Community takes center stage in Shelbi Toone’s ‘A Village Folk Artist’

In the months leading up to 2020, Shelbi “SheL10” Toone began work on a solo exhibition rooted in the sense of optimism she felt at the time, with the artist relating the looming calendar change to “clear vision,” or 20/20 vision, as she explained it.

We all know what happened next: A global pandemic led to lockdowns, scuttling the planned exhibition. This combined with career developments – Toone’s focus these last five years has been dedicated to the development of the now-under-construction Poindexter Village Museum and Cultural Learning Center, for which she serves as project director and site manager – led the artist to table the solo show until she approached a milestone birthday earlier in the summer.

“Turning 40 this year, everyone was asking, ‘Are you going to have a birthday party?’” Toone said in late October at the King Arts Complex, where she’ll celebrate the long-delayed opening of her new, career-spanning exhibition, “A Village Folk Artist,” beginning with a reception from 6-8 p.m. on Thursday, Nov. 5. “And I was like, ‘Six years later, I’m finally going to do my show.’”

Of course, when it comes to Toone, the word “solo” comes with a significant asterisk. Throughout our interview, the artist returned repeatedly to the various ways she has been shaped, molded, and buoyed by the Columbus arts community, and in particular the Black arts community that she said has served as an unwavering presence in her life from birth.

“My grandfather (James Roseboro) was a City Council member, and my dad has always been part of CATCO, and my mother, she’s a jazz singer, and she sang with Jazz Arts Group,” Toone said. “I’ve always been in it and around it, so it’s always been a part of life for me. … This is a growing city, with people moving in left and right, and some of them have no idea who Aminah Robinson is, right? So, we have to be the ones to carry that legacy forward with the work we’re doing. And I understand some people are just creating because they’re great at it, but I think for me, I was brought into creating because it’s part of who I am, part of where I came from.”

As an adolescent, Toone said she didn’t always have the full awareness of the local artistic royalty her family moved within, and certain memories etched into her consciousness have taken on greater import with each passing year. As one example, Toone recalled the time around age 11 or 12 when she stood in her aunt’s home and watched Ben Crumpler paint a watercolor mural on the dining room wall.

“And he was up on this easel, and he had these white overalls on, and I can’t unsee it,” she said. “And I didn’t know or appreciate who he was then, but fast forward and we all know Ben Crumpler, and we know his body of work. And he’s been there my whole life, where my parents had four or five of his paintings around the house. I mean, I grew up with a Woodrow Nash in the living room. And having Black art all around me, you inevitably take on some of that.”

These connections exist throughout “A Village Folk Artist,” evident in everything from Toone’s own work – shaped in part by the combined influences of Robinson, Crumpler, and Richard Duarte Brown, among numerous others – to an alcove filled with Polaroids taken over the years by Toone of those people with whom she has moved in community. (“I call them ShelShots,” she said, and laughed.)

The joy and optimism that Toone felt in conceiving of the exhibit more than six years ago remains, though greatly evolved by social and political realities, with the artist saying that her work’s undeniable pull toward the light “feels more like activism now.”

“I’ve had people say to me, ‘Oh, love, peace – you’re living in your own little world over here,’” she said. “But I’m just staying on the critical path. And I think we need to continue to have those voices of optimism given the crazy climate we’ve been living in. … What has always pulled us through these times is love. And love is at the core of everything I do. I love my community. I love my people. I love my friends. And I try to represent that in my art and in everything I do.”

Different eras of Toone’s creative life fill each nook and cranny of the gallery at King Arts Complex, with sections representing her mural work (captured in a series of framed photos), graphic design (including an updated peace sign rooted in Adinkra symbols), fine arts (a series of butterfly paintings and a colorful Sankofa bird), folk art (a rain stick crafted in dedication to Poindexter Village), and photography (the wall of “ShelShots”). 

And yet, in spite of the diversity of work on display, clear throughlines exist, the collection as a whole speaking to the importance of community and the joy, love, and promise present within that connection.

“And that’s why I’m calling it ‘A Village Folk Artist,’ because … when I started, it was just like, ‘Oh, I want to make this butterfly.’ And now I’m making things instead based on what the community’s ask is,” Toone said, pointing as examples to a quilt she crafted by request for King Arts and a painting completed when Ohio History Connection asked her to make a work honoring the politics of Poindexter Village. “I think it’s just different when you’re raised by people who were absolutely on fire in doing things for the community, where you inherently take that on and adopt it. And when you find yourself tapping into your community in that way, one thing leads to the next, and then you’re falling into your purpose.”