Familiar Faces

Photos by Pat Christman

NAME: Pocket Toscani

HOMETOWN:

Dayton, Ohio

WHAT’S WORSE: LAUNDRY OR DISHES?

Laundry, I like doing the dishes … sort of.

COFFEE OR TEA?

Both

FAVORITE ONE-HIT WONDER

Probably the U of M Sculpture. I think that will be in my obituary.

The Sculptor

Professor worked at Chicago’s Field Museum and Children’s Museum in St. Paul

On the corner of Second and Walnut streets is Pocket Toscani’s sculpture “After Party.” Toscani’s sculpture is one of two dozen displayed across Mankato and lower North Mankato as part of its 2020 Walking Sculpture Tour.

The artist’s work has been featured across the nation, and Toscani also teaches sculpting in Minnesota State University’s art department. As a professor, Toscani instills hardwork and commends those who display their passion in their art.

Toscani’s life advice is concrete: Don’t give up and keep going and show up.

“This is how the world works. This is how you create luck,” she said. “This is how you are in the right place at the right time. … Take risks. Be out there and try. No one is discovered in their living room. You have to put your body outside your house.”

MANKATO MAGAZINE: What have you been doing to adapt during the pandemic? POCKET TOSCANI: I only go to the grocery store and the hardware store. I always wear a mask too. I split my classes up into halves — still meeting every two days but more distance between us. And sanitizing the tools and tables.

MM: Your piece “After Party” is located in downtown Mankato. What was the inspiration behind this piece? PT: It was very intuitive. I just started drawing. I did an outdoor sculpture about 10 years ago that was stacked forms, but it was also crushed and distressed by an auto crusher. I didn’t want to do that here, but I did start sketching stacked forms.

What I liked about this composition was its awkwardness. It looked like the forms were just dumped out of a bag. Some of the forms are just about to fall, at least it appears that way. So this relates to a moment in time. Right before a wave crashes into the beach, or an intake of air. I like that suspension.

The colors I chose ended up a bit happier than I envisioned. I still think they work, but they are so easy on the eyes. I wanted one or two to be a bit more pukey. That pink was to be a little more tertiary, toward yellow/pink.

I just read a quote from Fairfield Porter, a great

painter from the midcentury, “The right color will fix any composition.” Mostly true, I think. The color is where the title comes from. To me it felt like the morning after a ripping good party.

MM: You’ve had pieces exhibited across the state from the University of Minnesota, St. Paul’s Sculpture Park and Franconia Sculpture Park. What initially attracted you to the art of sculpting? PT: Something really felt different inside of me. In college I felt I was mostly lost with 2-D work, I could do this or that style, whatever. It always felt arbitrary.

Then I took a metal sculpture class, and I felt like I knew what I was doing — even if I didn’t. The process was just so fun. I can’t explain it. That’s what I stress to my classes is to have fun. Really enjoy it, it is like bliss. I mean you have to work. Really hard in fact, but there must be something you are chasing. I see it in some of my students.

This is what life is all about. Find something you love and pursue it, stalk it, get better at it. It is about tenacity. And don’t give up. I know I sound like an old British admiral, but never give up! It’s true. The secret is momentum. It doesn’t happen very often because life gets in the way. But good art begets good art. The hardest part is starting. Sorry, I went off on a tangent.

MM: You worked at The Field of Museum of Natural History then moved to the Twin Cities to work at the Children’s Museum in St. Paul. What was your job like and what did you like most about it? PT: The Field Museum was amazing. Really amazing. It is a natural history museum so it has collections in sociology/culture, zoology, biology and plants — you name it. I worked in production, so I was one of many that built the exhibits. We made molds of a mastodon’s head, welded steel mounts for prehistoric ammonites, created fake habitats for the taxidermy, and erected dinosaur skeletons. FUN! Just to name a few things.

One day we all came to work to be greeted by some awful smell. We found out, the biologists were boiling wolves down to their bones. That museum is the eighth wonder of the world. I used to eat my lunch in front of three shrunken heads. Now I think all human remains have been repatriated, or at least removed from the public.

The Field Museum was started from the 1893 Columbian World’s Fair, so their collections are amazing, but they also were not very humanitarian about gathering artifacts or animals. I had a friend in “Birds.” He would take me to the hall, which was as big as a warehouse, and open up drawers of snowy owls, or 1-inch hummingbirds, or toucans. It went on and on. Some collected at the turn of the century so they can compare birds of today.

I also saw a Coelacanth fish. It was thought to be extinct — super rare. It was kept in a trunk full of formaldehyde. This scientist just pulled its head out of this dark case. And I got to see the real Archaeopteryx fossil. The link between birds and dinosaurs. Cool!

The Children’s Museum was also fantastic. It has no collections obviously, but I got to build the anthill! Now I meet 30-year-olds that have been through the anthill. This might be in my obituary, too. It was a human-sized maze that mimicked an anthill, full of tunnels and the queen ant chamber. I also built the queen ant. It was where I met my life partner. I always say it was like flirting in a large intestine. She was the mural painter there — and still is. The anthill is gone now, but they still have the fiberglass queen ant.

MM: The last 15 years, you’ve been teaching sculpting. What’s your favorite part about teaching? PT: I love the students. I can’t believe I am saying that because they also drive me crazy. I try to have fun in my classes while pushing them to push themselves. They are really great people — most of them. I feel like I understand them, I used to be one of them. So I am always on their side, even when they think I’m not.

I love when they put their shoulders into the class. I had one student this semester that I called out on the last day. I told the class she was not afraid to succeed. She really did put her all into every project, she wasn’t afraid to do her best and to show her devotion. It was really cool to witness. I love that toughness in students. I always tell them to expect more from themselves. They have so much grit and heart they don’t even know it yet. That’s why resistance is so good for them; they find out they have infinite potential.

MM: Who is the most creative person you know? PT: Todd Shanafelt — he teaches ceramics at the same time as I do. His work reflects his expansive mind. He doesn’t discard any option to resolving a piece. His work is really fresh and smart. When I look at his art, there is a first impression, then I look a little more analytically and Todd’s work keeps giving. I start to notice the little details that tie into the overall logic of the piece. His work has an element of surprise, which I love. Like “How did he come up with that?”

MM: Tell us about a time that you started a sculpture — or any piece of art — that ended up taking a different direction. PT: I used to collect baskets from the thrift stores. Every time I went I bought one or two. So I had quite a few. What I loved about them was this mad structure of the surface, talk about labor. That woven morphology was already to go, I just had to put them together. Well, I did and it was so bad, so I kept working on it. It was still bad. I was embarrassed that my studio mates could see it. The problem was it looked like baskets sewn together — it never transcended the object. It was what it was exactly. It was so stupid. I just ended up donating the baskets back to the thrift store. But I often think I should start collecting baskets again, and trying to collaborate with the material once more.

MM: Anything else you’d like to add? PT: I do have quite a few collections. I collect landscape paintings, ceramic tchotchkes, plastic sleds, anything plastic, macrame, jigsaw puzzles, letters like abc etc.,albums, books for collage, Lincoln logs, parade float material, vinyl flooring, TV trays. Sculptors have to have so much stuff. We also have to have a truck and a large studio. I think it is more difficult to be a sculptor than any other artist, this is why we are better than them. Oh, and I forgot — one other collection — my own sculpture.