Tim’s Bilton – Biography

Tim first started carving on rocks, in Spain. Long before he even considered carving wood, Tim carved small faces on rocks in the back seat of a rental car. With a razor blade. That nasty scratching sound kept him occupied for hours and drove everyone else nuts.

Back home in Canada, Tim thought he’d try something a little easier and so moved to wood. At first, he carved anything that was stationary – table legs, bed posts, bookcases, until his wife objected. Only then did Tim find bass wood and butternut as much better materials, and less apt to get him in trouble.

A chance meeting with Bill Orr of the Grenfel Carving Club introduced Tim to a whole new world of knives and tools. Bill gave Tim his first knife and then he taught him to sharpen it. Tim’s next birthday gift came with a jumbo box of Band-Aids, from Bill. With his new knife and a host of new skills, Tim started carving human heads, portraits, and little people. He used knives and gouges with blades both long and sharp or short and pointed.

Only after several months of carving, did Tim decide to make his own tools. Using old Sawzall blades and handles fashioned from the scrap wood pile, Tim made lots of knives and used lots of Band-Aids.

In the next wave, all the figures were two-faced, similar to those shown here. These are connected characters: sometimes an antithesis to each other, sometimes a compliment. Most importantly, Tim says they’re friends. Crafted in his ultimate alter-ego, they are all representations of the artist in his many facets.

Untreated, these sculptures can be painted by the person who buys them as a collaborative effort. Left raw, they can be hung outside and allowed to weather to a barnboard grey or treated with a water seal to retain their colour. Either way, Tim’s faces grin and smile from their wooden perches. At home they preside over the vegetable patch.

 ​The Stonebridge Art Gallery is open Thursdays and Saturdays from 1:00 – 4:00 pm at 1 Market Lane, Suite 8, Stonebridge Town Centre Plaza, Wasaga Beach, ON (above Century 21). Admission is free.