Meet Toby, Founder of Chance Gallery
When suffering from depression, going to bed can be the highlight of your day. Unless you were already in bed all day and the next step is sleeping and sleeping some more. You begin to feel guilty for not feeling okay. You worry while remaining in the same position in bed. Fretting you’re wasting your talents away while tossing and turning in your bed. Wondering when it will all end, your thoughts trail to more moments of bliss. Moments when you felt you could take on everything the world had to throw at you.
History undergraduate at the University of Warwick and creator of Chance Gallery — a contemporary platform for young emerging artists — Toby Carpenter has been a true example of resilience. During his second year at university, hearing the news of his mother being diagnosed with cancer during the Christmas break took him to a dark place. The prospect of his mum dying was constantly on his mind, stopping him from focusing on university work. His academic work declined and attendance fell. His mum became his priority in his second and third year of university. This life-changing moment caused him to fall into a deep depression. Constantly thinking death is all around him, Toby mentioned “for about 6 months it was extremely dark. You go to bed sad, you wake up sad”, he said solemnly. He stopped replying to friends’ messages. Stopped going out. Stopped doing.
A lot of friends in London were unaware of his situation. His social anxiety, an offshoot from his depression, prevented him from interacting much with others. A lot of people couldn’t relate. Being in a dark mood made him not want to socialize with other people because he didn’t want his mood to affect him. It was only a year after his mum was diagnosed that his friends from London found out. And, while some of his friends at university were supportive, the pain wouldn’t go away. “I would go to bed with a tear in my eye, wake up with a tear in my eye”, Toby said. “It affected me more than my mum”. Watching her go through chemotherapy and seeing her health deteriorate further pained him. Though thankfully she made it through, the memories of that period are still haunting him. The depression and social anxiety he had at the time still follows him.
The period of deep depression had him reevaluate his relationships with friends: the people that were there for him and those who weren’t now occupied different spaces in his life. “You have your true friends who’ll have your back in the darkest of times, but you also have the friends you just meet up to have fun with,” he said.
Devoting more of his time to friends that were present during that tough time, Toby has become more careful with the time he spends with people. The daily reminders about the shortness of life made him see time from a new perspective. “A lot of people haven’t had experiences that make them realise each day is extremely important and life can be taken like that.” And it’s true. Even if we have had those experiences, we often forget about the lessons they taught us — reverting back to our old lifestyles.
Though everything is in a much better place, Toby is trying to continue placing the same level of importance to each day. He tries to be as productive as he can, which at times can make him stressed but helps preventing him from falling back into a dark place. His aim is to find the balance in life; balance between working hard but also enjoying himself.
Chance Gallery, which started from the interesting conversations Toby had with many artists who he met at a friend’s gathering, has been an enjoyable project of his. Going on temporary withdrawal from university last year, in part to start the project but also because of his mental health, Toby has been able to grow the platform substantially and produce amazing work. Wondering what impact mental health has had on his work, I asked Toby if his mental health had a positive or negative effect on his progress with Chance Gallery, to which he responded: “both”. He explained that his mental health had helped him in certain aspects. Being in a dark place for so long made him stronger. There was nothing worse than that, he thought. Also, becoming obsessed with time made him want to produce as much as possible. Interestingly, Toby stated that, oddly enough, the state of his mental health allowed him to relate to a number of people who had been going through a number of things and interact more with artists as many of them have had to deal with similar mental health problems.
Conversely, because he became so obsessed with Chance Gallery, he would spend 15 hour days working on it. He had yet to develop a balance, which had a further negative impact on both his mental and physical health. Spending hours behind a computer screen or on Instagram came at the cost of having real-world experiences such as going outside and meeting people. Though people praised him for his work, they failed to see “it’s not glamorous or good for one’s health”.
As we rounded off the interview, I asked Toby what he had learned from his experience and if he had any advice for others. His response was insightful. He said he does not regret the moments of obsession over Chance Gallery as he was able to produce great work during those periods and he has learnt to better manage his time as a result of those situations. Also, “It’s important to have people to talk too. Also opening up to people allows them to open up to you” he said. In his opinion, though the perceptions of mental health have improved, there’s still a long way to go. We need to cooperate more, build better communities and be less hostile when competing.
You can connect with Toby on Linkedin, and make sure to follow his work for Chance Gallery here.
Originally published at alt-ed.uk on November 13, 2018.
