For 40 years, Tim De Christopher has been carving in stone. He has a long list of public, private and corporate commissions - from carving gargoyles for the facade of the Jewish Museum in New York City to twenty-four 4’x4’ panels for the Huffington Library in Culver, Indiana. As well as a wide ranging exhibition history, including the DeCordova Museum and a 30 year retrospective at the Amy H. Carberry Gallery in Springfield, MA. Tim was born in 1954 and grew up outside of San Francisco. He attended The Cooper Union School of Art, and a year at Columbia University School of Architecture before being drawn away to follow his love of stone.
I was not surprised that two artists identified by Tim as significantly influencing him are Simon Rodia, who over a 33 year period created Watts Towers in Los Angeles, Ca and A.G. Rizzoli, whose visionary architectural drawings were first discovered in the 1990’s. What unites these artists is a strong drive, a distinct voice, and an obsession to get the work out. Out of their heads, and into the world. And Tim is a master of filling stone with magic, lightness, history, humor and humanity.
“We love to use phrases “etched in stone”, with an ironic wink, but to me it has a vital immediacy. I am a stone carver and I tell stories in stone. We know our ancient history largely from artifacts in stone left behind by past civilizations. I want to follow that tradition but with a contemporary twist. My vision is to capture events, general and specific moments in time, that relay milestones in our shared human experience, events that have marked episodes in our collective history. “ - Tim Dechristopher