Pamela Toll

Art was not Pamela Toll’s only calling. Toll, professor of art and art history, notes that she was always interested in teaching, and each of the positions she has held over the years reflects that. 

“There is a reciprocal learning involved in teaching—a conversation between students and teacher. When they are making collages, I am making them in my studio,” she said. “My mind is constantly on the move...a thread in class becomes a thread in the studio. I read and see and relay this to students, and they tell me about things they have seen and experienced.” 

Toll has traveled with students to art museums in North Carolina to New York and on study abroad trips in Macedonia and Ireland. She also led internships for Wilmington-based Acme Art Studios, which she co-founded in 1991, and No Boundaries Art Residency. Toll co-founded No Boundaries in 1998 to unite artists from around the globe, fostering mutual enlightenment and enriching the broader community through the exchange of art, culture and ideas. 

“I have seen students flower and move on to making art and films, apprenticeships with well-known artists, making public art, and starting art-centered businesses,” she recalled. “They inspire me.” 

Born in Oklahoma, Toll graduated from UNC-Chapel Hill with a degree in studio art and English literature and earned a Master of Fine Arts in painting and drawing at East Carolina University. She has been drawn to art since she was a child.  

“My mother found painting lessons, piano and ballet for my sister and me and also introduced us to art museums,” Toll said. “I fell in love with painting at the North Carolina Museum of Art.” 

Toll will be retiring July 1 after teaching at UNCW for 25 years. Before Toll’s retirement, the Cultural Arts Building Gallery held an art exhibit in the spring to showcase her art through  the years. The exhibition was called Longing and Movement, an idea she had for a book, and as the gallery came together, the name fit perfectly. 

“I began narrating a bit of history, inspiration and ways of working and saw patterns emerge. For example, most of the work in the exhibition was created during my teaching days at UNCW; a lot of it over the past 15 years,” she said. “I began my UNCW career in 1999 as an adjunct professor while running an international art colony and Acme Art Studios with artist partners. Looking back, I marvel at my energy. But I was motivated by a lifelong passion for art; in both the making and the sharing of it.” 

Out of all the things she taught her students, the most important lesson was encouraging them to pursue their dreams.  

“I hope my students never say, ‘I can't,’ that they are resilient when they fail, and that they don't listen to other opinions more than they listen to their inner voice,” she said. “I want them to remember that their voice is important and that making art, like maneuvering life, is a relentless series of creative decision making. I want them to recognize their own power and ability to make change through their work.”