"Black Tears"
Black Tears (installation view of 385 Black Tears), 2015
Ink and beeswax on paper (unframed), 7"x5.5" each, approx. 6.5'x16' overall
A volume of James Baldwin’s lesser known verses, “Jimmy’s Blues and Other Poems”, initially inspired this ongoing body of work. His writings chronicled the legacy of racial injustice in 20th century America as well as his personal struggles with the homophobia of that era. While responding to his work with her own, Toby Sisson was struck by the parallels between the racial strife that Baldwin wrote about decades ago and the violence inflicted upon black bodies in America today. "The widespread protests against these incidents have given voice to our country’s collective sorrow," she says. "As I reflected on this communal expression of grief, I began drawing black tears as a way to contemplate my own sadness. It soon became a meditative act, a process that allowed me to grieve and create a visual elegy for the loss."
Toby Sisson earned her BFA, Magna Cum Laude, and was Co-Valedictorian of her graduating class, one of only a handful of minority students at the College of Visual Arts in St. Paul, Minnesota. With a focus on drawing, painting, public art and teaching, she received her MFA from the University of Minnesota.
In 2009, Sisson joined the faculty of Clark University in Worcester Massachusetts where she teaches Beginning and Advanced Drawing and Painting, Studio Topics and Senior Thesis seminars. She was awarded the Edward Hodgkins Junior Faculty of the Year Prize in 2011 for meritorious contributions in creative practice, teaching and service. Sisson has been nominated three times for an Outstanding Teacher of the Year award by Clark University students (2014, 2019 and 2020). She was granted tenure in 2015 and received the Hayden Faculty Fellowship for deep and sustained engagement with the Clark community. She currently serves as the Director of the Studio Art Program in the Department of Visual & Performing Arts.
Outside of the university, she is on the Board of Directors for ArtsWorcester, an organization that engages artists and the public to advance and celebrate contemporary art; serves on the Collections Executive Committee for the Worcester Art Museum; and is a member of the Dark Room, a race and visual studies collaborative research cluster. Sisson has exhibited her paintings, drawings and prints internationally, including the Teda Contemporary Art Museum, Tianjin, China; The Hunterdon Art Museum, Clinton, New Jersey; and the Provincetown Art Association and Museum, Provincetown, Massachusetts. Her work is in numerous public and private collections; among them, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island and the Worcester Art Museum, Worcester, Massachusetts. Toby Sisson's home and studio practice are located in Providence, Rhode Island.
