We were lucky to catch up with Toti O’Brien recently and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Toti thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Can you share an important lesson you learned in a prior job that’s helped you in your career afterwards?

Once, many years ago, I was working on an independent movie in various capacities. The director’s wife owned a boutique, and I also worked for her. One morning she told me “the movie team is so happy about you! They all say you are extremely professional!” Compliments used to make me uncomfortable. So I replied, kind of briskly: “and what does that mean? I only show up at the time when I said I would, at the place where I am expected, and I do what I said I would do.” She was quiet for a minute, gave me a long stare, and then slowly said, “That’s exactly what to be professional means.” I believe her words left a mark. They became a kind of guideline, reminding me that in order to be successful at whatever you do, even more that developing this or that complicated skill or strategy, you essentially need to be reliable, clear, and true to your word.
Decades later, I had another memorable lesson from a musician and audio engineer. I worked with him on a CD, with long hours of studio recording and mixing, and he also expressed pleasure in our collaboration. He said to me, “you have no idea… in this line of work, when you spend hours and hours in close quarters, concentrating on details, often under pressure because of deadline, how ‘talent’ becomes relative, while kindness, agreeability and reliability are all that counts.” I never forgot those words of advice either.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I am a self-employed artist, musician, dancer and writer. If something is peculiar about me, is that I have pursued those disciplines all at once, never letting go of any, and making my living from a combination of those different activities. As an artist, I create both mixed media fine art and fine crafts. They are separate fields, which I rarely combine, but I give both the same attention and passion. I participate in group shows, I curate/organize group shows, and I have solo shows of my artwork whenever possible. My art lends itself to illustration and book covers, so that is another professional output. I sell my fine crafts in market fairs and craft festivals, also online, and by word of mouth.
As a writer, I have published four books of poetry and three of prose in English, and I have worked with other authors on collaborative projects. I like writing about others, through reviews, essays and interviews. I especially like highlighting the work of other poets and visual artists.
As a musician, I am classically trained and a vocalist. I sing solo for private events or in church, and I have sung in choruses and choirs for the last twenty years. One of the highlights of this long practice was, of course, singing at Disney Hall, and singing at Our Lady of the Angels under the direction of James Conlon. My instrument of choice, though, is accordion, which led me to a deep exploration of folk music, which is what I most play and sing in recent years.
As a dancer, my roots are in contemporary dance and acrobatics. In the last decades I have naturally shifted to folk dance, an old passion of my childhood to which I returned. For the last twenty years I have been a member of Gypsy Folk Ensemble, an L.A. based folk dance company, as well as a member of the Folk Dance Federation of Southern California, and a teacher.

In your view, what can society to do to best support artists, creatives and a thriving creative ecosystem?

What society could do to best support artist is “not” foster competition. Through the model of the “best” and the “winner” applied to something as fluid, personal and free as the arts, where no concept of right or wrong really applies, society and the medias build division and isolation among artists, who are made to believe they should constantly outrun one another. Here’s the advice that artist Ruth Weisberg, then Dean of Fine Arts at USC, once gave to freshmen art students during an interview. “Build community.”
I never apply to competitions or prizes. “Not” doing it is part of my ethic and philosophy of success. I don’t race, and don’t want to succeed by being “the best.” There’s no best in art. There is a variety of practices and point of views that acquire incredible momentum through collaboration.

Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative?

There are many ways in which creative people might result impenetrable to people that probably are also creative (who isn’t, really?) but are engaged in a different kind of work practice (perhaps more regular and repetitive). One thing that seems to be counterintuitive is that “art is work. Any artistic pursuit takes as much effort, discipline and devotion as any other profession. And… a “work that you love” is just as demanding and tiresome as a work you don’t love… sometimes, more.
Another thing that is often hard for “non/artists” to grasp is how much time is needed by any artistic endeavor, and the shape of such time, which is strange, unpredictable, somehow ineluctable, certainly not reducible to a set number of hours… and then you clock out. You don’t, which is always difficult to negotiate within the frame of family, for instance, and society in general.
That is why it is so important for artists to befriend… fellow artists! and constantly touch basis with similar needs, similar feelings and views. Again… build community!

Contact Info:

• Website: http://totihan.net/index.html
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/toti.obrien