Sometimes serendipity happens.  I have just returned from a preaching mission in Lexington North Carolina (not to be confused with the one in Kentucky). Lexington North Carolina is a city of 17,000 and it has about one barbecue restaurant per 1,000 residents.  It has been dubbed the barbecue capital of N.C., yeah even of the world.  I don’t know about that, but there is a lot of pork smokin’ over hickory chips in that town, which smells like the divine swine.  Shoot, you find little pig statues of various descriptions all over this town—for example this is Pigasus. And you thought pigs couldn’t fly— shame on you.

There’s even pigs in stained glass windows in this vicinity, such as….

But I digress. 

Bob Timberlake is a native son of Lexington and a loyal member of First UMC Lexington where I was doing the preaching and teaching.  Through the good offices of my friend the senior pastor Carl Lindquist,  I not only got to meet Bob, we spent most of an afternoon together at his studio just outside town, and we also visited his shop as well.   

For those of you who are culturally deprived,  Bob Timberlake is without question one the great painters of this or any other century.  He is at once both realist and a naturalist in his style, and in this he may well remind you of Andrew Wyeth, who Bob says, along with artists like Fredrick Remington, were major influences on him.   Here is a shot of Bob and me in his studio….

Bob, like myself attended Chapel Hill and hails from the middle of N.C. and one could say that Bob is a preserver of all things rural and agrarian that are part of our North Carolina culture.  People love Bob’s paintings for many reasons,but certainly one of them is because there is a winsomeness to them, reminding us of earlier, less urban, less hectic eras in our history.   For example consider the following paintings…

The setting for this painting is the Bald Head Island lighthouse.  Or consider this painting…

There are many more such paintings of simpler types and times, and Bob continues to live surrounded by all sorts of artifacts of those earlier days.  For example here is a shot of some of the glass objects he has collected over many years, which reside in the back window of his studio.

He surrounds himself with all things beautiful and rustic.  First UMC Church very graciously gave me a painting of Bob’s of  a little log cabin that resides on his property.  Here it is…

This house and Bob’s studio are surrounded by large walnut trees which make it difficult to get a full shot of these buildings, especially before fall has come and gone.   I have much to share about Bob, who so graciously took time to tell me his story, and the story of his art. It is a story full of God’s providence, for unexpectedly people like Armand Hammer and Prince Charles took interest in his art, and it has been shown and sold all over the world.  Yet, Bob keeps his roots firmly planted in the soil of the old North State.  In the next post I will share with you some of his story… It is a tale worth telling and hearing.