The Secrets of Tim

My friend and writing partner, Timothy J. Lambert, is not only a gifted writer but also sings and plays the violin, among other instruments, plus he is skilled at growing plants and flowers, and he has a way of making dogs listen to him. Many Geminis seem to receive an abundance of talents; disgusting, isn’t it?

But wait. That’s not all.

Recently, he was commissioned to do a painting. I am fortunate enough to own three of his paintings that were done specifically for me. (There are also four in his apartment which I like to claim as mine, but they could be his. We’ve never really fought to the death over discussed it.)

There are other people who own some of his paintings, and somewhere out there is a painting that was stolen from his rooftop in NYC, where he’d put it to dry. Lucky thieving bastard, whoever you are.

One of the features I love about his paintings is that they always have secrets. Although photographs rarely do a painting justice–how can they capture the rich variation of color or the subtlety of brush strokes?–below are photographs of the first painting he did for me in 1999.

You may be able to detect a slight pattern in the paint. It’s a footprint. The footprint was a happy accident that he let stay (and it later provided inspiration for Blythe’s paintings in TJB’s He’s the One).

But there are other secrets, too. For example, there are a few, barely detectable, bits of glitter in the paint. This may have come from my love of glitter, or it may have had something to do with Tim’s “glam” life when he was in Manhattan.

There are also bits of hair from kitties Merc (RIP, Merc) and Lazlo, who kept Tim company while he painted. Tim recently told me that in the old days, like when I was young–you know, “35” years ago–they used human hair and horse hair in plaster to make it stronger. I think the human hair thing is kind of unsettling, but I like having some cat hair blended in with the oil paints on this canvas because it’s like having a little bit of Merc’s and Lazlo’s personalities in the painting.

Another secret is the back of the canvas, which only the artist and the person hanging it–i.e., me–would know has also been painted and is part of the painting’s title: Muted Rainbow w/footprint.

But today, when I took the painting outside to photograph it, I found yet another secret. Just like in Phillip’s apartment in Three Fortunes in One Cookie, pigeons hung out on the fire escape at Tim’s. Maybe he put the painting out there to dry. Or maybe he deliberately tucked a feather under the canvas’s frame. But I saw it for the first time today.

I wonder how many other secrets that painting holds?