Tim Weldon
mixed media
My journey of discovery began some years ago within the confines of a chaotic environment. I was born in New York, the fifth child in a family of what came to be nine children. To some, being one in a large family might be overwhelming, for me it was truly an amazing experience and to this day I feel blessed to be so fortunate. When I was a teenager, my family uplifted to a small town in New Mexico. The move was quite an adjustment, and at first New Mexico didn’t agree with me. Ironically, that changed when I moved away. Since then, the colors of “The Land of Enchantment” have haunted me. My palette was born in New Mexico…it invokes the color of life; a photomontage of a primitive spirit.
The encouraging support of my parents and just the right dose of imagination allowed me to explore some of my wildest dreams no matter how crazy they seemed at the time. From cartoonist to theatrical dancer to music producer to painter with many odd jobs in between. I’ve come full circle after a long absence from the art world—my first true love.
This re-awakening to my first love started with a Bill Traylor painting I saw for the first time called “Runaway Goat Cart”. I’ll never forget it; Simple yet complex, raw yet graceful, child-like yet mature. It was a revelation for me and that day changed my life forever. You could say I felt the spirit move as the hair raised on my arms, tears fell from my eyes and a chill ran down my spine. Cliché, perhaps, but most definitely the truth.
The message was clear…It’s okay to paint from your inner child! Why not? The happiest times of my life were when I didn’t have a care in the world…pure and unblemished, wide-eyed and curious. “Real life” moved me into an illogical orbit that took me away from that innocence. Was that Bill Traylor sighting fate or chance? Probably both.
To find that inner child, I embarked upon a therapeutic adventure in painting…It was time. Fifteen years had passed since I last held a brush in my hand. All the other creative endeavors I had experienced left me with an insatiable appetite to bring the beauty of a musical landscape to life on canvas. Now it was time to start on the road to my release…but where would it come from? Since our consciousness is just a vehicle for our subconscious, one can never tell where this journey will lead.
Northern New Mexico Fine Arts and Crafts Guild
We are a New Mexico nonprofit corporation, a project of the T.O.M. founded in 1965, a 501(c) organization.
Northern New Mexico
Fine Arts & Crafts Guild
P.O. Box 28065
Santa Fe, NM 87592-8065
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Design produced by Wise Goat Studios LLC for NMFACG
Tim Weldon
And so it goes…The story of a dreamer in focus, the “little man” larger than life, a metamorphosis of sorts, the juxtaposition of color that lives in the fiesta, echoes of music ranging from a bordello virus spilling into the backstreets of our minds, an ethereal world groove laced with American roots and the raw tap-tap of the dancer…and the word.
Before I touch upon the word it is necessary to address my subconscious instinct and the evolution of being a self-taught painter. Jean Dubuffet might refer to it as “art brut”, others would say “outsider art”, to me it is this… A word spawns an image, the image dances across the canvas to the beat of it’s own drummer and colors lead the way to new discovery.
Without looking, my muse came to me…Kitty. “In our garden of dreams whose beginning is at the surface of an infinite tenderness”. She inspired me to paint and became my muse, my love and my wife. Everything became brighter and more in focus than ever before. I finally let love in completely and was dying to express the way I felt. The canvas became my life-past, and present as well as a look into my secret world.
Three years after this adventure began, my wife and I gave birth to our son Finn…”The Little Man…breast fed for life in the wind and the spaces in between”. Now, as I strive to see life through his eyes, I feel compelled to dive deeper into my inner child, shed my adult skin one layer at a time and live in the moment. Everything around me appears new and exciting if only for a minute longer…oh, but what a wonderful minute! Is this reality or just a dream? Probably both.
Six and a half years later, our second son, Beck was born. Because of the new addition to our family and my wife’s health issues (which has been a testament to her strength and determination), the work has taken on a new dimension with the use of more found objects. I’ve always cherished old things and have been collecting junk for some time now. These assemblages resulted from a new zest for the process of creating and by allowing the individual pieces to “build themselves”. I’ve allowed myself to trust my instincts and follow my heart.
These particular paintings have been part of me for some time but have now come to live a life of their own. While bending imaginary curiosity into a visible reality, I unleash the transformation of my spirit.
Welcome to Emotional Rescue: A Scrapyard Lullaby…this is your invitation to the dance.
