Photo credit: Miscellaneous
Tom Toles doesn’t mince words; he doesn’t have to. The Pulitzer Prize winning editorial cartoonist for The Washington Post takes on social and political issues with art…….such as deflategate, the sports scandal currently surrounding the New England Patriots as they head into the Super Bowl to pair off with the Seattle Seahawks on February 1st. Some think the scandal is just hot air; Toles thinks it’s food for fodor. #DeflateGate
Photo credit: The Washington Post
Toles, Art Soiree and Suspicious Package hooked up for a one night stand at The Ritz Carlton in Georgetown for the Fifth Annual Political Cartoon Exhibit where walls morphed into cartoons.
We asked Tom how he gets inspired and if he ever gets creative block: “Inspiration is like the grain of sand in an oyster. The world is full of irritants. You try to make pearls out of them,” he said. “I feel like I have creative block every time I sit down to draw. It is the demon that must be battled and beaten.”
Photo credit: Art Soiree
It’s been many years now that Tom took over from his famous predecessor ‘Herblock’ (Herbert Block) who died in 2001 and who was known as a political cartoon genius, also a Pulitzer Prize winner (three times & shared a fourth). We asked Toles what it was like to follow him. “Herblock was a huge presence to follow. But I figured that I wasn’t coming to fill his shoes, that I was bringing my own shoes. Herb was Herb and Tom is Tom. It is a great honor to have followed him.”
Photo credit: Duncan Chaplin
Continuing with annual tradition, the event also featured a live musical performance by journo-band Suspicious Package, comprised of reporters including Tom Toles, senior government officials Christina Sevilla and Bryan Greene, former TIME/Bloomberg correspondent and journalist Tim Burger and Director of Education and Outreach for the National Security Journalism Initiative at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, Josh Meyer.
Tom Toles and Christina Sevilla
Art Soiree will donate a percentage from net ticket proceeds to Charlie Hebdo. “Artists should be unrestrained in the making of his or her art, and only free exchange of artistic expression, ideas, opinions and critique will help us understand our society and create a vital instrument for social change.” jaidecharlie.fr
“I was horrified that cartoonists were murdered for their artwork,” said Toles. “I get criticism all the time, much of it vehement. It occasionally seems threatening. It’s part of the job. Nothing is risk-free. When you’re focused on a task, you can’t let yourself be intimidated by every possibility. I don’t endorse every cartoon Charlie published, but that’s not the main point. Violence against freedom of expression is the main point.”
Suspicious Package:
