, and they hoped they were all just like me. And yes, I totally understood the sarcasm there.

But throughout studying painting and the attraction to abstract expressionism with its painterly marks, I still keep those brush marks going the same way. And I finally know why. When my mother recently passed away, one thing that stuck in my memory was watching my dad working on his paint by number paintings. Looking back, I’m guessing that was a hobby he took on to relax, to reduce some of the stress that I know he felt at times. I can remember sitting in our family room watching him paint. I’m sure I was chatting his ear off, and he was always so patient with me. But reflecting on it now, what I remember most is how carefully he stayed in the lines. And no matter how hard I try to break away, I still stay inside the lines.

Maybe that’s why I started working on wood. It was different, less controlled, something I could allow to happen, not something that I had to make happen. It was something new, something to be curious about.

I read an interview with an artist that I know, and in the article he said that he was inspired by watching his dad draw as a kid. So one day I was talking with his dad, and I mentioned the article and said how I didn’t know that he was an artist too. His dad says to me, “Oh, I’m not an artist. But when Toby was little, I used to draw these sort of cartoon superheroes for him.”

Do we ever fully understand the impact we have on a child? I’m certain the answer to that is no. A child experiences a trillion experiences during their childhood, and there’s no real explaining what sticks and what doesn’t. There’s also no magic formula to tell us where our interests, our thoughts, our passions came from. Sometimes it’s obvious, like a favorite teacher or a trip to the zoo. But sometimes it’s just a small act, one that maybe the adult in the scenario doesn’t even remember, but it sticks. And it ripples out. I get it now, when Rod Stewart sings “I wish that I knew what I know now, when I was younger”.

Going through my parents house, the one they built when I was two years old, it brought so many things to light. The many patterns in my mom‘s sewing area, reminding me of all the clothing she made for me, even when I was a horrid teenager, she was sewing for me and teaching me how to sew. I remember the kitchen linoleum, and how I thought the designs on it looked like different dinosaur heads, even though I know now that it was most likely configured to look like stone. I remember the ashtray on the coffee table in the living room, and for some reason I used to love to eat the burnt part of the match. How weird is that?

We lived right across the street from the park, where all the Easter egg hunts happened and where I was convinced that the Easter bunny lived. So it was a strange experience when my dad came back from hunting and I would sit next to him while he cleaned the rabbits. When I say it was a strange experience, it was not at all strange at the time. But looking back, it was actually time that I truly loved spending with my dad. It didn’t make me sad, but every time he pulled a rabbit out to clean, I would tell him the name of that rabbit and describe it in great detail. He would just listen and say things like “Is that right?” And I would go on and on with my tall tales

And now I’m way off topic, but that’s how thoughts string along - Sometimes this simplest experiences sit right up there next to the big traumatic ones, and maybe I’ll understand why that happens in another 10 years or so. Who knows…