Nick Tobier was living in New York, approaching 30 years of age and feeling more than mildly perturbed that he was not making full use of his advanced art and landscape architecture degrees.

He was walking home late at night after painting floors for the nonprofit Storefront for Art and Architecture when he was stopped in his tracks.

There seemed to be some sort of interference in traffic, and he was soon struck to learn an elephant was being guided across the street by its handlers.

“For a split second, I was peeved, like now I have to wait for this elephant to cross by. And the next second I thought, ‘An elephant is walking by, this is the most incredible thing,’” said Tobier, professor of art and design in the Penny W. Stamps School of Art & Design.

“Everyone around me was pretty much acting, as was I, that this was a disruption. And that disruption was so amazing. It wasn’t only the elephant — which was such a beautiful sight — it was all the people whose lives were being disrupted by something passing by.”

In that moment, Tobier found his niche — to create “elephants” that bring about pleasant pauses in people’s otherwise methodical paths and to awaken them from their sleepwalks through life.

“My purpose shouldn’t be to be busy or to make people feel busier or to add to the clutter of the world,” he said, “but to remind myself and others that we have the opportunity to turn the privilege of being alive into something that could be surprising, and it needn’t be radical, but it could just be an interruption.”

The impacts of these “interruptions” have been felt as close as Ann Arbor and Detroit and as far as the Czech Republic and Mongolia, all in public spaces, with some lasting a short while and others more permanent.

Around the time he had this epiphany, he stopped working inside a studio and began creating things directly on the street. One of the first was inspired by walking through New York City and striking up conversations with people running hot dog carts and fruit trucks.

He decided to make a folding picnic table on wheels, tablecloth and all, that he brought to a hot dog stand manned by a Vietnam War veteran, who would proudly boast to customers and passersby that his was the only hot dog cart with such a contraption and that Tobier made it.

“I loved the notion that what I made was useful, but he didn’t see it as distinction between, ‘This was art and this wasn’t,’” he said. “The things I made that could be mistaken for everyday life were my ways of interjecting what I did, what I thought creatively, into the world.”

He came to U-M in 2003 and not long after noticed a parking lot on South State Street that had all kinds of signs about parking and permits but nothing that seemed to welcome people to Ann Arbor or U-M. His suggestion of moving the Michigan Marching Band’s practice to the lot was turned down, but Tobier was determined to come up with a creative and welcoming “interruption.”

In 2007, he recruited several School of Music, Theatre & Dance students who wore black and white uniforms and played instruments while Tobier dressed as a drum major adorned with a “welcome” sash.

“We’d play right across from the produce station by the train tracks, and cars would honk and wave,” he said. “I thought for someone going by, they’d say, ‘What a fun city. You come in and there’s a band to welcome you.’”

Two years later Tobier met Bart Eddy and Candace Sweda, who in 1997 had founded the holistic charter school Detroit Community High School. They were looking to bolster the hands-on learning portion of the curriculum. Tobier built a bamboo bike trailer and launched an “Earn A Bike” program where students would take apart a used bicycle and over the following six weeks put it back together. Those who attended all the sessions kept their bikes.

“When we finished the bikes, I remember this girl Erica said, ‘What do we do next?’ I thought, ‘Well, I was going to do the bikes and go, and I didn’t even think of a next,’” he said.

That launched the Brightmoor Maker Space, and 15 years later it has blossomed to include its own 3,200-square-foot building behind the school where students learn and work with tools.

He and Roland Graf, also a professor of art and design, along with artist Michael Flynn, put their stamp on an average sidewalk in the area of the school where students would wait for buses. In the summer of 2017, the pair and several students weeded the sidewalk, painted it red with skid-grip paint and striped it as a 40-yard dash. They even added a display to clock runners’ speeds.

“It’s still where the kids wait for buses, but instead of standing on a weed-infested, broken lot, there’s this incredible thing,” he said. “It’s effective because it doesn’t need me, it is intuitive that people can enjoy it seven years now through Michigan winters, and it happens on a daily basis.”

Another of Tobier and Graf’s creations has made its way around the world and will continue to do so this fall. Five years ago, for the Prague Quadrennial, they developed the Red Crossing, a carpet that is 8 feet wide and up to 100 feet long, depending on how many sections are used.

It has handles along the side and encourages people to join together in distributed strength to hold the carpet aloft and a person can walk, somersault or bounce across it. In addition to Prague, the carpet has been to Canada, Mexico, England, Germany, Austria, Italy and Mongolia. This November, Red Crossing will travel to Split, Croatia, where this “interruption” can bring joy to people’s everyday life.

“So much of the work I do and hope to do and hope to do with others doesn’t ask to be considered special,” he said. “To me, success is that I’m not the center of it, that it’s not about me. The public part of it. That was my misunderstanding as an artist/creator, that it’s about you, whether it’s about your personality or your special gifts.

“Maybe the special gift I’ve learned to use more is to be part of the background.”

Q&A

What memorable moment in the workplace stands out? 

Two years ago, I taught first-semester drawing, Mondays and Wednesdays at 8:30 a.m. I asked that first day if this was their first college class EVER and I will never forget their smiles … nervous and excited. It reminded me of our awesome responsibility and opportunity in teaching.

What can’t you live without? 

Playing soccer and working with my hands.

Name your favorite spot on campus. 

Right behind the Art and Architecture Building, between the back entrance and the parking lot is our sculpture/ceramics/woodshop defacto outdoor workspace. It is wonderfully uninstitutional and a great place to be. There is an oven you can bake in, a few tables and benches. Deer, rabbits, geese and wild turkey pass by.

What inspires you?

Maybe you could call it everyday creativity or backyard ingenuity. I saw a guy pushing a stroller with a baby in it, and a bigger toddler-sized kid riding on an improvised deck attached to the stroller with zip ties built out of an old crate and skateboard wheels.

What are you currently reading?

“Cutting for Stone” by Abraham Verghese.

Who had the greatest influence on your career path?

Our dean when I arrived at U-M, Bryan Rogers, who encouraged us to do what we loved and to get into trouble.

Tags:

• art
• Detroit
• Faculty Spotlight
• Penny W. Stamps School of Art and Design