Shooting on Washington Olympic Coast, WA                                 Mountain biking, Methow Valley

Creativity is in my blood it seems. My Mother is a painter, multimedia artist, and illustrator. My Father is a stained glass artist, a wood worker, and just all around creative guy with a long career as a landscape architect. My Grandmother was a life long painter and my aunt was a prolific batik artist. When I was around 11years old I got my first camera. By the time I finished high school I'd experienced  success with photography and knew I wanted to make a career out of it. My earliest inspiration was the landscapes of Southwest Colorado and Southeast Utah where I spent a good portion of my childhood.

I studied photography and graphic arts in college in Flagstaff, Arizona and started my career working for other photographers freelancing as a photographer’s assistant in 1989. I've made my living since then through photography. The crazy thing is, it wasn’t until the last 10 years that I started thinking of myself as an artist. My focus once I went to college was always as a commercial photographer even though when I wasn't working I've always made images that were purely my art. It's actually hard for me to stop constantly framing photographs in my head and thinking about lighting and angles and when I can come back to make that perfect photograph with the perfect light and season.

Now I’ve embraced myself as an artist and know I’ve always been an artist. For a long time I held a deep-seated fear of that “starving artist” designation I was warned so many times about way back when I first started. I was determined not to be that and therefore my aversion to the word artist.

In 2011 I showed Amy (my wife) some old paintings I’d made in high school and she said I should take up painting again. She seemed to really like them and after "the great recession" in 2008 I was looking for some new way to continue my creative career so I started painting and taking classes. My continuous reinvention continues now with the additions of painting and film-making. I'm excited to see where it takes me and what new experiences and and insight I will find.

My art is my vehicle through which I express my experience in the universe. I mostly make art as an expression of nature.

Nature... that word encompasses so much! It's all around us and we are part of it. It's the wind, the air, the water, the rocks, the soil, the plants and animals. It's the systems and forces that change all of those things. It is resistance, giving in, changing, adapting, growing, decaying, living and dying... it is everything. My work shows the wonder, beauty and tragedy of nature. My intention with sharing it is to remind everyone to love and protect nature because nature is us.

I do believe Humans and what we do are a unique part of nature. I believe as Human animals, we are just starting to learn how to better exist with the rest of nature. It's a challenge for us Humans as so far we seem to be particularly good at destroying or altering other nature. Humanity and what we Humans do relating to this Earth / this nature is a part of what I'll be exploring in my current and future art.

Obviously I love photography and painting. I am also intensely curious about certain things, some of them of a political nature and others of a more sociological and environmental preservation leaning. I hope to do more documentary film making and explore those topics that intrigue me . Rock climbing was a huge part of my life for 25 years or so. That is how I met my wife, Amy. Amy and I don't climb nearly as much as we used to. Now we love to travel, sea kayak, hike, ski, bicycle, camp and just general low to mid level adventuring  whenever we can. We live in Twisp, Washington (after 32 years in Seattle) where we work and plan our adventures both near and far.

I hope this was interesting. Thanks for reading all the way through it. If you'd like to follow me, my art, please click through to my social media outlets and sign up for my occasional newsletters.

- Tim