timnyberg

Paint it again, Sam. [Don't call me Sam. My name is Tim.] Paint-overs. I love doing paint-overs. This is where I take an old painting - that I like but have progressed in style enough that I'm not comfortable with the painting any longer. Doing a paint-over brings my current sensibilities into the painting. And, in my estimation, the painting is always better for the effort. 

Worst case scenario: the new painting doesn't quite make it - so I use the canvas for an entirely new painting. The underlying painting is always allowed to "peek through" the new painting - which adds to its interest and enriches the new piece.

Creating art is no time for timidity. If you hesitate to alter/rebuild your creation, you are missing a vital, and often extremely rewarding, part of the creative process.

To see some examples of Paint-Overs or "Extreme Make-Overs" as I once called them(some of which are certainly ready for the process once again), click here. By the way, some of these Make-Overs have also been redone since their original postings.

Greetings! Here's a video of my painting to jazz at Lawrence University (Appleton, WI) last monday night during the jazz ensemble recital.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Co-EDhgQew

The entire painting time - was the duration of the piece, 7.5 minutes. I took another half hour to tweak it back at the gallery.
I did two paintings that evening - you can see the other ("R and B") here: http://g42art.com/recent

I love jazz. Painting on stage with during performance is a cool way of being part of the ensemble without being able to play an instrument. Plus, it's a fun and challenging creative exercise - audiences love watching the improvisation process.

- Tim

Whenever I create a painting, I develop thoughts about what's appearing on the canvas. Sometimes it's a story. Sometimes a 'deep' philosophical thought. Sometimes the work is meant to amuse. Sometimes it is a search for meaning. But, ultimately, as the Rod Stewart song promises, 'Every pictures tells a story…'."

My wife, Julie, is a teacher who spent most of her career working with gifted students. Her students often worked with "story starters" - images that were used as a springboard for brainstorming and creative writing exercises. When I stumbled upon sets of one-inch tall human figures (usually used for model railroad layouts), I thought to use them in a series of provocative paintings that would act as story starters.

The finished paintings are available for viewing at Gallery 42 (and online). Writers were asked to create a story or poem based on the numbered paintings (I purposely left off the titles so as to not influence the writers). Most of the stories came from a local high school where the English teacher used the "Story Starters" as a creative writing assignment. The student's stories (as well as a few of my own - even some from my mom), are now posted beneath the online gallery. The opening featured the young authors reading their stories.

This exhibit will travel to another gallery this summer where new writers will be invited to submit stories for the exhibition.Watch GalleryFortyTwo.com for more information.

My current show at Gallery 42 is "Avian and Abstracts." I've long been fascinated by birds sitting on wires. I have college sketchbooks with drawings of birds perched - observing - waiting - thinking - chirping with their friends. Before that, in high school, I recall drawing cartoon birds when signing yearbooks. I grew up in an area filled with birds - there was a pet crow that would come and visit our family's picnic table.

When I started painting again four years ago, I picked up on the bird theme and started putting arbitrary bird shapes in my work. Although no bird is a specific bird, there are often raven and dove-like shapes to them. There's something mysterious, self-sufficient, innocent, curious and dignified about birds - I try to capture these traits in my rendering of their form. A subtle turn of their head can create intrigue. Coupling their forms with abstract shapes seems to work seamlessly as an idea.

Recently, Sturgeon Bay's Miller Art Museum announced their hosting of the Woodson Museum's (Wausau, WI) touring "Birds in Art" exhibition. I thought this would be a good time to gather my flock of bird paintings together and cross-promote exhibits with the Miller. I "feathered out" my exhibition with some bird-image pottery by Renée Schwaller and bird carvings by David Frykman. You can see images of the show here.

Prints of many of the paintings are available at my online print store.

My current exhibit at Gallery 42 is titled "What's with the Faces?" The exhibit title was inspired by an incident that happened while at the gallery's Juddville location.  I was working the front gallery when I heard honking on Highway 42. I looked out to see cars screeching to a halt while a large car was doing a three-point u-turn right in the middle of the busy highway. Naturally, the driver and her aging mother were making the dangerous u-turn to pull into our parking lot. After the two silently perused the entire gallery, the younger of them stood in front of the checkout counter, hands planted firmly on hips, and demanded, "What's with the faces?"

I told her that they were all in my head and I needed to get them out or there would be 'issues'. The question struck me as so odd that I repeated it to my wife, Julie who suggested that it be the title of our opening exhibit in Sturgeon Bay.

I do like faces. Everyone has one - and they are all composed of basically the same elements (baring injury or birth defect). So, when my paintbrush and canvas "conjure up" faces - they are never meant to be anyone in particular, but often end up looking somehow familiar. I can often hear people wandering through the gallery saying, "Oh, that looks just like..." Where upon I usually go over and suggest that they purchase the painting for that person - a suggestion that rarely results in a sale - but usually brings forth a comment that the person in question would probably not find it flattering (much less amusing).

That's okay. I like to see people smile when they look at the faces. And, they have sold just as well as anything else that I paint.Certain people have eclectic enough decorating tastes that the whimsical portraits fit right in.

I got a lot of practice doing caricatures when living in Door County the first time around (1989-1990). My illustration and design work had fallen flat due to my location away from a big city (this was pre-internet), so until we packed it in and returned to civilization where the income way, I helped to pay the bills by drawing caricatures for $8 a pop at the local supper club. It was a great job. I'd get to sit a couple feet away from people, stare, and draw goofy pictures of them to the delight of onlookers - and I'd go home with grocery money in my pocket.

You can see some of the faces in the exhibition here.

I just finished moving my gallery from its location of three seasons in Juddville to Sturgeon Bay (both in Door County, Wisconsin). The new space is in the Fairfield building - a turn-of-the-century five story building that was originally designed as the post office and phone company, and served as the hospital at one point, but was beautifully renovated near its 100th birthday into a center for contemporary art. The art departed in the spring of 2009 when the non-profit went belly-up. Gallery 42 is pleased to bring art back into the fairfield.

The space is smaller than our Juddville space, but will allow us to be open throughout the year, feature themed openings, and hopefully build our customer base due to its "downtown" location. (The new location will also allow me to walk to work - a nice perk.)

I am looking forward to working with the smaller space. It will allow me to rotate themed exhibits of my art. The opening exhibit is "What's with the Faces?" (see blog entry above)

The new gallery space will have an opening reception featuring live jazz on Friday, October 16th, 2009 from 6p to 9p. Seasonal hours are posted at GalleryFortyTwo.com.

I recently had the interesting experience of vertigo. Where you suddenly experience the world spinning and you lose all sense of balance. I woke up with this at 3:30am and had to crawl to the bathroom. The next day brought me to the emergency room for tests - the cause was apparently an inner ear virus. After three days of valium-induced sleep, I eventually could walk without looking for a wall to steady myself, and my eyesight eventually went back to normal (after seeing double). During the worst of the vertigo, the world resembled my painting ("chairs around the table") shown on the left.

When I was able to get back to work at the studio/gallery, I tackled a painting (still in a non alcohol-induced tipsy state). Surprisingly, the painting that I did while still recovering from vertigo was tighter than any other paintings I had recently been creating (which were rather loose and painterly. The painting "Admiral Bird" is shown on the right. I have surmised that the tightness of the painting was most likely an unconscious desire to regain control of my body/mind.

There you go. A little glimpse into my recent vertigo episode. - Tim

By the way - if you ever get vertigo, there is a very helpful head maneuver that the physical therapist used on me to aim me back to "normal." You can find the treatment (called the Epley Maneuver) described in this video. You don't need to pay any attention to the device that they are selling in the video - it's just an aid to help you move correctly.

I was recently asked by a local publication to answer this "simple question": Which artist has influenced you the most? The following is what I came up with: 

In attempting to answer your “simple question”:  which artist has been most influential to me, I ran though hundreds of possibilities. Artists (living and dead), teachers, parents... I could not choose one single person – nor did one stand out above all others.

So (and you may consider this a cop-out), I’m going to go along with Pablo Picasso who said, "God is really only another artist. He invented the giraffe, the elephant and the cat. He has no real style, He just goes on trying other things."

I believe any artist (visual or otherwise) is influenced by all that they experience. And, that these private experiences eventually become public through artistic expression.

Since straying from a career of illustration and graphic design into the realm of “fine” art (i.e. art where I’m calling the shots, not an art director), Igeisha.jpg've constantly been exploring – not afraid to try new things – not afraid to “borrow” from others – not afraid to fail. Really, what's the worst that can happen? I've wasted a little paint. I just paint over it and the underlying "failed experiment" adds to the richness of the new image.

I’ll probably never settle on just one style, one subject matter. I have too many ideas. The common thread that viewers will (hopefully) see in my work, is a solid appreciation for the simple joy of creating.

So, a tip of my humble artist’s hat to the Creator – the one who started it all.

see more of my recent paintings at GalleryFortyTwo.com 

I call the event "Art and Music Jam." It's the experiment that's held every Saturday during the tourist season at my Juddville, Wisconsin gallery. You might also refer to the event as "Paint by Number" (musical number that is). As guest musicians (most of them accomplished jazz players) play their initial notes, I stand facing  a large empty canvas - eyes closed - listening to the first few bars of the music - and wait for an image to come to mind. I grabs the first inkling of an idea and start flinging paint.

Sometimes it's a shape, sometimes a color, a texture, a rhythm. Whatever the music gives me. The trick is to get it onto the canvas quickly - before it disappears.

I work fast, often in time with the music. The image appears quickly, then changes, and changes again. I turn my head, then the canvas, and keep painting.

During the process, the music often takes different turns sending my thoughts in new directions. Or what appears on the canvas - which is usually quite abstract - seems to work better sideways or upside down from the original orientation.

Working in acrylic, I work fast and don't mind changing direction mid-course. SometimesI'll spray a mist of window cleaner on the painting, let it sit for a second, then grab a rag and wipe. The smear becomes a rich base for new visual ideas. More paint is applied, I smeared with my fingers, scrap with small pieces of wood, scribe with the opposite end of the brush or most often with my finger nails.

The paintings seem to build themselves. Sometimes they're successful, sometimes it was just a fun few minutes of observing whatever happens.  But it gets really cool when the musicians watch what's happening on the canvas and start to improvise to what they see. That's what really makes the process a dance of creativity between artist and musician - both of us taking turns leading.

When it all works just right, the painting process ends perfectly with the last note of the music. The dance ends, the "dance" partners look at each other and smile (or sometimes shrug their shoulders and laugh). The onlookers applaud. 

see when the next art and music jams are taking place by clicking to GalleryFortyTwo.com

Welcome to my fresh art blog. 

I'm Tim Nyberg. I've been creating art since I could hold a pencil (or crayon), and getting paid for it since sometime in the late 1960s. I've been a professional graphic designer and illustrator since I was in college (early 1970s). My clients have included everyone from the corner retailer to Fortune 500 companies. My art and photography has been displayed on everything from magazines to cereal boxes. Probably the strangest job I've ever had was to document (in all of its bloody detail) the kill floor of a beef processing plant for Land O' Lakes.

Always interested in anything creative and/or humorous. My illustration niche has always skewed towards humor. You will see this in my paintings (view a sampling by clicking the PORTFOLIO link on the left or clicking to GalleryFortyTwo.com). I've also authored and co-authored over two dozen humor books - most notibly, "The Duct Tape Book(s)." With my brother-in-law, Jim, I perform stand-up comedy based on the Duct Tape books - and have appeared all over North America, England and Germany.

The availability of these other ongoing sources of income (and the ability to service clients anywhere via the internet) allowed our move in 2005 from the Twin Cities, MN to a tourist area on Lake Michigan (Door County, Wisconsin). The move prompted a return to my first love: painting. In this relatively short time I have enjoyed the freedom of being my own "art director" and exploring blurring the line between commercial art and fine art.

This blog will document some of my thoughts about creativity, exploration, successes (and the failures necessary to get there), inspirations, marketing, etc., that I have along the way.

Thanks for joining me. I welcome your comments and questions.

- Tim Nyberg