Tim Simpson Now Devotes Himself to Art

New Anderson Artists Guild member Tim Simpson moved around a lot as a kid, from Bogota, Columbia, to Virginia, Ohio, Florida, George, North Carolina, and Texas. “I only finished school once at the same place where I’d started,” he said. “But I enjoyed seeing new cultures.”

His dad was an engineer—thus all the moves—as well as an artist. When Simpson drew on the garage wall in one of those places they called home, he thought his dad would be mad. “But he said it was good,” Simpson said. “I wanted to please him the rest of my life.”

Simpson recently retired after a long career as a carpenter. “I enjoyed the artistic part of it,” he said. “I liked building something and seeing it completed, almost like a sculpture.”

He has taken classes in figure drawing, watercolor, and oils at the Greenville County Museum of Art. He sells his oils as well as charcoal pieces through Kitty Mitchell Studios, a gallery on Ocracoke Island, North Carolina, he once cold called. “I just went in and asked if she was interested in seeing some of my stuff,” he said. “I showed her photos on my phone, and she asked for 20 pieces.” Last year, he sold seven pieces there, and in September he will have a show there focused on his renderings of lighthouses, inside and outside and at odd angles. “I like looking down through the center,” he said.

A self-described realist, he recently asked his daughter to set up a website to sell prints of his work. “I’m working to get my name out,” he said, adding that any artistic talent he has is a gift from God.

For more information about Simpson, visit https://tsimpsonart.com/.