Tim Timmerman's Blog

* ALISON ELIZABETH TAYLOR Squatter Doorway, 2009 Wood veneer, shellac 53 X 46 1/2 inches

While wandering around as many galleries I could in the Chelsea district in New York as of late, one show that struck me with it’s skill and concept was Alison Elizabeth Taylor’s exhibition “Foreclosed” at the James Cohan Gallery.

Using the traditional method of doing inlays of wood veneers called marquetry, Taylor created a variety of wooden panel images in different varieties and colors of wood showing parts of walls that had been dismantled or torn apart by their disgruntled owners.  The show was interesting both in concept and method, a hard combo to come by these days.  You can see more of her work on the James Cohan Gallery website: 
http://www.jamescohan.com/artists/alison-elizabeth-taylor/

Ironically I was listening to a podcast that I get, Studio 360 with Kurt Anderson, only to find that he featured her in a recent radio interview.  It’s worth a listen: 
http://www.studio360.org/episodes/2010/06/04

* ALISON ELIZABETH TAYLOR Security House, 2008-10 Wood veneer, shellac 93 X 122 inches

"Stay" Tim Timmerman, oil on wooden panel / reclaimed wood / cast bronze / found objects (windmill toy, church); 20”x28”x4”; 5/10,

Well, I just took down my work from the “Assembled” show at the Bush Barn in Salem.  Everyone is now safely back here at home.

For whatever reason I have a very special relationship with this particular piece that was in the show, and I’m not quite sure why.  The bronze dog in it was cast a couple of years ago three times, and this is the last version of it I have.  It seemed appropriate to have him be my central living character in the piece.  It does seem like in this work there is a nod to the regionalists like Thomas Hart Benton and Grant Wood, and perhaps my mom’s Kansas roots are showing up in this one.  She was a woman who adored windmills.  When negotiating a title for this work I was thinking of my dog, now a year old and the standard phrase that perhaps even God has been communicating to me as of late.

Hope you be good-  Tim

"Stay" detail of the church, painting and reseviour

"Stay" detail of the bronze dog and windmill. Sorry that it's a bit burry- must photograph this again.

Last summer I couldn’t put down one of her books while traveling throughout Europe.  This last couple of weeks in New York I plowed through another novel of hers while on subways and in planes.  Mary Doria Russell is a wonderful writer.  Her work is smart, theological, challenging, and heart-felt; all recounted through the eyes of men and women that are all too human.

I don’t think I’ve ever directly recommended a book on “A Bigger World Yet,” but her works are really wonderful pieces of literary art that touch on the human condition and what it is to wrestle with God in the face of trauma and human frailty.  Topics that I think good art, no matter the media one is working on should be engaging in.

The first novel I read “The Sparrow” recounts a Jesuit mission in the future to a planet called Rakhat that scientists hear music coming from, just as the novel begins with the assembly of the team, it also jumps forward to the return of the single survivor of the trip a Jesuit linguist, Emilo Sandoz who has just arrived back in ship half dead, his hands torn to pieces.  And so the novel begins at two points of a story.

The second novel I just completed “Children of God” begins where the other left off and in some ways is even more harrowing as it wrestles with hope, forgiveness, and wrongdoing done in the name of good.

I can’t recommend these books more highly. Thank you Clint Baldwin for recommending them to me years ago.

Here are the links to the books on Amazon:

Also: Here is a wonderful interview with Mary Doria Russell on the radio program and podcast Speaking of Faith with Krista Tippet: 
http://speakingoffaith.publicradio.org/programs/2009/novelist-as-god/particulars.shtml

Hilary White, "Rein, Rain, Reign" mixed media with rotating motor 49″ x 23.5″ 2008

I ran onto a very interesting artist while in Philadelphia.  I didn’t encounter her work in an art gallery, but she was my waitress at a delightful restaurant in old town. Funny how things work out that way eh?

Her work is a great combination of symbolism, contemporary asthetics, graphic design, and faith.  A wonderful combination indeed.  Check out her work at: 
http://hilarywhiteart.com

Hilary White, "Give Into, Given To" mixed media with light 71″ x 40″ 2007

Leave of Absence , Tim Timmerman, oil on wooden panel / reclaimed wood / pate de verre / kiln worked glass / ceramic; 37”x23 ½”x10”; 5/10

Here is another work that is currently featured in the exhibition down at Bush Barn in Salem that is up till the end of the month.  The images that I based the painting on are from an area on the Oregon Coast south of Devil’s Punchbowl.  You may recognize this little boat as well as their is a post about me making it last summer.  I had a nice time combining elements of glass, ceramic, assemblage, and painting in this work.

Leave of Absence detail of pate de' verre boat and lower portion of the work.

David Mead's photo of Markus of Schomberg, Germany

Well, running around New York City again- and before I talk about anything too serious here, saw a very fun set of work while in the Chelsea neighborhood.  Since much of my own work deals with issues around masculine identity in our current day and age, I found David Mead’s work a very humorous approach to the topic.

Below is a quote about the work from Mead’s site: 
http://davemead.com/magnificent/
where you can see more images of his work.  Very fun stuff indeed.  Check out the variety of masculinity that can be found in facial hair alone!

“In 2009, Austin, Texas photographer Dave Mead traveled to Anchorage, Alaska to capture portraits of the 2009 World Beard and Mustache Championship contestants. The celebrated Magnificent Specimens will be on display at Chelsea Market in New York City, May 9 – June 30, 2010.”  (Quote from David Mead’s site)

David Mead's photo: Benjamin of Los Angeles, California

David Mead's photo of Xavier of Boston, Massachusetts

Agnes Martin Falling Blue, 1963; painting; oil and graphite on canvas, 71 7/8 in. x 72 in. (Clotheir mentions her when he writes about artists whose work is self referential).

Just finished a little book called “Persist, In Praise of the Creative Spirit in a World Gone Mad With Commerce“  by Peter Clothier that was recommended to me by my friend, Dan Callis.

It is a quick read that comes across with some good life lessons and thoughts about continuing to be an artist even if one doesn’t necessarily “make a living” from sales of the art work.  He had some nice points, and the book is interspersed with comments on breathing and relaxation.

Here is a quote I liked:  “All too frequently we allow the fads and fashions of others to define the ways in which we make art and the ways we talk about it.  But the act of creation, as I understand it, is in part a gesture of freedom.  It’s a way of leaving some no longer part of ourselves behind, of casting off just one more link to the chains that hold us back.”

Peter Clothier has a blog you can check out more of his thoughts and musings  at: 
http://thebuddhadiaries.blogspot.com/

My basic notes from the book would be:

Sandow Birk, "The Tempest" Sumi Ink, India Ink, Shoe Polish on Paper, 46" x 74". 2010 (this artist Clothier mentions when talking about artists who speak against injustice. Oil spill, injustice indeed right now.)

•Take time to look, breathe, and have a space for quite contemplation every day.

•Have a community around you that knows and supports you in your life and art practice.

•Know your own story and history and ways that you may be sabotaging your creativity.  Recruit those parts of yourself to be your allies rather than your enemies (think in Jungian terms here of owning your shadow).

•Trust the inner need, even the inner wound, that your work may come out of.

•Beauty does matter, as well as art that may challenge injustice and abuses of power.

•Look at your own story and heart for inspiration.  Tell people who you are.

•We are “stewards” of what we have in this life not “owners.”

•Did I mention breathe?

(a link to the artist Sandow Birk’s work is:
http://www.sandowbirk.com/index.php
)

As mentioned in a previous post I have been reading through a book that’s reflecting on the men’s movement in the 90′s. I’m finding it very assuring, and it’s getting me to reflect upon my own entrance into that community in 1997, and my membership in that body since.

Here is a quote of James Hillman talking about what men’s weekends are about-

“What I have discovered is that large retreats or weekend events with men can take a man farther than he can go in an individual therapy situation.  There is an emotional experience at those events that is not only allowed but reqiured.  The Dionysian retreat world is the communal world, in contrast to the Apollonic lecture world, which is more reflective and conversational.”

James Hillman (From the article:  Finding the Door in The Forest by William Finger in the book Wingspan Inside the Men’s Movment)

I’m reflecting on this right now as a dear friend of mine enters a week long such retreat that began this evening.

-Many blessings to you Barry, God will meet you indeed.  I know it.-  Tim