Conversations with Tom Virgin

Today we’d like to introduce you to Tom Virgin.

Hi Tom, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
I was a late bloomer. When I went to college, I wanted to study art. Dad said no. I started in Journalism, changed to Advertising in my second year at Michigan State University, and applied to York University in Toronto (Ontario, Canada) at the end of my sophomore year to study art. I was accepted. Dad said no, again. I dropped out of school and drove West with three friends. Of course, we went to the Grand Canyon, and even with all the windows down at 50 mph, we were sweating bullets in Arizona. The owner of the VW van we drove was a ski instructor (he was the only one who knew where we were going). He taught skiing that winter in Vail, and I began studying Art at Colorado Mountain College. At the end of the ski season, my three friends returned to Michigan. I hitched a ride with a friend to Florida shortly after. My parents had moved from Michigan to Florida when I left for Colorado. With no degree, South Florida allowed me to build roof trusses, move furniture and computers, and spray lawns. When my father needed bypass surgery, I became a gardener in my family’s business. I also studied art part-time from 1978 to 1989, earning a BFA in Painting and Printmaking at Florida Atlantic University at 37. My wife, three kids, and mom & dad were in the audience. Two years later, I was a Florida State Certified Art teacher and divorced. I moved to Miami, earned an MFA in Printmaking at the University of Miami, and have lived in Coconut Grove ever since. After graduation, I continued drawing for several hours a week and made more woodcut prints. Two temporary museum jobs later, I was laid off and began teaching in Miami Dade Public Schools.

Would it have been a smooth road, and if not, what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
Dropping out offered me real-world skills, and divorce was a struggle. Beginning a teaching career in public school at forty was challenging, but what I learned from my students helped me become a true Miami citizen. I was as much a student in my classroom as my students were. Everyone from every corner of the Caribbean and South America came through my art room, and we taught each other: big room, lots of kids. I made art with kids in Allapattah, Liberty City, Hialeah, Miami Beach, and North Miami neighborhoods. In and out of classrooms, all over Miami, in summer programs, schools, and parks. As a gringo with very little Spanish, it was good that I had spent a lot of time drawing. Drawing on demand helped me to communicate. That was when the kids and I started telling each other our “my country stories.” Me from Michigan, and them from everywhere else. Teaching, drawing, and working on my prints after school was the immersion that made my art practice grow.

Thanks – so, what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I made a series of woodcut prints for a decade, first at National Parks and later at artists’ residencies. I made my first artists’ book when a curator friend asked if I had a Florida book for a show at Miami Dade Public Library’s Main Library in 2000. I have always loved the library and put together a series of prints about the Florida Keys in a book called “Escape* restrictions apply.” It won an honorable mention, was purchased by the Jaffe Collection at FAU, and prompted me to make a book every year for the Florida Artists Book Prize Competition. The artist residencies introduced me to other artists in various disciplines, especially writers. Working with writers started a long series of group projects and collaborations. The Midwest residencies especially brought me to many writers that changed my life. Collaborations away from home led to collaborations with artists in Miami. I have participated in, organized, curated, and printed several group portfolios of broadsheets since 2008. Winter is a good time to read. Summer is a good time to print. http://www.library.fau.edu/depts/spc/JaffeCenter/AIR_artists.php

I have printed on two vintage cylinder letterpresses from the mid-1900s at Extra Virgin Press in Little Haiti (Miami), Florida, for five years. I am surrounded by Jamaica (Clives Cafe), Buenos Aires (Sur), Panther Coffee (Brasil), Haiti, and a rich community of immigrants.

We’d love to hear about your fond memories from growing up.
Two things I remember indelibly. The first was watching my dad draw a pine tree for my younger sister when we were about 4 and 5 years old, respectively. Seeing that realistic pine tree materialize on paper with only a pencil, in just a few strokes, was magic to me. I was mesmerized. The other memory was of my Dad’s Dad. He had a wood shop in his garage after he retired. I would sit on a stool in his shop each summer and watch him create scale models of the Iron Ore freighters he saw passing in front of his house on the Marine River daily. I still have several things that he made. I don’t remember either of us talking too much, but seeing these complex forms develop from a few wooden boards amazed me. The smell of sawdust and shellac, the hum of the power tools, and my grandfather’s quiet intensity made the hours fly by magically. This memory is the root of the thirty years I taught in public schools. I have always done my best to show my students through demonstration and repetition how to create this magic, one step at a time.

Pricing:

• Posters $20-$50
• Editioned prints $100-500
• Broadsheets $100-$300
• Artists Books $100-$750

Contact Info:

• Website: www.extravirginpress.com, www.tomvirgin.com/wp
• Instagram: @extravirginpress
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/extravirginpress/ 

Image Credits
Head Shot by Mary Malm, Signs book by Carl Juste, Other photos by  Tom Virgin