Leon Crosby: A Teacher for the Unspoken Youth

The universe has a strange way to bring two people together. I first met Leon Crosby on the first day of a new job as the events manager at Cornerstone Center for the Arts in Muncie, IN, back in February of 2022. Our first conversation was about our shoe choices. Thirty seconds later, we are talking about our favorite action hero. A minute later we're giggling about a dark joke. It was apparent we were going to be friends more than colleagues. Leon is a passionate, charismatic, hard-working mural artist born in the Ohio River Valley. A teacher for over fifteen years devoting his life to curating artistic voices. He's made a lasting impression on his students by continuing their education and artistic endeavors. One of his students works on the comic book Good Boy. Another just graduated from SCAD. With several students being brought under his humble wing, Leon is a teacher of the unspoken youth. He's giving his massive creative ability to others. For a while, he moved up the corporate ladder at his Cornerstone Center for the Arts, but it distracted him from what he loved the most. After taking that corporate hiatus he's about to launch a new teaching program.

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In a recent interview with him, he is transitioning to an independent teaching program, Crosby Family Art LLC, launching October 8th, 2023. The website is crosbyfamilyart.com. Currently, the teaching program runs out of his humble abode. Anyone will be able to access this program remotely through the website. The program's mission is to give kids, teenagers, and the underprivileged a chance to find their artistic expression through different mediums. Leon describes himself as an everything artist, "muralist, painter, drawer, sculpture. There is nothing I literally have never tried. Airbrush. Yeah. Airbrush. Tattooing. I was a tattoo apprentice for a while." After this description, I asked what is your biggest achievement, and his response was bigger than himself. His biggest achievement was his students becoming art teachers. As the teacher, Leon is capable of picking up different styles, a very adaptable artist and teacher. In the interview he mentioned his biggest influences were 14th century Gothic paintings and 1980's street art. Throughout his life, he's constantly in the pursuit of something new, innovative, and challenging. I could tell his restlessness in pursuit of being a student of life while being a teacher of the arts.