I have been an artist in photography,  video art & performance art, and since 1994 in printmaking showing in regional, national and international exhibits.  My work of the last few years has involved the exploration of photography and printmaking as a hybrid medium of expression.  The work isn't contained within a genre, although landscape and still life studies dominate, but shows concern with texture, the hand manipulation of the image and surface. 


    For me photography is another way to create images.  My Dad gave me a 35 mm camera when I was 11, as I was constantly 'borrowing' his whenever I could get my hands on it; when I was 13 I entered my first photography contest.


    Later all through Viet Nam and four years in the military I carried a camera - both as a way of interpreting what was happening to me and those around me, and to distance myself from it.


    I exhibited photography off and on until I began a career in cinematography and video in the late seventies and received a Master of Art in 1979 from the University of Missouri-KC.  I taught mediated communications at Haskell Indian Nations University and later at Northern Illinois University.  By 1986, bored with documentaries and commercial video production and seeking to return to the single image, I started a graduate program in studio art, while keeping my day job of producing educational programs in the arts.  I found myself taking addition course-work in photography and worked with traditional printmakers in documenting their workshops and classes.


    Upon gaining my MFA, I a took a course in printmaking, and it was a zen moment in the studio: working the plates, inking, pulling prints.  A wholly different tradition of the single image, a completely new toolset for me drew me. This was in 1992, and led to 18 hours of post-grad work with intaglio and relief techniques and many more hours with David Driesbach of Miracle Press who for years was the finest example of a person and an artist I'm sure I will ever know; for over a decade he invited me in to document the activities of Miracle Press and the yearly week long master printmaking sessions - his humor and technical skill shows me the way still.


    In 2002 I picked up a digital camera, mostly to record textures I found in wood, stone, mud, and textiles as references in printmaking, and I started thinking immediately about photography from the point of view of a printmaker.


    So I feel that I finally understand enough about the images that I respond to, and most importantly about the images I need to make, to take the journey as photographer and printmaker.  Artistic life is full circle, I'm back to that happy kid seeing things truly for the first time in the view finder and the mind's eye, revealed on the plate and paper.

www.timburns-art.com for other work and background information; this functions as an on-line portfolio for me.

tim