Meet Timothy Goldkin | Artist

We had the good fortune of connecting with Timothy Goldkin and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Timothy, any advice for those thinking about whether to keep going or to give up?
This is a tough question because, as an artist, it doesn’t really feel like there is a choice. There is no option to ‘give up.’ The drive to create is something that is only satisfied through continuation. For me, being an artist is less about output and more about a way of being—how you see the world, how you move through it, and what you choose to observe. It’s about curiosity. How could you ever give that up?

However, when it comes to turning art into a business, that’s a different challenge. In my early 20s, I could afford both a room in an apartment and a studio for just $500. I could make $500 a month selling my art on the street, and that was enough to keep me happy. But as I’ve gotten older, the cost of living has skyrocketed. That same room and studio now cost upwards of $2,000. Add in societal pressures to save to own a home, and the increasing costs of doing business—like buying a vehicle, insurance, studio materials, application fees, web fees—it adds up, and the pressure to make more money grows. All of a sudden, making work for yourself or selling art on the street doesn’t cut it anymore.

There have been times when I’ve had to piece together different sources of income, taking on multiple part-time jobs but never taking my eye off the true goal. It’s been incredibly difficult at times, and I won’t pretend I haven’t had my moments of doubt. But faith in yourself and your work is ultimately the foundation for success. If you don’t believe in yourself, who will? I’ve sacrificed stability, security, and many comforts to continue this career. I don’t have an employer paying into a 401(k), I have no safety net, but my practice and perspective are my investments. And honestly, it seems to be paying off.

It’s been a challenging 15 years, but I’ve finally reached a place where I can sustain myself and plan for the future by leveraging my creativity. I can only do this now because I kept going. So, my answer is simple: Keep going.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
The work we make is merely the detritus of the life we live.

That said, my work often finds itself at the intersection of art and history. I love diving into the identity of place. I am a visually stimulated person and photography especially feels like a lens into another perspective. A glimpse outside of the vacuum of our own experience. Time is also something I think a lot about. I am constantly curious about the dimensionality of time, and if we were able to understand and identify the different dimensions, might we be able to navigate it differently?

I’m interested in how memory informs both time and identity. How memory informs memory. How all of these moments and memories overlap and flow in a current of our collective understanding of the reality we inhabit in both space and in time.

To answer your question in a more material way, I am primarily a printmaker, I make work in a medium called the cyanotype, which is an alternative photographic printmaking process dating to the mid 1800’s. My process involves large scale negatives and UV light to create blue-hued photographic images on fabric. Most of the time I stretch this fabric for wall hangings, sometimes I make it into dresses or pillows or scarves.

Another medium I work in, I call “wheat-paste”. One of the oldest mediums known to man it is simply flour and water mixed to make glue. I use this glue, along with digitally printed paper to create large scale works that have an imperfect, furrowed surface that speaks to the observer of the human hand of the maker. In juxtaposition with todays sleek digital machine made landscape this work sticks out as distinctly human in its beauty and its imperfections.

I don’t always want to say too much with the image, I think like a book, leaving room for the observer to make the work theirs in their mind is where the true magic lies. The art is not the thing on the wall, or the object. The art is the moment of creativity and imagination inside the mind of the observer.

I work with municipalities, commercial, non-profit, and private clients to create unique and site specific work that often reflects the history of a place, person or organization. I am into creating public pieces, destroying any barrier between people and art.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
I actually spend a lot of my time in Maine, where I was born and grew up. If someone comes to visit I am most likely to take them on a boat of some fashion, maybe multiple. Canoe, kayak, row boat, house boat, ferry, tiny motor boat, sail boat – some kind or mixture of boats. Likely these boats would carry us to one island or another, either in the ocean, or on a river. You would likely find some New England Hazy IPA’s along with a block of cheddar cheese and other goodies in the cooler, perhaps an Italian sandwich from the island store whose motto is something like “If we don’t have it you don’t need it”.

I also love to camp – cooking dinner on an open fire and watching the moon rise over the ocean. Bare foot through the pine forrest at night by starlight, down to the rocky coast whose breath reflects in waves and tides, in and out, bioluminescence sparkling, mirroring the glimmering dark sky above. Skipping rocks like fireworks across the black and rolling surface of the sea. This is what I might try to share with a friend visiting me.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
Gosh, only every person I’ve ever known, really.

To the countless brilliant friends and strangers who have listened to my ramblings, musings, and ideas, who have augmented them with their perspectives and have helped me bring them to life with their support. To the people (often the same) who listen to my recurring worries and confusions and help me overcome the obstacles that have stood in my way, whether real or perceived.

Thanks to everyone who’s ever given me a ride somewhere when I didn’t have a car, or bought me a sandwich or a coffee when I had no money, or given me a bed to sleep in when I had no housing of my own.

To the unnamed and innumerable bar-goers, bus stop attendees, and sidewalk cigarette smokers who have listened to and shared in long rants about creativity and the nature of being.

To the baristas, cashiers, and bus drivers who affirm my humanity daily, whose stories give my mind room to think about, and who often make me laugh.

To all the people I’ll never really know but who make eye contact with me on the street or in the subway, giving a little nod of acknowledgment—engaging with me in what D.H. Lawrence called “the confrontation between their souls.”

To my wonderful girlfriend,

And always, endlessly, to my mother.

Website: https://www.ramlblemoredesign.com

Instagram: @ramblemoredesign

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4xYvKpKkqU