Tim de Christopher Charms Eagle Hill
Sculptor and Stone Carver
By: David Wilson - 11/11/2010
Detail from the Angel of Industry - all images copyrighted by Tim de Christopher and from his web site www.ohmysoul.org
The Blind Man’s Elephant - from the 2001 Boston Flower Show fountain installation An Elephant in the Blind Man’s Garden
Detail from The Aeneid Fountain, - Dido and Aeneus
Palazzo Gloria, 2002 - 10 3/4" x 10 3/4" x 12", limestone - With companion book Gloria’s Story by Caroline Jennings
Held one Wednesday a month at four in the afternoon, the Art Teas at the Eagle Hill Cultural Center, in Hardwick, provides particpants a chance to become more familiar with regional artists and their work. Admission is free as are the pastries and exotic tea brews.
Sculptor in stone, Tim de Christopher spoke for about forty minutes alongside a slide show detailing traditions of his artistic family, reflecting upon the route he trod towards life as a shaper of stone and illustrating his work. Much of his presentation was devoted to laying out the rationale and hopes for his ambitious Cathedral Project
His warm sense of humor and self-deprecating manner attracted a number of questions from the audience to which he openly responded. Once he was asked to expand upon a comment he had made that sometimes when he begins to sculpt a piece of stone he has no idea where the process is going to take him or what the result will be. Watching him try to formulate a verbal answer, I was struck by a number of small gestures. My intuition was that the muscles in his hands, arms and shoulders most clearly knew the answer but a translation to words was not readily available. A bit later while displaying the tools he used to sculpt he mentioned that any given hammer found a way of relating to his hand that was different from the way any other hammer might. I thought once more that this might speak as well to the wisdom stored in his muscle memory and how difficult it is for any artist to clearly communicate that particular piece of knowledge to anyone else. It remains central to the mystery of the creative process.
Much of Tim’s work is touched with whimsy and a far from common perspective, but little, if any, as you can see from the included images, can be considered trivial. Note that the sculpture, Palazzo Gloria is accompanied by a story which you may access here.
The Oxbow Gallery in Northampton will present a more accessible showing of Tim de Christopher’s current work in its large gallery from Nov 29th to December 26.
Pat Bock announced that the December Art Tea will feature regional artist, Linda Tomasi. Admission, as always, will be free, but reservations are de rigueur.