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Timothy Schools, a native of Maine, lives in quite a synergy.
His family restores houses from the Wyeth’s to the Rockefellers.
Schools settled in Chicago in the late 1980s and restored some of the Frank Lloyd Wright houses including Taliesin. He also worked for many of the University of Chicago professors in Hyde Park ranging from Micro-Biologists to Anthropologists, including Robert Biggs and Charles Nims, affiliates to King Tut’s tomb.
He emerged as an artist during this time, selling paintings to this circle of great minds, including Nelson Mandela. Schools mentions, “I’ve crossed the paths of many great people; W.P.A. artists, including Elizabeth Catlett and was approached by the Art Institute of Chicago’s Anselmo Carini (Associate curator of Prints & Drawings), being asked to bring Archibald Motley, Jr.’s work out into the public.” Since Tim Schools was close to the Motley family, this deed came to fruition, and now the painting (Self-Portrait) hangs in the museum.
Tim created with Margaret Burroughs, William McBride, William Sylvester Carter, and Elizabeth Catlett and appeared in shows with them. He appeared on television with Carter and singer Gene Chandler (The Duke of Earl). His work has been involved with The Art Institute of Chicago, the Historical Society, Harold Washington Library, Chicago Cultural Center, Sotheby’s Chicago, Channel 7, and WGN to name a few.
During the 1990s, Schools became interested in the Chicago Jazz scene after meeting with jazz legend, Johnny Frigo (who lived at 1212 Lake Shore Drive where Schools had a studio for 5 years). Schools spoke at the Chicago Historical Society educating school kids on the similarities between painting and music with Frigo. Schools states, “The music interest is deep inside me. My grandfather was a musician and extremely pluralistic being a trapper of fox in the 1940s to antique connoisseur, just to have a few of his gifts. I began involving these different musicians, whose paths I crossed, painting with me on the same canvas. They would paint anything they wanted then I would paint their portraits on top of their artwork. I did portraits of jazz great Johnny Frigo (who wrote songs that Billie Holliday recorded, and played with Louis Armstrong, Dorsey Band,) just to name a microism of his achievements, and Joey Molland, who recorded with all four of The Beatles.
Tim's first album “The T. Schools Experience” was a collaboration with Derek Frigo (Johnny Frigo's son) and powerhouse rock drummer and songwriter, Vikki Foxx.
“I’ve never let the grass grow under my feet and now I’m making my 2nd Album with Joey Molland (Badfinger member, George Harrison / John Lennon sideman) in Minneapolis, to be released in early 2008.
“My life is 2 degrees of separation instead of 6. I love life, especially because I can create.”
One really has to look into Schools’ files in order to fathom all the experiences he’s had in the last twenty years. All of his natural ideas planted, bloomed, and continue to bloom in a small paradise that surrounds him. It’s as if he has lived 3 life times. How can a person accomplish so many things in so many categories? And to think, he’s still at the beginning.
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