Tim Timmerman's Blog

"The 33-year-old man," colored pencil on paper, approx 8"x6", 2001, private collection AZ

I’m teaching drawing 2 this semester, and currently have them working in colored pencil.  It is a media I use to do a lot of work in for over ten years.  I like it for its’ immediacy, and its’ watercolor like quality of layering up colors.

Ten years ago I did a series of seven pieces, each representing a different aspect of my identity.   I was involved with a men’s group at the time and we had done a psychological exercise of looking at different aspects of who we were.  I thought it would be curious after that evening, to do a drawing of sorts of each aspect I discovered.

I showed the seven of these colored pencil works to my drawing class and thought I’d introduce you to these parts of me as well on the blog.  Watch for the other six to show up here over the next month or so.

A detail of "Surrender Everything"

The largest piece in the current show I have at University of Portland is a work I’ve been plugging away on for some time entitled, “Surrender Everything.”  For the work, I wanted to create sculptural figures that were a bit more dominant than they can often be in my work.  I was pleased with the results.  It took some negotiating as to how to piece it together, but through a lot of screws, and deciding to bolt the figures to the base, we had success.

If you look at an earlier post I wrote on St. Jerome you can see a painting that has the lion I based mine on for this work, along with one of the images  of Jerome I was looking at to create the large wooden figure.  The lion is a development of the gouache and watercolor images I have been doing smaller over the years that I would also create temporary versions of on gallery walls.

I wondered what would happen if I actually made a illuminated manuscript type figure large, that is actually a physical part of the piece.  He very much “speaks his mind” in the work visually, and I like how he references too the folk tradition of wooden cut outs.

Hope your Sunday is going well.  Hope to see you at the closing reception a week from Thursday (the 3rd) at University of Portland (from 5-7).

Tim Timmerman, "Surrender Everything" oil on wood, found objects, glass, cast glass, and plaster. Approximately 3 1/2'x 5' (click image to see image larger).

You know you gotta love it when an artist takes the ordinary and makes the extraordinary.

I have the privilege of running the Minthorne Art Gallery at George Fox, and this next month have curated a show featuring two assemblage artists, Chris Giffin and Kay Worthington.  They both make exceptionally playful work that are inventive and a delight.  I encourage you to drop by and see the show if you have a chance.  It’s a blast.

Oregon Art Beat featured Chris recently in one of their television segments.   Take the time to watch the video on line at the link below. It’s a lot of fun to see her studio and working practice: http://www.opb.org/programs/artbeat/segments/view/856

Why I bet you’re going to want to go nail or glue something together after all of this!

Making sure everything is level, my buddy Rick Muthiah helps with finishing touches, and with the entire hanging of the exhibit. (Thank you Rick!)

As of Monday “Keeping Vigil” a solo exhibition of 18 of my works is currently up for a month at University of Portland.  If your in the neighborhood please stop by and check the exhibition out.

The artist reception will be the first Thursday in February (the 3rd) from 5pm-7pm (see show card in a post below for details).  Mark your calendars!  I’m having it catered by a wonderful team here at George Fox, so I promise the food (and the art of course) will make it worth the trip.  Look forward to seeing you there if not sooner.

A view looking into the exhibition from the main hallway. As we finished up the sun began streaming in even though it was a chilly January weekend. Very nice indeed.

Me putting final touches on "Surrender Everything." The piece had just been fully assembled the day before for the first time. I decided to do some final touch up painting once the piece was installed, rather than doing it the day before and taking the chance that things would get very messy when transporting it in the car. The largest piece in the show, it had some difficulties with the wall it is on (as it was a little iffy it would stay on), but thanks to a carpenter at UofP the word is we are now A.O.K.

Another wall of work in the show: "The Whole Night Sky," and "On The Street Where You Live."

Flemish painter Jan Van Eyck’s “St. Jerome in his study” (1435-1440). Jerome is often represented as a scholar with a book, which represent his numerous writings.  The hourglass on the table  is among the symbols of a penitent hermit.  The cardinal’s hat he is wearing in this image is the result of a mistaken interpretation in the Middle Ages of the events in his life (and the clothing he is wearing in this image would only be begun being worn by cardinals around 1252, St. Jerome lived from approx 341-420A.D.).

After the holidays here I’m busy getting work done that will be in the “Keeping Vigil” solo exhibition I have at University of Portland that opens Monday on the 10th.

The last piece that has been on the docket is a large mixed media work entitled,”Surrender Everything.”  In this work there is a sculpture of a figure on his knees.  I felt that that figure appeared a bit too alone in the work, so wanted to give him a saint to be by his side.  I decided upon St. Jerome.  In a book that I have been working on for a number of years I wrote this bit about him when speaking of friendship:

St. Jerome is an ascetic who lived in the Syrian Desert in the mid 370’s, but he was also a pioneer in maintaining friends through letter writing. The letters he sent to three of his friends when he was in isolation are full of warmth, care and longing. “If illness and the summer heat and the difficulties of sea travel did not hinder me, I would hurry to you. I long for you more than the sailor longs to reach harbor after a storm. I long for you more than the parched field longs for rain and more than the anxious mother sitting on shore waiting for her son.” St. Jerome is uninhibited in his emotion as he expresses his desire to see his friend Rufinus, so much so that he declares his feelings as being deeper than what is thought to be the deepest human love, that between a mother and child.

Who better to assist the supplicant figure I was making for the work?  Some one who knows what it is to be isolated and in need of connection.   I’ll show you images of the finished work shortly here. But before that I want to share with you a couple things I learned about our desert saint.    The Golden Legend speaks about how in a monastery in Bethlehem Jerome healed a wounded lion that had a thorn in his paw, so Jerome is always represented with this lion, who apparently went with him after that wherever he went.  In addition the lion symbolizes how compassion conquers brute force.  St. Jerome would live as a hermit for four years (and often represented in that manner) but then after studying in Constantinople with Saint Gregory Nazianzen he would move to Rome eventually retiring in Bethlehem.

My interpretation of him is a standing three foot wooden figure that you will see here shorty.  Blessings to you-