Meet Matthew Tohme | Mixed media abstract artist

We had the good fortune of connecting with Matthew Tohme and we’ve shared our conversation below.
Hi Matthew, we’d love to hear more about how you thought about starting your own business?
Starting my own business by becoming a full time artist was something that was completely unplanned. In the early years of thinking about career and what I’d do in life, the thought of art being something that could be more than just a hobby never crossed my mind. I had this notion that living artists struggled their entire lives and believed the only time success was gained, came after the artist had been dead for twenty or more years. Because my process of getting to this point was unconventional, and because each journey is individual, I appreciate the opportunity to share mine with you.
I’ve had a love of art for as long as I can remember. My money conscious parents noticed early on that the art classes they were enrolling me in during my childhood was more than something to keep me busy during summer breaks. They began to bring home, what I now realize to have been quality paints and supplies, for me to create with on my own time. By second grade others began to take notice. Instead of being sent home with the art made in class like the other kids, my teacher, Ms. Johnson, would ask to keep mine. She compiled it all in a manila folder and stored it in her desk. Because my parents were supportive of my art at home I never thought anything of it. It was only when I started going to, what in my head I believed to be doctors appointments, did I realize there was more to the reason why my art was being kept. Instead of a chart of my health history, they had the folder filled with the art made at school. I began taking a series of tests, both written and computerized, and once completing I was told the reasoning. The state had a gifted and talented program for extraordinary children and if I wanted to, I could go.
Once started, I would go to my traditional school part time, then a bus would come pick me up and bring me to another campus where I would then attended art school. The best way I can describe it is that it was like the Boy/Girl Scouts for artists, a survival course for the creative. Exercises would include being sent out into the neighborhood in search for garbage we felt could be brought back to make something sculptural. The exercise that sticks with me most was being given the primary colors plus a touch of black and white, and asked to figure out the color combination that would give us white. We spent the whole day mixing these colors and all left in frustration as not one of us achieved it. It bothered me for years not being told the mystery recipe and it was only until more recent years did I understand the purpose. By giving us an unmixable color, we would have no choice but continue combining different ratios of blue, yellow, and red, resulting in endless colors, tints, tones, and shades. I accredit the years spent at that school and the exercises we were given for now having the ability to take a creative concept and break it down until I can figure out a way to bring it to fruition. The time away during my normal school hours started to show up in my grades. After a failed attempt to bring them up by holding me back a year, my parents made the difficult decision to pull me from the program. It was then when I began to believe that art was something that came secondary and developed the notion that there was no success to be found in it.
By 2016 I found myself to be working for the family business in the oil and gas industry. When I first started working there as a preteen, I wouldn’t have imagined that fifteen years later I’d still be working that same beige job. As a person who ran from risk and any of its forms, my biggest reason for staying as long as I did was because there was a certain amount of comfort the predictability brought. After having a come to Jesus with myself and realizing it was a greater risk playing it safe in life, I took ownership that I was in control of my own destiny and if I wanted to start living my life in color, I had to make some changes both in my career and personal life. Without a definitive plan or timeline in place, I figured any kind of start was better than nothing. I discovered there was a wealth of knowledge to be found on YouTube offering financial, business, and life advice. With a pair of earphones always in hand, I filled as much of my free time learning from the audio that came from those videos, finding a favorite in Oprah.
After some time and with a bit of momentum going, I began making my next moves. With an interest in entrepreneurship and becoming more comfortable with taking risks, I started participating in startup programs and finding mentors from different industries I could then ask to get advice from. When growing up in or around a family business, there are certainly advantages to be had in getting to see the inner workings of a company from such an early age. But what if your morals, values, and ethics didn’t align with the experiences you had? I got that answer while sitting down with Christa Cotton, the founder and CEO of El Guapo Bitters. What she told me was to take those experiences and look at them from a different perspective. Instead of looking at it as time lost, look at it as now having knowledge of how you don’t want to run your business, because knowing what you don’t want is just as valuable and important as knowing what you do. Without being in that situation, that lesson would never have been learned. I now take that advice with me in business and in life. Knowing that you need to take the time to stop and ask yourself, what is this here to teach me, whenever unfavorable situations come up, allows you to take risk and use it to your advantage. Changing the narrative turns your mistakes and failures into an opportunity to grow as an entrepreneur, by giving you the answers you’ll need in order to adapt whenever life gives you lemons.
By the time the pandemic hit, understanding the need to start living a more fulfilling life became more evident. There was something about the prior years of trying to become the best possible version of myself that allowed me to go into lockdown and use it as a slingshot to help put the final pieces of my puzzle together. With a certain amount of planning, I felt ready to make the transition in career. After a lot of thought and coming to the understanding that it wasn’t the right time for me to start a business, I decide to get my license to become a real estate agent. With starting a team, becoming a broker, or starting my own agency all being possibilities with time and hard work, I couldn’t think of a better compromise. When the day came for me to leave my job, and after enrolling in the courses needed to become a real estate agent, the feeling of a thousand pounds being lifted off of my shoulders came over me. I decided to take the next six months, the allotted time a person has to take the state exam, and cleanse myself of anything else that could possibly hold me back.
In listening to the gospel according to Oprah, I learned a lot about ego and what it was. Ego wasn’t just being a person who was entitled, ego was having any identification with form (square footage, car, status) instead of something that came from the center of yourself. I started thinking about all the material items (ego) I had been storing for years and realized the weight I carried because of it. Over the period of a month, I donated, sold, and threw away 95 percent of what was packed in about 800 square feet. During this exorcism of ego, I stumbled across all my old art supplies that I hadn’t seen in years. I found boxes with my old print making tools, negatives from photography, sketchbooks, paints, and unfinished projects. It was like discovering a person who had been long lost and it was all very exciting. I brought the paints back home and with five months left to study for my real estate exam, began painting in my free time. The mixing of paints, their mediums, and applying it to canvas brought back a feeling I had forgotten. It was the first thing I did when I woke up and there were many nights that ideas would come to me and if I didn’t get up to put it on canvas I wouldn’t be able to sleep. I found myself making up excuses for why I had to create over studying and not having any kind of money coming in was the perfect reason. I figured out little ways that I could take my urge to create and make money from it.
It was the culmination of one of those creative jobs and the passing of one of my favorite southern personalities when everything started to fall in place. One of my partners clients was wanting to throw an intimate dinner party for her closest friends who hadn’t seen each other in months because of lock down. After hearing about my creative endeavors she asked if I would be interested in helping her make that night a little more special. I agreed to help and went to her house to figure out how to make her request of bringing Morocco to New Orleans a reality. After spending some time with her, and getting to hear her vision a little more in detail, I was able to figure out a plan and get to work. Two weeks later, it was time to set up for the Moroccan night. The dinner party fell on the same day as the auction of Julia Reed’s estate. She was a contributing editor for Garden & Gun Magazine, the author of multiple books, and southern entertainer to the core. Not having any heirs, the proceeds of the sale would go to the Julia Evans Reed Charitable Trust. As I began setting up by layering vintage style rugs, arranging big poufs and pillows on the floor, and filled the low top table with tarnished flatware and brassy elements, the thought of Julia’s legacy was running through my head. The people she was able to entertain in her writing, the people she entertained with her cooking, and now gone, the people she was still able to help through charity. To me, that was the definition of a meaningful life. Yes, I made a big change in career to something I would enjoy more, and yes, I was feeling more fulfilled being able to paint in my free time, but what was I doing for someone other than myself? For most people buying a house is the biggest financial decision they will every make in their lives. Helping a buyer throughout that journey isn’t something to be ignored, but I didn’t want someone to have to be a client in order to connect with them.
With all these thoughts in the back of my head, what happened next could not have come at a better time. With lighting the candles being the only thing left to do for the night, my now friend walked into the room to see the space she and her friends were going to be able to enjoy for the night. To physically get to be there and see the reaction a person had from something that I created was the connection I feared would be missing in real estate. After taking everything in, she looked at me and said, “f#@k real estate, you’re an artist!” I couldn’t believe it. Those unexpected words changed everything for me. In what she probably thought was a throw away comment lied the answer I had been looking for since 2016. I realized if I took what I felt to be honest and true and put it on a canvas in order to tell a story, evoking a feeling even for just one viewer, would be enough for me.
From that moment on I decided I wanted to spend my life putting art into the world that would leave a person feeling as positive as I possibly could.
Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
Aesthetics aside, I believe art is a very personal thing. It is personal to the viewer and personal to the one who created it. Whenever I go into a new project, I try to approach it as authentically as I can. For that reason, the way I like operate as an artist, is by emulating the way I believe successful artists who are in the last chapters of their careers may create. They are not doing it for popular opinion, recognition, or money because they’ve already achieved all of that. What they create is only what they have the urge to, and most likely the reason why some of their last works end up being their best.
A personal example I can give was wanting to make some pieces and give the proceeds of whatever sold to charity. Being passionate about the cause, when the time came to get painting a completely new style came out of me that I had never seen before. I couldn’t have been happier with the pieces and when put up everything sold in just over a day. After seeing how popular the paintings were, I got back at it and painted some more. This time around my intentions were not the same. Because of how fast the others sold, I thought if painted more like the ones before, it would be guaranteed sales. After completing the next group it ended up taking me 10 times the amount of time to sell half as much. I realized I was doing it for the wrong reasons and it came through in my work. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to say everything you sell has to go to charity. I just don’t believe money should ever be the motivating factor behind what you are creating. I learned that lesson.
In addition to what I previously mentioned, there are a couple more principles I like to live by. It is so important for artists to support one another and have each other’s backs. Some people are scared that if they let another artist in, they may take their ideas, resources, or connections. That mindset doesn’t do anything but hold you back. I recently heard a quote that I couldn’t find to be more true. “By opening a door for someone else, you create a path for yourself.” If there is something you believe you can contribute to help a fellow artist, do it. Next, I believe no matter the professional field you are in, one should never stop learning. I take classes at the New Orleans Academy of Fines Arts where they offer courses in just about every media you could explore. There have been times when I’ve come across an artist who feels like it is beneath them to take any kind of art class as a professional. Whenever I hear this opinion I always wonder how they would react if they heard their doctor hadn’t taken any continuing education courses since they graduated from med school. If you want to be the best you can possibly be, GO TAKE A CLASS. Even if its not in the media in which you create, you never know what you’ll be able to take and incorporate into your art.
I feel proud that I was able to come to learn all these lessons along the way. It has allowed me to be fulfilled as a creative by getting put art into the world that I am passionate about while helping others in the process. Getting to work this way fuels my creativity and as a result, I have so many projects that I have either going on in my head or already started in my studio that I can’t wait to share.
If someone off the street came to me to ask how or if I felt they could make it as an artist, I would tell them this. With confidence, you’ll be able to create as fearlessly as you possibly can. With discipline, you’ll be able to take your talent, make it a career, and bring people joy in the process. With trust, you’ll be able to develop a relationship with your audience. And most importantly, you have to believe in yourself. If you have the patience and the belief that you can make it as an artist, your work is going to get seen.
If I had to summarize what I want my brand to represent, what my process was to get here, and everything I believe to be true in one sentence is a quote by Emerson.
“What lies behind us and what lies before us are all small matters compared to what lies within us.”
Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
For me New Orleans is all about the food and something I take very seriously. What I would do in the time my friend was visiting is go to my top spots for food, enjoying the city and everything it has to offer along the way. For breakfast, Satsuma cafe, District doughnuts, Bearcat, and Cafe Du Monde. My favorite sandwiches are from Steins Deli (the reuben) Parkway Bakery (the James Brown poor boy) and Turkey and the Wolf (the collard green melt) For pre dinner drinks we’d go to some of the cities boutique hotel bars. My faves are The Chloe, Saint Vincent Hotel, Hotel Peter Paul, and Bar Marilou, located in Madison de la Luz. If we decided to move on to somewhere else for dinner, Dian Xin, Paladar 511, Cafe Amelie, and Bouligny Tavern would all be on the list. To end the nights, we’d find a spot to sit and listen to music like Bacchanal or get tickets to Preservation Hall.
The beauty of New Orleans and it’s residents is that no matter what they say their favorite places in town are, whatever you do, where ever you go, or whatever you eat, you can’t go wrong!
Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
Without the support of my parents from such an early age I would not have developed into the artist that I am today and for that they deserve the biggest shoutout. Another group of people that also deserves a shoutout are the collectors and people that believed in my work from the start. That kind of support allows an artist to create without limits and I am so grateful that I am able to do that. I also have to shoutout Oprah for putting her wisdom out there in the world for others to take from. I am not being factious when I say she changes lives and she changed mine.
Website: Matthewtohmeart.com
Instagram: @matthewtohmeart