In November 2022, photographer Jason Toth was standing on the Lake Erie shore at Edgewater Park when he spotted a giant willow tree and decided to take a photo of it.

“[I could see] the lines of the branches and a lot of the leaves were gone, but it still had the muted yellow leaves,” he recalls. “There was something about the lines of the branches and the way the leaves were sitting there that invited me to take a picture.”

Toth had been diagnosed in 2019 with Postural Tachycardia Syndrome (POTS)— a dysfunction of the autonomic nervous system, which controls things like blood circulation, breathing, blinking, body temperature regulation, and balance.

The diagnosis was debilitating both emotionally and physically for Toth. He had to close his successful marketing agency, saw a long-term relationship end, and became broken and lost.

He had recently rediscovered photography and walked often as part of his recovery effort.

Jason Toth When he got home, he took the photo of the tree and began manipulating it with Adobe Lightroom photo editing software.

The finished photo was an image that prompted an epiphany of sorts.

“I sat back, and I was looking at my computer screen, and I saw what I had created, and I thought it was gorgeous,” he recalls. “I thought it was absolutely beautiful. I started crying.”

It was also the moment Toth knew that his talents as a photographer were calling him to the next chapter in his life.

“In that moment, I knew I was going to call the piece ‘Renewal of My Spirit,’” he says. “This punched me in the face, and that's when I knew that it was going to work. That's when I knew that I could be an artist.”

In a little over a year, Toth has taken his art to a new level—lighting up the Cleveland art scene with his vibrant colorized photography and opening a Photographic Pop Art store at City Goods in Hingetown. He is seeing the bright side of life,  even though POTS continues to be a struggle.

Toth’s work is currently on exhibit with artists Patsy Coffey Kline and Gina Washington at Kaiser Gallery in Tremont as part of “Thin Line: Love/Hate Relationship with AI,” running through May 4.

Toth’s art, characterized by its vivid colors and surreal interpretations of Cleveland's landscapes, serves as a visual metaphor for his journey from despair to the heights of creativity. Each piece, from “Renewal of My Spirit” to the dynamic compositions inspired by Cleveland architecture, reflects Toth's determination to see beauty in the mundane, to transform pain into purpose.                                                                              

Despite the ongoing challenges of managing POTS, Toth’s commitment to his art has only deepened. His work has not only garnered attention from local galleries and media but has also resonated with individuals and corporate clients alike, including the Cleveland Cavaliers and technology firms looking to infuse their spaces with local art.

“It's as if I'm seeing Cleveland in these colors now,” Toth muses, reflecting on the transformative power of his creative process.

A rough road

It has taken time to see those colors.

Back in 2017, Toth was at what he thought was the top of his game. His marketing firm was beginning to land major projects, he was in a long-term relationship, was traveling, and was active.

“I started the company, and it was going great,” he recalls. “In 2018, business was really solid. We had just booked the Cleveland Clinic, which was super exciting for me. I was watching something I was building not just work but do really well.”

But Toth was beginning to notice that something wasn’t right physically.

“I would have these periods of really incredible exhaustion and lethargy and intense brain fog,” he says, noting that he thought he was just over-exhausted. “I've had brain fog before with a sinus infection or something, but this was so intense that I couldn't speak clearly. I couldn't get my thoughts out. I couldn't even type an email out. And so this was getting more and more intense.”

After seeing doctors who dismissed his symptoms, or even accused him of faking the symptoms to get drugs, Toth gave up on finding a diagnosis and just kept pressing forward with work and everyday activities, as his symptoms got worse. “I was terrified and just trying to keep my business together,” he recalls.

Then, in August 2019, Toth’s world came crashing in. He was diagnosed with POTS.

“I was outside gardening, and I stood up,” Toth explains. “As soon as I stood up, my legs gave out and I fell down. Then I was hit with severe vertigo. My partner helped me inside, and I was laying down and vomited. I was just utterly exhausted, and my whole body was in pain. The only way I could explain it was like I had just played a football game. I was just so sore.”

Urban Dreams At first, Toth says he thought he could recover from POTS, and perhaps work and move at a slower place. But he soon learned it just wasn’t possible.

“I could not work in any capacity related to what I had done in the past,” he says. “My energy levels were still incredibly low. I was sleeping for the vast majority of the day. I continued to have intense brain fog and I stopped driving and just got rid of my car because of it.”

He closed his business, became financially dependent, and tried different therapies. “I went in deep,” he says. “I did EMDR therapy, which is trauma type therapy, I did psilocybin mushrooms after reading a lot about how you use them in a therapeutic sense.”

Toth says the mushrooms provided some insight.  “It was a really important experience for me because I uncovered the most impactful thing that was the cause of the majority of the chronic stress and anxiety that I experienced my entire life—self-hatred,” he recalls.

Through these therapeutic processes, Toth began the work of transforming his self-hatred into self-love, setting the foundation for his eventual recovery and rebirth as an artist.

He says he was trying to write on a particularly hard day, and ended up writing a thank you note to his feet.

“I started thanking my feet for serving me well for so long,” he recalls. “I played football, I went hiking through the wilderness out west and went backpacking. And I worked my way up.” Toth says he continued to write thank you notes to his body parts, to his depression, to his personality, and to his brain.

“I took a step back, and I just had this overwhelming sensation of love—and it was for myself,” he recalls. “I just put it all out there, and I cried and felt relief. That was one of the most important days of my life, because it was like a switch had flipped, and I started treating myself differently.”

Toth had also started using his camera again—he was known in college for always taking photos, and later for documenting entire vacation travels. In September 2022 Toth visited his sister in Utah, and was taking photos, when she first suggested he could make a living with his photography.

“It's a skill I have been developing my entire life, even though I didn't recognize it,” Toth admits. He says after his POTS diagnosis, he started being more active again. “One of the things I would do to get myself out amd walking is pick up my camera and go for a walk.”

Quickly, Toth realized that landscape photography would not pay his bills, but he enjoyed the angular look of landscape art.

“The light bulb had turned on, the fire had been set,” he explains. He started playing with Light Box, and adding vibrant color to his photos to create what are now his signature works.

On his 36^th birthday in January 2023, Toth announced the launch of Toth Art. He hasn’t looked back since then.

He had his first event at Oktoberfest in September 2023 and sold out completely. After a little more than a year in business, Toth has made more than 1,000 pieces of art and has a waiting list for his commissioned and custom works, which have now doubled in price because of demand. He now has a list of corporate clients and sold three works to the Cleveland Cavaliers for the team dressing rooms in Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse.

“POTS has limited me in so many ways, and still limits me every single day, but without getting it, I would have never allowed myself to get that vulnerable with myself,” he says. “I want this ride to be fun and fulfilling and challenging. I want to see what I'm capable of. I want my art to be an expression of my own self-love, my own gratitude, my own joy and my presence.”