Artist

Timothy Boyd

Artist bio

Dr. Timothy A. Boyd Tim is a psychologist, currently in private practice.  He moved to Hickory, NC in December of 2009 with his wife, Anita.  They moved there to be close to family, and to enjoy the beauty of God’s creation in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mts.  Tim has been in counseling practice since 1974, and has been a therapist in a variety of different settings in the US and across the world.  Tim has a strong interest in the integration of Biblical truth with the practice of psychology. In his counseling he utilizes various appropriate therapies, and weaves the timeless truths of the Scriptures with those practices. He also integrates those same truths, as well as what he has experienced in his counseling practice, into his art.   Tim has been a therapist, teacher, missionary, and artist.   Tim and Anita became full-time supported missionaries in 2004 and joined the counseling department of Wycliffe Bible Translators, and then served with Barnabas International, a pastoral counseling and support organization for missionaries and their families. They were global counselors and traveled to Africa, Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and Latin and South America. This gave Tim the opportunity to do a variety of exciting service opportunities, things like leading marriage retreats in Afghanistan, psychological assessments for children in Pakistan, post-earthquake counseling in Sichuan, China, and counseling the victims of the World Trade Center disaster in New York.  He loves having the opportunity to alongside cross-cultural workers who are out on the front lines.  He currently does clinical assessments for missionaries-in-candidacy.   He believes that God takes the painful and traumatic experiences of our life and transforms them into growth and wholeness (creates beauty from the ashes).    Art experience and philosophy   Tim is primarily a self-taught artist.  He has taken some classes in ceramics and painting at the college level.  Most of his art comes out of trial-and-error.  Many of his pieces are constructions made from found objects.  He loves to beachcomb for flotsam and jetsam, tramp through a forest looking for unusual shapes of wood, or dumpster-dive (much to his wife's chagrin).  Taking something that is a discard or an artifact and incorporating it into a piece of art is an act of redemption.     He seeks to make the images found in Scripture come alive- to make them accessible.  It is all about integration.  Fragments and pieces coming together to make a whole.  Integration births God’s Shalom/Peace/Wholeness.

Title

Beneath The Floor Of My Tent

Artist Statement

Wood; fabric; found objects; sand

How it fits into contest

Based upon the Scripture:  But the Israelites were unfaithful in regard to the devoted things; Achan ……took some of them. So the LORD's anger burned against Israel.  Joshua 7:1
Achan replied, "It is true! I have sinned against the LORD, the God of Israel. This is what I have done: When I saw in the plunder a beautiful robe from Babylonia, two hundred shekels of silver and a wedge of gold weighing fifty shekels, I coveted them and took them. They are hidden in the ground inside my tent, with the silver underneath."      Joshua 7:20-21
Achan, one of the sons of Israel, decided to keep some of the forbidden loot from a battle.  He hid it under his tent and he must have felt secure in his “secret”. The Lord God called out the truth and the hidden became exposed.  Our secrets kill us.  In this piece there are two floors or layers.  The top layer is what we usually show to the world.  It contains the usual Christian symbols (the communion cup; the Bible; the public display of the cross; our Christian clichés).  The “beneath our tent” layer shows our hidden loot, but it is infested by rot and devouring locusts). 
Spiritual warfare often means breaking through the layers of denial and repression, to bring the hidden rot into the healing light.

Credits

Tim Boyd

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