Artist Interview: Tim Park

What is your work about?
I am first and foremost a visual storyteller, so most of my illustrative and commercial work is some form of visual storytelling, be it in film pre-development (concept art and character design), development (storyboard), book illustration, comics or animation.
My fine art has traditionally been about communication, specifically communicating aspects of an individual‘s or event’s personal significance…things that can’t be communicated with data. This stemmed from an early embrace of the idea that art is the medium by which our culture and personality is passed from person-to-person, and most importantly, from generation to generation. Art is the DNA of civilization’s soul. So I am of the school that concept, content, is paramount when defining art, and is what makes it worth doing.
Lately, though, my fine art has seemed more decorative as I have engaged in creating an ever more intricate series of labyrinths, though all are either intended as meditative devices or are meditative processes themselves in their creation, and most have an additional layer or two of meaning woven into them.

How did you get into this work?
My maternal grandfather was one of the principal artists at Ford Motors International. He was a part of all the ads and promotions and stockholder reports and created the company Christmas cards. He was also the portraitist who painted the Fold family, Carnegie, and all their ilk. I got to spend great deal of time (for a child) in his bullpen at Ford and in his studio at home. His son, my uncle, is also a painter, an amazing colorist. The rest of the family were musicians of varying degrees of ability.
My paternal grandfather was a hobbyist painter, but prolific, painting dozens of huge and intricate seascapes, country scenes, and tall sailing ships. These influenced me a lot. My father was also very good, but gave up art for an industrial career. He did later take up woodcarving and stained glass.
So, basically, I was surrounded by art and artists, encouraged by all to learn, brought to the Detroit Metropolitan Museum of Art often…Funny thing is, I kind of resented it back then and resisted a lot of what could have been a tremendously helpful free education.

What are the favorite things about your work?
Hm. I guess my favorite thing about my work is that it communicates something…it’s not enough for me to just express something, but I want the message to enter someone else.

How do you feel when work is going well?
Cheerful, but industrious when it is…and irritable as all get out when life gets in the way of a good run.

What is your favorite tool and material? Why?
Probably a draw between pencil and ink on paper. I love the immediacy of raw drawing, and pencil is best for that, the quick vital line. But ink gives much of that, with a more striking mark.

What patterns emerge in your work?
This is not a problem I have. I am unfocused in medium, message, and style. My work is all over the map.

What do you do differently from the way you were taught? Why?
I have had instructors and mentors who did hint at the things I do now, but my two biggest teachers were (in my opinion) too pre-occupied with the craft and not the meaning. My sculptor instructor had reasons for creating the shapes he made, but he would not explain them. He didn’t care what people got out of them, as long as they “liked” them. I don’t even think that mattered to him. My painting instructor thought the process was the art. To be fair, this was undergrad stuff and craft was what the kids needed. But I maintained contact with both of these men for years afterward. I think some of my concern with communicating content came from my frustration with these guys.

What does your work remind you of?
If any work begins to remind me of someone else’s, I move in another direction. Could by why I’ve never settled on a style.

How do you begin a piece, what is your process?
I usually begin by scrawling a germ of the idea on a receipt in my pocket or on my steering wheel as I’m driving, or even on my palm. Then I will revisit it a couple times in that sort of transitory moment. Eventually, one of those notes will make it into my idea file, which I review from time-to-time. A couple of those ideas will speak to me again, so I bring them out and post them in my studio. There it might get looked at several times a day, sometimes for weeks, before I’m moved to work on it. At that point, I begin prep work…graphing out precision work if need be, researching methods or source materials. Then I paint, and work on several projects at once.

What would you like people to see or experience in your work?
As most of my work is very message-oriented, that is exactly what I hope they walk away with.

Favorite artists/influences? Peers?
Diego Rivera’s murals were an early influence I didn’t even pickup until recently. Picasso’s work (not his person) has been a great influence. Guernica is perhaps my favorite piece of art. The great illustrator’s Howard Pyle, N.C. Wyeth, Maxfield Parrish.
More contemporary influences include Parron Stoney (who teaches in San Francisco, by the way) and Dave McKean.
I’m not too familiar with peer artists…It takes a while for me to associate names with work, especially when I barely have time to do my own work. Tom Killion is a printmaker working in community that I really admire, he’s inspiring me to get back into the field and do some landscape pieces.

Worst experience/how did you handle it?
Other than getting ripped off a couple times on the business end of things, I haven’t had a lot of disappointment art-wise.

Best experience?
A couple of years ago, I had a retrospective show at my alma mater with my family…My portraitist grandfather, his son, my uncle, and his son, myself and my brother all exhibited. It was a great experience, not only to be standing with my kin as a kind of art dynasty, but just to see my own work in that context.

What resources do you find help most in your work?
The Internet and the library. I do a lot of resource browsing, for ideas, inspiration. I’ll latch onto a hundreds ideas or new approaches or methods a day…I may only use one or two….but sifting through texts and images, magazines, newspapers, kid’s books, billboards, brick walls, hills, clouds, people…I know I’ll hit a launch pad somewhere, so I just kind of swim in it all whenever I can.

What advice/suggestions for new/emerging artists?
1. Draw. All the time. Are you a painter? Draw. Sculptor? Draw. Doodle. Let your mind wander and dribble out of your pencil. And as much time what you see. In class, draw your classmates. In line, draw the cashier, or the register, or your foot. I used to set a mirror at my feet and draw whatever I could see as I was falling asleep at night…sometimes just the sole of my feet, sometimes a self-portrait… On the subject…draw yourself. You won’t get on your own case if it’s not perfect, you’re always available, and you are most familiar with you own visage…If you get it wrong you’ll know what to work on. People will think you’re narcissistic, though.
2. Enjoy it. If it’s not fun, find something that is. Subject or media, find something that fires you up.
3. Go out on your own, but know the principles. Learn the rules, THEN break them.

ARTIST STATEMENT, WEBSITE, AND BLOG:
All at http://www.entertainingart.com
Actually, artist’s statement might be gone, but largely covered information in response #1.
E-mail: tim@entertainingart.com if any questions.
Thanks,
Tim Park