Meet Tom Virgin | Proprietor of Extra Virgin Press, printer, educator

We had the good fortune of connecting with Tom Virgin and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Tom, have there been any changes in how you think about work-life balance?
Now that I am “retired” from teaching in the public schools it seems that every day is a work day. That said, I began my working life as a life guard and swimming teacher. After two years in college I dropped out and had several jobs that paid the bills and taught me life skills.

When I went back to school, working full time, spending evenings in art classes (one per semester) became the new normal. I finished my BFA with three kids in the audience. I was awarded an MFA in Printmaking at the University of Miami, a little more than twenty years after my own high school graduation. I began to teach art at Miami Beach Senior High. It took me a while to realize that the kids taught me too.

Visiting print and book arts centers around the US in artists residencies during each summer break from school, kept me on that learning path. It also introduced me to more teachers, colleagues and collaborators. I brought new knowledge back to my classroom, but also to the creative community in Miami. My love of reading introduced me to writers. Collaborations ensued. As friendships developed, collaborations grew to include more artists and writers.

Teaching and learning are not so much a job for me now, as they are a way for me to engage with my community, as I print for them. I make art, and help others to that path as well. It is important to me to give back to the same people and organizations that offered opportunities to me. This exchange is not work to me, it is life.

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
My art is a combination of community engagement, teaching and printing multiples… A mix of teaching and learning. Many teachers would agree that teaching is a two way street. Now that I am “retired” from teaching I am working almost every day, often in collaboration.

A frequent partner, Miami’s Book Fair asked me to create a thank you message for poet Ross Gay, after his reading at the Big Read Event, sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts. Poetry fans at the Historic Lyric Theater in Overtown sent in their words and images to create a little book as a thank you. I printed it on my 1949 Vandercook 4 Proof press in Little Haiti. I even made a Spotify playlist in honor of Ross Gay and the Lyric Theater: BigReadRossGayLyricGratitudeplaylist.

In February 2023 I participated in the Tropic Bound Book Fair, Miami’s first fine press book fair. My most recent collaboration with Edwidge Danticat was on my table (between the tables of two of my teachers from Minnesota who also attended, CB Sherlock and Gaylord Schanilec). Books have created another family for me, including readers and writers. Working with others is one of the most important aspects of sharing a press.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
I live in West Coconut Grove, so a walk the few blocks from my neighborhood full of shotgun houses and Bahamian cottages to Biscayne Bay is mandatory. From there, Downtown Miami is a short drive to the north, where we can visit Perez Art Museum Miami (also one of EVP’s favorite printing events, the Kids JAMM@PAMM) and a stellar museum that looks out at the city as much as it celebrates the work of internationally recognized artists. I just taught a class in book arts there called Creative Aging with some nice kids my age.

Just west of downtown is Red Rooster (incredible Soul Food), also across the street from Miami’s Historic Lyric Theater. A block down the street is the Longshoreman’s Union Building, which has an eloquent mural painted by Miami artist, Reggie O’Neal. There is art to lift every soul in this city.

Leaving the city we could head west to the Everglades. You can still see Downtown from Shark Valley and ride bikes around their 7 mile loop, well populated by alligators. You can’t usually see the alligators in the city. A long ride around this former service road originally paved for a drilling site keeps Miami focused what is important… Things like fresh water, wildlife and indigenous people. https://www.nps.gov/ever/index.htm

Heading back east I love to bring out of towners to see Stiltsville across Biscayne Bay just south of Key Biscayne. PAMM’s design mirrors these small cottages on stilts just a dozen feet or so off the water on pilings. Visiting the lighthouse on Key Biscayne offers a view of Florida that has been mostly unchanged since the early 1800’s, also with an excellent bike trail winds around Bill Baggs State park.
https://www.nps.gov/bisc/learn/historyculture/stiltsville.htm
https://www.floridastateparks.org/parks-and-trails/bill-baggs-cape-florida-state-park

Of course, Little Haiti, north of Downtown and home of Extra Virgin Press since 2017, would be a great place to visit. The presses are in a rebuilt local grocery store along with Emerson Dorsch Gallery and Exile Books. My neighbors on three sides are family, mostly by virtue of feeding me regularly. Clive’s Cafe (Jerk, Oxtails, and Curry Shrimp), SUR (Buenos Aires cafe with empanadas, sweets and mango mint lemonade), Panther Coffee (Brasil), keeps the neighborhood well fed with plenty of energy.

Finally just a few blocks east, the last mandatory stop would have to be Little Haiti Cultural Center, home of Carl Juste’s IPC Art Space, Edouard Duval Carrié’s studio, Laundromat Art Space and LHCC’s Art Gallery. Miami is a portrait of the Caribbean that is constantly growing.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
Presses tend to gather people around them. So many people have made Extra Virgin Press successful, that I really need to write a list: 6,000 teenagers, MDC Cultural Affairs, the Jaffe Center for Book Arts, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, Emerson Dorsch Gallery, the Miami Foundation, a Wavemaker Grant, O, Miami Poetry Festival, the Miami Book Fair, Books & Books, Miami Dade Public Library, Perez Art Museum Miami, and my Midwest home away from home, the Anderson Center at Tower View and Red Dragonfly Press.

The teenagers are three decades of my students. Miami-Dade Cultural Affairs Department gave me support and professional development for over twenty years. Arthur Jaffe bought my first book for their collection. Scott King let me solo on his letterpress at the Anderson Center. The Knight brothers transitioned their father’s network of newspapers throughout the Midwest into a foundation that supports kids, education, journalism and ultimately the Arts. Extra Virgin Press was founded with a Knight Arts Challenge Grant in 2017.

Every other name on that woefully incomplete list made it possible for to print for and with kids, community, educators, writers, artists, and especially folks who make books. You can see many of these supporters on my website: www.extravirginpress.com

Website: www.extravirginpress.com

Instagram: @extravirginpress

Other: www.tomvirgin.com/wp

Image Credits
Image credits: MBSH- photo by Tom Virgin, Tom Virgin at Oolite Arts- photo by World Red Eye, PAMM Creative Aging Class- photo by PAMM, EVP Studio- photo by Tom Virgin, Freeway construction from PAMM, photo by Tom Virgin, Kids JAMM@PAMM, photo by Tom Virgin, Creative Vizcaya (Stiltsville in the distance), photo by Vizcaya staff.