Art of Timo; the title of my site, has evolved to mean a great many things in the years. I am now in the home stretch of earning my MFA from SJSU, so this thing “art” has finally become an official qualification in my work. I am an artist and I make art. And I finally feel empowered by that discretion; it’s ambiguity and lack of concrete description means something important to me now after these years of study.
The MFA itself isn’t what makes me feel like I can employ the word now. It is the discourse I became involved with in order to earn my MFA that gives “art” weight. There are meaningful ways in which to indulge in the creative process, and that is what I lingering on in art. Objects are gone. Process is gone. Studios are gone. What we can have is an endeavor to create meaningful indulgence.
We seem to need art as creatures, and that is intriguing. We inevitably treat it as a commodity to gobble up, or a resource to manipulate and control, but there is something under all that, which plugs in to how we understand ourselves. Art can become the cleanest and best description of those inaccessible parts of who we are.
As I finish this degree, I have a new basis from which to work. In my personal life, too, I have found a very deep strength that challenges me to perceive life in new ways. I am in a new place now, and this website will soon reflect that. Over the course of the summer I will be putting something together to replace all of this, so take a note to check back in September. It will be good.