We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Cynthia Tom. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Cynthia below.
Cynthia , looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. It’s always helpful to hear about times when someone’s had to take a risk – how did they think through the decision, why did they take the risk, and what ended up happening. We’d love to hear about a risk you’ve taken.
I’ve developed an art based healing program A PLACE OF HER OWN(founded 15 years ago) and intuitively blending my visual art business (40+ years) into the body and intention of this program.
I focus on healing,spirituality and social justice/feminism.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
I am a 3rd generation Chinese American San Franciscan visual artist and award winning community arts practitioner with over 40 years of dedication. I share my vision through surrealism, paintings, found objects and mixed-media installations, impactful healing as social justice curatorial exhibitions and community arts projects. I weave together cultural roots, intuition, and empathy, to pose alternative perspectives and possibilities to address ancestral trauma patterns for AsianAmericans, and communities of color.
Community Visual Artist & Curator
Focus Areas:
Feminine Perspectives
Cultural Narratives
Spiritual and EmotionalHealing
Ancestral patterns
Medium
Painting, Found Objects, mixed media, installation, curatorial projects, lectures, workshops, non-traditional cultural heritage.
Themes: Ancestral exploration, Feminism, Healing, Spirituality, Found Object art, Social Justice. “My paintings are visual meditations, engaging myself and viewers to challenge our status quo. We can use art to imagine a world where we are empowered, kindness and wonder are commonplace, and curiosity and mistakes are encouraged.
Championing Community Health & Wellness Through Art
In 2024 I was named one California Arts Council’s Northern California’s LEGACY Artists – administered by YouthSpeaks. I was also awarded Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Creative Corp. to work with Bay Area Asian American clinical therapists. Serving as AAWAA Board president for over a decade, I founded A PLACE OF HER OWN in 2009, an arts-based healing program dedicated to addressing ancestral trauma patterns. Through PLACE I am constantly evolving artistic tools, growing a family of aligned alumni and a supportive community, recognizing that empowering people (women mainly) with a space, positive paths towards transformation, and creative navigational tools is foundational for healing. This process not only nurtures self-agency but becomes the bedrock for growing feminine leadership and fostering authentic community equity. It is a journey of healing, empowerment, and transformation through the expressive power of the arts.
My work is in the permanent collections of the Smithsonian Archives – “What is Feminist Art?” and the California Ethnic and Multicultural Archives. And in 2022, she was selected as one of Cantadora Wine’s “”Women Who Do Extraordinary Things for Community”.
Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?
Most recently, my body rebelled to tell me I was overworking and over-caring for others.
There is a saying about turning obstacles into opportunities. For many years, as a visual artist, my vision went south. There was no diagnosis, it was frightening. However, with the help of a generous intuitive healer, I learned to see this as a gift of enforced stillness. The nausea was not fun, but I used my deep love of music, which I neglected when I was so busy, to help me walk through this dark time.
Since I couldn’t distract my inner voice with busy work or social media, I got to the core of my chronic heartache. I understood how to access this because of my work inside A PLACE OF HER OWN. It’s what I share with others.
Over the past 4 years, these Core goals made themselves known to me:
Release the deep belief that I was responsible for others’ happiness and well-being.
Identify and prioritize my soul’s purpose
Discern who I want to keep around me to support my purpose and life.
Stillness gives you access to your inner wisdom.
Trust the universe’s timing. Illness is a teacher, not a sign of brokenness. It’s your body asking for your attention.
Slowing down allows the gifts to unfold
Trust in artistic incubation. Ideas will flourish.
When you change from the inside, the world that surrounds you shifts.
Rewrite old stories, practice new beliefs, feel and ask for what you need.
Taking Stock: Thanks to the article, I now see that I did a lot during this, seemingly underwater series of years that I am emerging from, here are miraculous things that happened:
2024-25 PAAWBAC Women Warrior Award
Pacific Asian American Women Bay Area Coalition
https://www.paawbac.org/announcements/our2024womanwarriors
Six local Asian Pacific Islander women for their lasting contributions to the API community and notable career achievements. First bestowed in 1983, PAAWBAC is excited to carry on this tradition of recognizing accomplished API women as modern-day Woman Warriors — talented and courageous — as they distinguish themselves in their respective fields, while giving back to others.
August 2024 Psychology Today: Intergenerational Trauma and the ART of Ancestral Pattern Shifting. 2024 Ravi Chandra MD
This 2024 PLACE exhibition features 24 multiethnic individuals (Asian American, Indigenous, and Latinx) committed to healing, in a variety of creative media, most of them using found objects to relate stories of intergenerational and cultural trauma and emotional transmissions. “ I sat down with my friend, founding director, artist, curator, and workshop leader Cynthia Tom to discuss PLACE. The video interview is appended, and this is an edited, excerpted transcript” Cynthia Tom for A PLACE OF HER OWN. Healing trauma through ancestral pattern shifting. 8/18/2024
A Little Informal Curator’s Walk-Through
4 min (INTRO/Cynthia’s Story + Art) Part 1 https://youtu.be/kkitv5zMiz4
8 min Part 2 https://youtu.be/KIRW3QaX-l8
1.33 min Part 2.5 https://youtu.be/gGri_rp2dcE
6 min Part 3 https://youtu.be/L95-l_bFixM
2 min Part 4 https://youtu.be/wStkyZMy4Bg
1 min Part 5 https://youtu.be/yupN96H0ttk
2023-2024 California Arts Council “Legacy” Artist Award, administered by Youth Speaks. 48 out of 1000+ overall artists selected in 3 categories (Emerging, Established and Legacy)
Selected as 1 of the 9 Legacy Artists of Northern California https://bit.ly/3Wa4lob
This selection process was extremely competitive with nearly 1,000 submissions from 35 Counties in Northern California. Cynthia Tom is 1 of 9 Legacy artists
Jan 27, 2022 at 10:24 AM Natalie Peeples <[email protected]> wrote: Hello Cynthia, A 5.75 IMPACT (which was your score) is between Strong and Exemplary on our 6 point ranking scale. Excellence, for purposes of this grant, is defined as an artist’s:
Unique artistic vision
Ongoing commitment to creative practice
Engagement with and impact on the larger cultural ecosystem
2023-2024 California Arts Council “Creative Corp” Award, administered by Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. 1 of 48 artists. Awarded for art-based healing program for the Korean Community Center East Bay’s Clinical Therapy and Internship program. https://bit.ly/4da03D3
Cynthia Tom partners with Asian American Clinical Therapists and interns to help increase mental health wellness and holistic healing practices for the Asian Pacific Islanders (API) underserved and unserved community. This partnership aims to provide culturally responsive creative skills to bilingual and bicultural mental health providers who serve the API immigrant and refugee community in the Bay Area.
Award winning wines pay homage to extraordinary women who work with community. She found Cynthia and PLACE on the internet….its a beautiful miracle.
https://www.oliviabrion.com/cantadora-wines
DEDICATED TO WOMEN CONTRIBUTING IN EXCEPTIONAL WAYS. Napa California. Owner and Visionary: Kira Ballota.
Napa Valley Winemaker has Life-stories of extraordinary women honored in wine; among them is Surreal Artist Cynthia Tom By Jonathan Farrell -May 28, 2022
The stories of the women (Cynthia Tom) are an inspiration and the work they do is foundational to the health and wellness of many women and children in our community. 10% of the sales goes to the organizations founded by the women featured on the bottles. https://www.tumblr.com/jonfarreporter/685558181066326016/cantadora-wine
Text Book
2020 Local Invisibility, Postcolonial Feminisms, Asian American Contemporary Artists in California. Laura Fantone PhD – UC Berkeley, SF Art Institute-Gender Studies
https://link.springer.com/book/10.1057/978-1-137-50670-2
National Archives
2019 – Permanent Collections: What is Feminist Art? Archives of American Art, Smithsonian, Washington D.C. Gallery exhibition and digital collection. Lead Curator: Mary Savig.
What Is Feminist Art? Smithsonian
Onsite images https://exhibits.si.edu/portfolio/whatisfeministart/
Cynthia online https://www.aaa.si.edu/exhibitions/what-is-feminist-art/what-is-feminist-art-2019?page=2
Artist Talks and Lectures:
Cynthia/PLACE provides artistic tools, and perspectives to wake us to our purpose and guide us on our journey. Chronic heartache transforms to resilience.
March 2024 Lecture for UC Berkeley- Asian American Art studies
Empowering Women of Color: Cynthia’s Artistic Paths to Healing is Her Form of Social Justice https://youtu.be/ThWNhU_oOfg
Aug 10, 2022 The de Young/Legion of Honor Museums of SF presents:
Cynthia Tom. Haute Couture, Cultural Heritage, and Ancestral Healing as art mediums
Aug 10, 2022 PLACE alumni explore cultural heritage to heal.
Family patterns and ancestral healing through art.
The Arts as a Vehicle for Transformation: Moving from Trauma to Healing with Barbara Mumby-Huerta and Cynthia Tom, February 24th, 2021.
National Guild for Community Arts Education
How do we begin to integrate a trauma informed lens into our work and everyday life? This session will provide a basic framework for incorporating trauma informed practices into arts programs as well as introduce a few successful examples of where the arts have been used as a catalyst for healing.
My life and the people supporting me has changed drastically. I am giving equal time to my PLACE work, using art creation to help heal ancestral family trauma and my personal art creation, whether it is painting, found object art installation or curatorial projects.
What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?
Know your topics of passion. What do you care about and how does your art reflect that topic? Are you in it for Commercial, Social Justice or Healing or a combination of?
Mine tends to be community arts and social justice (feminism, ancestral family patterns, POC based, which doesn’t necessarily equate to sales, however, it has garnered regular small grants, I am asked to lecture, host art based workshops based on trauma resolution.
I am hoping to make Oracle cards (for meditation) out of my work with text about their meaning.
When I first started most teachers said to identify what the market will bear, what is the trend, what will appeal to buyers. I’ve learned that this does not work for me. I can’t create authentic art thinking about what others want. I’ve been most successful, depending on what successful means to you. For me, success means reaching people who need your story, your message, your perspective and inspiration. Of course money helps, but it isn’t my goal.
I’ve created life long, deep friendships, advocates, collectors and fans who believe in my intentions to help “community”. There is intrinsic value to relationships beyond immediate cash.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.cynthiatom.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cynthiatom.art/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/cynthiatom6/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cynthiatom
- Youtube: YouTube