Tim has released the first in a series of "One Day in The Life of" photo books, the first being:

One Day in The Life of Daniel Radcliffe

Available now exclusively on:  www.onedayinthelifeof.org

"I put my talent into my work, and my genius into my life" - Oscar Wilde
"Jackson Pollock, Andy Warhol and Barbara Kruger are the greatest American painters of this century!" "What?" I snarled as I turned to take him on. I was willing to give him the first two, but Barbara Kruger? It was to be my initiation into Tim's world. The insistance and conviction he devotes to getting his way - his stop at nothing drive. Once he puts someone or something into his focus, resistance is futile. Sherlock Holmes meets the Borg. A mixture of Muse and Groupie. Generous in every way. It's only the best for Tim. Never halfway, always more and always quite vocal. He has always gotten by with little money but with plenty of passion.  He leaves his apartment in Manhattan as often as he can. In traveling he creates a "studio of the world", letting his ideas roam with him. I once asked why he was always leaving home; to this he simply responded, "I find ideas when I travel, it inspires me. I locate my thoughts in these foreign locations."

He has always made art. Wonderful little drawings, lyrical and sweet. He made collages and quirky assemblages, which usually became gifts to his friends. He made a series of painted puzzles. Once he even made a life-size paper cut out of Oscar Wilde and took him to the movies. His passion for his heroes, living and past, is made evidently clear by his quoting and referencing them in conversation, rivalling the grandest, yet able to retain an air of humor that would otherwise make these displays overbearing.

It was a few years back, on a pleasure trip to Miami, that Tim began his "word pictures". He had a box of letters that he acquired from a freelance job at F.I.T. As he sat watching the sunset on South Beach, he placed 3 letters in his left hand and held them up to the darkening sky; Y O U, click. Then: M E, click again. He grabbed some other letters and ran to the surf and laid them in front of an incoming wave: K I S S . the wave broke, taking this word on a little ride until the letters unable to hold their union, released the word to the insistent surf, spreading the letters upon the shore. This was to become the beginning of Tim's serious work. Simple poems, like a child's wish, humbly expressed. I think of his word pieces in this way. A casual coming together of events - a thought projected into the landscape. a moment's notice as something else goes by. Thoughts mixed with places - often overlapping, not connecting, but combined in time. The lyric to a song repeating as light reflects on the edge of a glass. The passing footsteps, a snowy winter walk, all combined and open to possible inclusion. positive thoughts: ONWARD, YES, TODAY. When Tim pauses and focuses without words, he presents for us a set on which to project our own.

He began the "sky pieces" in New York. Then moved on to Los Angeles, London, Rome, Berlin, Paris, Prague, and Munich, each with its own architectural distinctions. He removes the architecture, insisting on the sky. The cut-out identifies a particular place in an anonymous way. Like a ghost, these architectural traces are both there and not. Frame removed to emphasise the view. The constant sky, consistent and never the same. Always present, endless, generously absorbing our thoughts. The sky, the travelers' true companion.

For a short time Tim made a studio for himself on the ninety-first floor of the World Trade Center. What a vantagepoint: on top of it all. From this perch, sometimes closed in by the clouds, he turned his attention to his own work, his photos. An attempt at rediscovery, revisiting past locations. Filling a large table with images, mixing and stirring them up, he then started combining opposites. He began with the sea and the Miami sky. The shore meets a wave and floats us to the horizon. Cut into strips and woven together, physically blended. The beginning again. How images overlapped, how time and places mingled physically on the tabletop. Mirroring, combining, creating a new dimension. A perfect view where night co-exists with day, stars with bright summer beaches. Earth and air. Bringing together what seems to be so naturally together but always in opposition. He developed these combines further when he turned his attention to portraiture. Couples. Partners physically seperate, but sharing the same space. Giving form to the invisible space created by couples. A space not available for he camera's lens but defined in the bringing together of the two people. The impossible made possible. Wonderfully optimistic and endlessly romantic, Tim finds himself again making the world a better place. Or rather presenting the better world that's always here.


Jim Hodges, March 2000