Nancy Tobin: Installation Artist / Vintage Store Owner / Treasure Hunter / Hippest Grandma / Kindred Spirit

Sagewolf Interviews

Upcoming show!
Journey to the Center of the Milks
April 2 - May 22, 2022
Morris Graves Museum - Humboldt Arts Council - 636 F Street, Eureka, CA 95501
@nancy_._tobin
nancy-tobin.com
@vintage_avenger
vintageavengerhumboldt.com
The scene:
We are sitting in Nancy’s store, The Vintage Avenger in Arcata, CA, which I have been coming into since it’s inception in 1999…yeah, that’s 23 years ago. I’m pretty sure up until a recent move, I still had the hand-dyed vintage slips that Nancy dyed, which I wore as dresses - because it was early 00’s and we were so grunge. How many vintage stores do you know of that have been open that long? I’m convinced it’s due to her genuine passion for what she does and why she does it - and that everyone recognizes that. Join us in her store while Nancy hand-sews a piece for her new installation at the Morris Graves Museum of Art in Humboldt, CA.
Highlights:
+ Being proud and humble
+ Retaining your own power
+ Self-reliance as a response to trauma
+ Military kid
+ Being ousted socially
+ The mind of a super creative
+ Art as self-therapy
+ The source of life and destruction
+ A love letter to others
+ Be resourceful
+ Creating with waste
+ Build it, they will come
+ Give them the opportunity to say yes
+ Dad was a helicopter pilot in Vietnam
+ Give yourself permission to say yes
+ Learning self confidence
+ Letting kids be of themselves
+ Adaptability
+ Peace out of a pandemic
+ HSU art degree
+ “How to run a consignment shop”
+ You’ve got to build it
+ Isolation and missing people
+ We need other people, the right people
+ Find something and polish it up
+ Changing others’ minds about value
+ The hobby became the everything
+ Competition brings demand
+ Single parenting
+ Tough times come in sets, like waves in surfing
+ Don’t try to bend things to your will
+ Work WITH the obstacles
+ Let go and let God
+ College of the Redwoods is THE best school
+ Being self-sufficient
+ An artist and also an accountant
+ Minimalizing a vintage collection
+ Coming out of the womb independent
+ Introverts need people too
+ Extroverts are over-celebrated
+ Inspiring others visually
+ Get weird!
+ Bringing others joy and laughter
+ Fearing people disliking us
+ The slut from Arizona
+ Keyed cars in high school
+ Working for yourself
+ The covid sabbatical
+ Do it all the same, but in Hawaii
+ Presenting the groom with an umbilical cord
+ Meow Wolf in Las Vegas
+ Counting on friends to keep us in check
+ Life is messy, and beautiful
+ Show the process
+ Wabi Sabi
+ Getting back to being childlike
+ Letting go of inhibitions
+ Seasons of life experiences
A taste:
“It seems like things come in cycles and in waves, and so when something bad happens it’s always like there’s going to be a set of them coming through. And so I’ll be like, uhhhp, here we go! You can just tell. I’ve seen it enough times. There’s going to be a little set of things here. So I try to think of it like surfing - so it’s like get on your board and just get out past the break and just let the waves roll under you and try to float on top of it and just let them pass.”
Favorite saying:
“Making Lemonade.”
“Don’t wait for the stars to align before you begin.”

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Love, Sagewolf xoxo