Close Up
Painting and programming are creative forces for UB administrator
Regina Toomey enjoys the unique set of challenges posed by each painting and academic project at UB. Photo: NANCY J. PARISI
“It’s juicy. It’s wet. It’s unpredictable. And that’s why I like it.”
That’s what Regina Toomey, senior associate provost for undergraduate education, has to say about watercolor painting, a hobby she took up about six years ago. With each work of art, she thinks about how to combine qualities such as light, color and composition to create an appealing image.
The fact that every piece involves a unique set of challenges makes painting enjoyable for Toomey. She loves using her talent and imagination to solve new problems. It’s the same mentality that has kept her at UB for more than 30 years.
“Both the painting and the job are creative,” says Toomey, who started at UB in 1977 as an assistant to the director of admissions and records, and has overseen such UB projects as improving student recruitment, encouraging undergraduates to participate more in research, and launching the Undergraduate Academies. “I like building things. I like putting things together. …That’s why it doesn’t thrill me to say I’m going to sit here and paint City Hall, and it will look exactly like City Hall. The architect did that. The builder did that. How would I portray it so that it has meaning? What is it I want to say about the building? And I think it’s similar to the programs we devise [at UB]. Why are we doing this? What is the need for creating it? And how do we put it together and get people excited about doing it?”
“Over the 30 some odd years, not only has my job changed a lot, but the challenges have changed,” Toomey says. “Yes, it’s all working with undergraduates, but they have changed. Times have changed. The issues have changed, so it’s certainly never boring. …I think that we're really lucky because we get to work with undergraduates, very hopeful 17- or 18-year-olds who are about to embark on probably the biggest adventure they've ever had. We listen to their hopes and aspirations, and try to help them achieve that.”
Considering Toomey’s dedication to her job, one might assume she has little time for anything other than work. Even while moving up the ranks at UB over the years, however, Toomey has always made room in her life for outside activities.
“Sometimes people have commented to me that they think that I have good balance between what they see as work and non-work,” she says.
“There was never a craft that I didn't try,” she says. “I do everything for a while. I designed and made my own clothes, and then I got a little tired of that. I made every kid's Halloween costume on the planet, it seems. We made people into Christmas trees and robots. I embroidered, I did fabric design. I loved all of them.”
Toomey approaches her latest passion with the same zeal as she does her job. She is a board member of the Niagara Frontier Watercolor Society, and her art has been displayed in some of that organization’s annual shows and auctioned to raise money for the Buffalo and Erie County Historical Society.
Her work reflects a range of styles. In a study for one watercolor based on a photograph Toomey took at Betty’s restaurant on Virginia Street, sunlight spills through a window, illuminating a young couple dining indoors. The use of light is dramatic and the colors rich, but the piece is largely realist. Other paintings—one featuring a jumble of white sailboats floating on a background of riotous color, for instance—incorporate more abstract elements.
The possibilities for what Toomey can create are endless—through her art and through her work at UB.
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