Portrait of the artist: Tim Lewis, Empire’s poster man

From staff reports

(Each edition of the Sun this year will feature a local character who is instrumental in organizing an upcoming event that we promote in our pages.)

Those quirky posters you see every year promoting the Empire Asparagus Festival were illustrated by Tim Lewis, who passed away on Jan. 5 at age 79. A native of Midland, Lewis summered as a child in Empire, worked as an artist at the famous Push Pin Studios in New York City, then inherited and settled in his mother’s house on Lambkin Lane, circa 2001 (his mother was born in Empire in 1905). Lewis’ unique persona and art were symbolic of Empire, itself.

When the Asparagus Festival launched in 2004, Lewis quickly became the go-to guy for designing the poster for the annual event (since heralded as “one of the world’s weirdest festivals”!). Below, Misers’ Hoard owner Paul Skinner and Field Crafts owner Jack Gyr recall Lewis, his art, and his contributions to Empire.

Paul Skinner:

Tim moved here from New York, probably within weeks of us arriving here. He had inherited his mother’s home and was moving there to Lambkin Lane. His mother was born here in 1905. His uncle Jack actually owned a barbershop on the site of my shop, the Misers’ Hoard. She was a snowbird, and worked part-time in an antique store and collected various things. They didn’t fit his taste, so he called me up and said he had some things that I might be interested in buying. That’s how I got to know him. We became pretty good friends.

Our friendship grew around the common denominator of being fond of folk arty things that were quirky. When Ashlea (Walters) decided it would be fun if Empire had an asparagus festival, we knew we’d need a poster. I was charged with fundraising. That’s how it all started. Basically he was the go-to person when anyone needed art for a cause. We had a potluck for peace when Iraq war started. He was drawn upon pretty strongly by the local community, and was always more than willing to participate.

After 10 years of Asparagus Festival posters he told me ‘Paul, this well is only so deep … I’m running out of ideas!’ He designed 10 different ones, but the first three were black & white because when the festival started we had no money. So the last three years we did repeats of the first three years but with color. My favorite poster features the deer with a lake behind it with antlers made of asparagus spears. Hanging off it is a mug of beer. He just had a great, quirky sense of humor. He had a history with Empire, knew its quirkiness and how to portray it in the posters.

We’re talking to local artist Jim Hilton, who also has a quirky sense of humor, about illustrating posters for future festivals. I approached him recently and gave him a year’s notice.

Jack Gyr:

Over the years Tim and I would bump into each other on the beach. I’d go for a beach run to the point south of Empire and often on the way there or back I’d see a tall lean silhouette in the distance and know it was Tim. We’d stop and talk and laugh. He would always have a collection of rocks in his pocket that were easy to see because a beanpole of a guy with bulging pockets was an obvious stone hound. The beautiful rock garden bordering his house and yard was ample proof of this.

He had an infectious and deep laugh that I think was amplified by his thin frame because you could not only hear it but also see his body create the laugh. I loved working with him on the Asparagus Festival art every year because he would produce rough drawings of several versions and ask my opinion. The year I scanned the first year’s art (one of my favorites with all kinds of fantastical people, car, cloud and asparagus images) he’d done for the Asparagus Fest, he and I sat down and colorized it on my computer.

I loved visiting Tim at his place because his art was everywhere and there were always surprises. He’d dig through some piles and pull out a cover he did for Newsweek or The Atlantic or New York Magazine with terrific images of George Bush, Sr., Luciano Pavarotti, Castro and others. He had 35 years as a top-level professional artist in New York. His album cover for Chuck Berry’s 1974 best selling albums is one of my favorite prints. He rattles off names like a parade of famous people that came into Push Pin Studios in New York where he worked for awhile. It seemed like the top musicians of the ’60s walked past his desk: Bob Dylan, Gordon Lightfoot, Peter, Paul and Mary and many more.

We are all blessed with Tim’s friendly personality, great sense of humor and terrific artwork that he continued to do right up until his last days. The rocks that he collected often went straight to his garden but he would choose some with odd shapes and light colors that he would draw hilarious faces on with permanent markers. If I saw crazy shaped stones like these when walking the beach I would collect and give them to Tim for this. Even now I notice stones of that shape and think, ‘That would make a great Tim-rock’.