Employee Spotlight: Vilas Tonape
Cape Fear Community College is excited to introduce Vilas Tonape, the new department chair for Commercial, Fine, and Performing Arts. With a rich background in artistic creation and education, Vilas brings a wealth of experience and a passionate vision for the future of the arts at CFCC.
We sat down with Vilas to explore his journey, artistic influences, and his plans for engaging with the community and inspiring students.
Q:Can you share a bit about your journey in the arts and what inspired you to pursue a career in this field?
Vilas: I studied art at the prestigious Sir J.J. School of Art in Mumbai, the premier art college in India. This is where I was molded and was given the gift of sight…the visual sense that is required to paint. Then in 1994, on a full scholarship, I came to U.S. to do my M.F.A. at Texas Christian University, Fort Worth, Texas.
Q: What are some of the most memorable projects or exhibitions you have been a part of?
Vilas: Solo and group combined, I have had close to 50 curated exhibitions, excluding the juried competitions (which are over 40). The most rewarding ones have been the ones when I have collaborated with other artists exhibiting with them or curating their exhibitions without any of my work.
Q:How would you describe your artistic style and the themes you explore in your work?
Vilas: Emerging interests in my work manifest in the three distinct areas: drawing, figurative painting, and non-representational painting. In figurative painting, my attention is moving from figure, not to ground, but to the whole—figure and ground. In my non-representational ventures, I endeavor to create songs without lyrics, pure visual melodies.
Q:Who or what has been a major influence on your work as an artist and educator?
Vilas: My Indic (Indian) culture, my teachers from Sir J.J. School of Art in Mumbai, and three great professors from Texas Christian University, who I call my “American Gurus.” I was honored to be presented with a Lifetime Achievement Award from the First Friday Forum of Chandigarh Government Museum (2018), India. Another highlight of my career was when I was inducted into Phi Kappa Phi, the nation’s oldest and largest all-discipline honor society (2018). My greatest honor has to be being invited by former president George W. Bush to his studio in Dallas, where he practices his retirement passion, art.
Q:How do you encourage and inspire your students to explore their creativity and develop their unique artistic voices?
Vilas: My experience of being a professor for almost 20 years tells me that everyone, every student, is born with a piece of gold inside them and the job of a teacher is to find just the right ways to clean the dust off that’s gathered on it. Students need to see my own passion toward my art. You can find everything you are teaching in books. The one thing they will never forget is if they witness the passion you have for the subject.
Q:What advice would you give to students who are passionate about pursuing a career in the arts?
Vilas: Passion is the what; technique and craft is the how; both are important. If the choice is between what and how, I’ll prefer what…passion is more important to me. To retain that passion in spite of your competence in craft is very difficult because craft is calculation. Craft is objectivity, while passion is emotion—it has a certain element of madness, forgetfulness, involvement, total immersion, and innocence. But that is what art is all about!
Q:How do you plan to involve the local community in the arts programs at Cape Fear Community College?
Vilas: Collaboration and community involvement, both ways, are important to me. Involving community to participate in our exhibits, lecture series of visiting artists, that I am envisioning in the near future.
Q:Is there anything else you would like the Cape Fear Community College community to know about you or the arts department?
Vilas: I feel tremendously honored and blessed to be here and cannot wait to connect with the students—after all, they are the reason for me to be here, for all of us to be here.
