Tim has been a professional painter since 1993 and has been running Lotus Painting since 1995.
Tim says about his work, “Growing up, I never saw myself as a painter, or even in construction. I always thought I would become an engineer, or a stock broker…a guy in a suit. But after going to college for a few years, I found myself growing more and more impatient with formal education…it just wasn’t fulfilling me. So I decided to take a break from school, to see what else the world was about. One thing that was very clear to me was that I was obstinately passionate about my hobby as a rock climber. I loved the wild outdoors, I loved being in nature, and I loved using my hands to propel myself up into curious places that most people tend to avoid. But hobbies don’t pay the rent, so I found myself working at a paint store in 1992. There, I learned how to manipulate color tint by hand to make paint matches for my customers. Back in those days, they had photo spectrometers (‘computer color eyes’) but they were rather primitive, so I ended up matching color by my own eye most of the time. It was an awesome experience that taught me a great deal about how color works. Most importantly it honed my eye, sharpened it not only for color, but fine, minute detail. After about a year, I became restless again, and decided to go to work for one of my customers, a professional painter. It didn’t take me very long to realize that working with my hands was what I was made to do. The love of rock climbing was a clue, but until I got the chance to really work hard with my hands and create beauty out of nothingness, or even better, out of ugliness, I had no idea how much I would love it. Painting is hard physical work, there’s no denying this fact. The funny thing is that I like the fulfillment that doing this work gives me; I mean I really enjoy it. To take something as big as a house, or a room, or a kitchen, and use my hands to shape it, to change it, to morph it into something wonderful….well, I just can’t see myself doing anything else.”
Tim lives with his wife Jill, their son Tyndall and a dog and cat in a log cabin overlooking Horsetooth Reservoir in Fort Collins Colorado.