Office Space: Curating Art and Nature

Jim Toia, Lafayette’s director of community-based teaching, captures actions that occur in nature—mushrooms ejecting spores, jellyfish decomposing, woodpeckers hammering wood—and transforms them into drawings, sculptures, and installations. “My goal is to give people the opportunity to contemplate nature in a different way,” he says. Here, Toia shares his office space, housed within Lafayette’s Williams Visual Arts Building in Easton, where his passion for art and nature meld.

  1. Poster
    Toia’s 2015 exhibit, From Here to Uncertainty, featured 33 works of art created by capturing the actions of spiders, woodpeckers, ants, jellyfish, and mushrooms. The show was housed in three galleries at the State Museum of New Jersey and covered by The New York Times.
  2. Sculpture
    Gifted to Toia by Stephen Antonakos’ widow. After graduating from N.Y.’s School of Visual Arts, Toia became the sculptor’s studio assistant. “He did an art exhibit here at the Grossman Gallery and at the Williams Art Center Gallery. He became something of a second father to me.”
  3. Sculpture
    Gifted to Toia by Stephen Antonakos’ widow. After graduating from N.Y.’s School of Visual Arts, Toia became the sculptor’s studio assistant. “He did an art exhibit here at the Grossman Gallery and at the Williams Art Center Gallery. He became something of a second father to me.”
  4. Antique tools
    “I love antiquated industrial forms. The sense of the hand, and the history and the use of those forms is really interesting to me. My work always carries a reverence for objects with a history to them.”
  5. Feeders
    Toia recruited red-bellied woodpeckers to create an installation. He painted feeders in the style of Jasper Johns, Kazimir Malevich, and Piet Mondrian, and filled them with suet. Woodpeckers hammered away at the feeders, poking holes in the designs.
  6. Student art
    Frames display billboards designed by participants in Toia’s Community-Based Teaching Program. For 20 years, high schoolers from Easton, Phillipsburg, and Belvedere have gained hands-on experience while working under Toia’s guidance.
  7. Arts Trail
    Across the street is Easton’s Karl Stirner Arts Trail, a 2.5-mile trail decorated with art installations and murals. Toia’s work as director and curator of the trail is to help people experience the convergence of art and nature.
  8. Dink
    Toia’s trustee sidekick is Dink. The 9 1/2-year-old rescued Boston terrier is a staple in the hallways and studio spaces of Williams.