I first met Tim Ryan on a misty morning in the Folk School Garden when I was a Work/Study in 2011. My immediate impression of him was that he was a very witty & interesting character with lots of fantastic stories. Tim is involved in the Folk School in so many different ways. He recently handed over his position as Resident Artist in Gardening and Homesteading to Karen Hurtubise and he will be co-auctioning (with Bob Grove) the Gala & Benefit Auction on June 11, 2016. I thought this would be a good moment to sit down and learn a little bit about Tim the gardener, auctioneer, medicine showman, raconteur, kettle cooker, blacksmith, instructor, former Folk School Board member, bibliophile, and storyteller, that is Tim Ryan. We recently sat down over lunch to talk about many things. Enjoy our interview!
CP: When did you first come to the Folk School?
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Tim Ryan with a bonsai tree[/caption]
TR: I had gotten divorced and it killed me. This was 26 years ago. I was depressed and blue and three things saved me: my Blacksmithing buddies, Al-Anon, and having a daughter.
At one of the Appalachian Area Chapter Blacksmith Meetings in Mt. Juliet TN, they were having a raffle and the winner would get a free class at the Folk School. Well I don’t usually enter raffles, but my Blacksmithing buddies convinced me to enter and I won. I think they set it up because I was depressed and they knew I needed something else to focus on. It worked because I won the raffle in March or April and the class wasn’t until October, so all summer long I worked hard to become a better blacksmith, worthy of the class at the Folk School.
In the fall of 1990, I used my scholarship to take a 2-week Blacksmithing class at the Folk School with Francis Whitaker, which I was by no means near prepared for, naturally.
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The Folk School Blacksmith Shop (Original Francis Whitaker Shop in the foreground, the new Clay Spencer Shop in the background)[/caption]
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Lighting a still life with vase and grasses[/caption]
What’s better than a week at the Folk School? Two weeks, of course. That’s why after teaching the Science of Bread in May I stayed to take Drawing Techniques and Tools with Pebbie Mott and Pam Beagle-Daresta.
The first day we learned about the tools we’d be trying: drawing pencils (which range in darkness from the pale 9H to the black 9B), water color pencils (draw, then add water), charcoals (soft and hard, plus white to use on gray paper), ink with a brush and bamboo pen (Pam brought walnut ink she’d made in a previous class), and Micron pens. After trying the techniques, we’d pick one for a final project.
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White vessel to practice values with light and shadows[/caption]
