Area artist, Cal U. professor creates as way of life
Todd Pinkham, an art professor at California University of Pennsylvania, stands in front of a then soon-to-be-completed mural in East Bethlehem Township in 2019.
Courtesy of Todd Pinkham
A painting Todd Pinkham completed at Burning Man.
Courtesy of Todd Pinkham
Todd Pinkham works on a painting at Burning Man.
Courtesy of Todd Pinkham
Todd Pinkham has worked on paintings at Burning Man for the past several years.
Courtesy of Todd Pinkham
A finished painting by Todd Pinkham
Courtesy of Todd Pinkham
California University of Pennsylvania professor Todd Pinkham accompanies students and colleagues to work on artwork at Burning Man.
By CJ Richter
Todd Pinkham is ready for the coronavirus pandemic to be over.
Pinkham, an associate professor at California University of Pennsylvania has, like so many other teachers around the world, relocated his classroom to a virtual space. Yet for Pinkham, who teaches a variety of art instruction courses, teaching students wood block carving or advanced painting presents a unique challenge over a WiFi connection.
Keeping students engaged in the comfort of their own homes, and working with supplies they have acquired on their own is difficult, but the hardest thing for Pinkham to navigate is the inability to make observations of his students’ work in real time. He’s more concerned with nurturing the process than critiquing the finished work.
As he explains it, the finished assignment and the mastering of technique are only a single part of an artist’s journey. What he misses most, where he excels most as an instructor, is making keen observations that might not at first seem relevant to the artistic task at hand. Inspiration comes from many places and technique is only a vehicle in which to express oneself.
Pinkham has been expressing himself for as long as he can remember.
If you consider that a person is primarily made up of their experiences, Pinkham overflows with them. Chance encounters with dot-com millionaires in the desert, befriending roadies as a young child, working for former blue chip CEOs in the corporate art world, having his life threatened over a vintage tea cup … these are the stories that make up Todd Pinkham, and if you are lucky enough to run into him, he is the kind of person that will gladly share.
Pinkham grew up in Meyersdale. His father was a bank manager whose time in the service gave him the opportunity to see the world, a passion he passed on to his son. His mother was a secretary to the president of an insurance company.
Pinkham spent a lot of his time, as an only child, at his grandparents’ farm where he first connected with art as something to do. His talent was recognized immediately, as he puts it, “when the students were asked to draw a tree, it was easy to tell which was mine.”
This alone time, often spent with a stack of Heavy Metal and other alternative magazines that were bought for him without question, did not draw him inward, but in fact the opposite. When the circus came through Meyersdale, he gravitated to the traveling roadies, often trying to befriend this unique type of professional.
Art led him to earning fine arts degrees from Indiana University of Pennsylvania and Rochester Institute of Technology before ultimately landing a job at Dargate Auctions in Pittsburgh.
As he puts it, he should have been “getting coffee and sweeping floors,” but he immediately impressed the owners, Larry and Carol Farley, with his knowledge of craftsmanship and identification. The couple moved him up quickly and Pinkham would spend 10 years appraising and seeking out works of art.
Among his accomplishments are helping to place a daguerreotype of Frederick Douglas in the National Portrait Gallery, an item that was found in an antique shop in Pennsylvania that Pinkham helped identify.
Meanwhile, Pinkham used some of the money from his day job to rent a studio with fellow artists Joshua Hogan and Ed Moskala.
Hogan, who also worked at Dargate, and now owns and runs BoxHeart Studio in Bloomfield with his wife, remembers their time together fondly.
“Todd often came straight from Dargate, still in his suit and tie and he would just take off his shirt and paint,” he recalled.
The studio-mates would be there, at the least, every Thursday; Pinkham usually not getting home until three the following morning. They would paint, drink beer and push each other to do their best through thoughtful criticism and observation.
“I credit that [studio for] keeping me in collaboration with other artists so that I didn’t go crazy painting underneath my porch,” Pinkham said.
Hogan was the first to leave the space – he estimated they paid $350 a month for 4,000 square feet that they could do whatever they want in, – when he moved nearby to start a family and maintain a garage from which to work.
Moskala and Pinkham ultimately left when the building went up for sale.
Working at Dargate was hard and Pinkham would push through fevers to get a piece to auction, often showing up every day straight for a month, only to take a few days off. He had his first child during this period, and the offices at Dargate would become a de-facto nursery during the day.
It was exciting work, but not easy. And not always glamorous.
Pinkham once had his life threatened over the legitimacy of a Meissen porcelain tea cup. To diffuse the situation, he asked the gentleman from New York, “Don’t you think that we’re in the wrong business?”
So Pinkham went looking for a new challenge.
After a stint at The Ellis School where he was able to land an interview because he had clients with daughters enrolled at the all girls private school, Pinkham would land at Cal U. It was a major life change, but he welcomed the stability. He didn’t know it at the time, but this shift would open up a new chapter of his life.
In 2007, Pinkham recruited some of his students to join him in erecting a geo-desic dome in the Nevada desert at an arts festival called Burning Man. The festival, notorious for free thinking and inclusion, is a concentrate of performance art and larger than life installation.
Pinkham and his students, under the moniker Habitat for Insanity, built this dome to harbor live painting performances and communal artistry. Habitat for Insanity continued to make an appearance at Burning Man for 12 consecutive years, interrupted finally by the global pandemic.
Not before Pinkham met some interesting, and inspiring characters.
One such person Pinkham befriended on his first trip to Burning Man is Jeff Taylor, who founded Monster.com.
Taylor organizes one of the larger communal installations, a group called Root Society.
On Pinkham’s second trip to the desert, he was having trouble securing funding for Habitat for Insanity so he gave Taylor a call.
Taylor invited them to come out and work with Root Society.
It was a generous offer, getting to and transporting installations to Blackrock desert is not inexpensive, but Pinkham and his students received the VIP treatment.
“I’m there with my posse of students and we are looking around at this sound camp. Everything is big and expensive and there are all these rock stars moving around,” Pinkham recalled
They earned their spot though, and one of Pinkham’s particularly handy students wound up fixing generators and faulty plumbing that led to a job offer after the trip was over.
Not before a little good natured hazing first.
Pinkham’s team was tasked with fixing part of an installation, but were not given permission to use any tools. After breaking one of Taylor’s trucks, Pinkham worried the gig was coming to a premature ending.
Taylor approached Pinkham with a pen and made him sign the broken machinery, telling him, “You did this.”
Pinkham replied, “Look, this wouldn’t have happened if we could have used your tools!”
Taylor cracked a smile, walked to one of his Lieutenants and said, “give them the tools.”
Pinkham also came to befriend Nora Atkinson, curator for the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, who has recently curated a renowned Burning Man exhibition called No Spectators. He crossed paths with one of the original “Burners” (people that travel to the desert refer to themselves as such) a poet named Rusty Rebar, who busted Pinkham sketching him one afternoon.
There have been other colorful characters as well, including those whose names he didn’t catch. Like the art dealer from LA who bestowed upon Pinkham his Playa name, an unofficial honor that attendees hope to get, after hearing him laugh.
Pinkham’s Playa name?
“Hyena,” which is a moniker he has incorporated into his work ever since.
Pinkham’s work is hard to describe, only as it encompasses so many different forms. He’s a classically trained oil painter who uses birch wood as a canvas, however, he has had to teach himself to paint with acrylics after becoming a professor. He is constantly sketching, and his Facebook page is an endless scroll of output. He’s a performance artist who thrives in front of an audience during live painting events.
Pinkham half jokingly started his own fashion label, Hyena Carcasses, but the joke kept going and now the stitched-together garments, costuming that looks like it could have been pulled from a Sex Pistols concert, can be purchased at a gallery in Zelionople. He’s a digital artist, who admittedly prefers analog, but has been so drawn to the works of artists like Android Jones that he is developing a Video Game class at California University.
So what kind of artist is Pinkham?
“I’m an older-school artist,” Pinkham said. “I plan to paint until I die.”