I am fortunate to have enjoyed a 20-plus year career making both commercial and fine art. By day, I am a designer, illustrator and executive creative director, serving clients in the music and entertainment industries. I got my start working full-time for Winterland Productions (Separation Manager), CNET Gamecenter (Art Director) and 1UP.com (Design Director). The business I founded, XIII Design, LLC, is celebrating 20th year in 2023. I work both digitally and traditionally.
When not working for clients, I create drawings, paintings and prints that reflect my truest artistic loves, combining elements of surrealism, nature and the absurd. I usually work in pen & ink, watercolor, relief printing and oils. My influences include Albrecht Dürer, Hieronymus Bosch, Monty Python and Marcel Duchamp. The underlying aim of my art is generally humor, via a sort of friendly mysteriousness.
Portland has been very good to me! I am deeply grateful to live in such an artistically diverse and vibrant city. Since moving here in 2015, I have embraced the sticker art medium and have created more than sixty new pieces of art. I give them away to clients, restaurant staff, new friends and confused strangers.
The stickers, inspired by the street art of Portland, have served as calling cards and conversation starters. I’ve been honored to see them placed in public view in such places as Division Wines, Rudy’s Barber Shop, Stammtisch, Danwei Canting, Chicken and Guns, Afuri and Sapphire Lounge.
In 2020, I published the Frosting University Kitchen Workbook, An Absurd but Serious Cookbook by Josiah Frosting. The book was financed via a successful Kickstarter campaign and was funded within the first 36 hours. It went on to be 165% funded by 78 backers. An expanded paperback version will be available not too soon via Frosting University Press.
In 2022, I launched MYOWZ, a cat-themed brand of holiday merchandise. This successful Kickstarter campaign for Halloween enamel pin designs will expand over the coming months to include other holidays. 10% of the profits from MYOWZ are donated to cat adoption charities.
I live with the love of my life, Allison, and my cat, Leopold. Aside from art, my interests include esoterica, ancient history, travel, cooking and The Sisters of Mercy.
--Tim Butler
MFA, Printmaking, Academy of Art College, 1994
BFA, Massachusetts College of Art, Painting, 1990
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