Drawn to Woodbridge
Young owner of new art gallery hopes to harness Detroit's artistic energy and let it burst forth. And he found just the place to do it.

As featured in The Detroit Free Press, January 28, 1999

By Patty LaNoue Stearns

Inside a decrepit yellow building flanked by empty lots on Rosa Parks Boulevard in Detroit's Woodbridge neighborhood, one of the city's newest - and most unusual - art venues is emerging.

Forget location, location, location. The Detroit Contemporary is way, way, way off the beaten gallery path.

And it's way hip. Its bleak exterior sets the mood for the raw, dark and often desolate works on the tall, white walls inside.

It's an edgy place where owner Aaron Timlin is charting a course to bridge what he believes is a growing gap between Detroit's established artists and their undiscovered counterparts. He wants to bring the two groups together at his gallery so younger artists can benefit from much-needed mentoring. And above the gallery, Timlin is readying quarters that he hopes will be occupied by an artist-in-residence.

Timlin could have done this in Hamtramck, where the art scene is popping - but so are the rents. He already owned the 100-year-old storefront, and he had the skills to bring it back to life.

"I just want to be able to exhibit Detroit's rich art," says the 27-year-old gallery owner. "I think we have a greater energy than in New York or LA because of the struggling that we go through here - even simply to get exposure, to get seen."

On Saturday night, he will get plenty of exposure. Works from his gallery by local sculptors Rose Dalessandro, Scott Hocking and Sharon Que and Painters Clinton Snider and Ron Zakrin will be among those featured at the Fanclub Foundation for the Arts' Swing Time '99 in the lobby of the Fisher Building.

"I laud Aaron for his work," says John Bloom, executive director of the foundation. "He's bright and accomplished, and he's a treasure - what he is doing, he is living work of art."

Timlin is accustomed to such an art oasis in the middle of nowhere. He has always lived a life less ordinary, thanks to his artist parents, Hugh Timlin and Sandra Brackett, who drew inspiration for their lives from Henry David Thoreau's "Walden."

The eldest of seven siblings, Timlin lived in Dearborn and attended the private Detroit Waldorf School in Indian Village until third grade. Then he was home-schooled by his parents, who moved a few years later to a farm in the central Michigan community of Lake, near Clare.

Hugh Timlin, a sculptor and former instructor at the Society of Arts & Crafts, now the Center for Creative Studies, didn't like the competition and lack of attention he found in public schools.

"He said public schools are only designed for one-third of the kids, and it's a certain way of teaching. It works for certain people, but other people it doesn't," his son explains.

"We moved from Dearborn to the farm in the winter of 1981. We lived the first six years without electricity or indoor plumbing."

And the Timlin clan was encouraged to explore at will.

"It was a rich, open environment. There was no formal education of any kind." Aaron Timlin says.

He didn't learn to read until age 13, when he became fascinated by books.

"I took it up like a dry sponge in water." he says. Timlin may not have known how to read during those early years, but he knew how to draw and paint and sing and make his own sweaters from homespun lambswool. His father, who once studied for the priesthood at Detroit's Sacred Heart Major Seminary, and his mother, a weaver, surrounded him with art, song and the beauty and hardships of nature.

"We grew our vegetables, raised our own lambs and chickens, which we ate, and had goat's milk from the goat, eggs from the chickens and once in a while from the geese," Timlin says.

Saturday evenings, they'd listen to National Public Radio's "Prairie Home Companion" on a battery-operated radio.

"That was our family entertainment time," Timlin says. "We listened to Garrison Keillor tell his stories and we'd dance to the music around the fireplace."

In 1986, after his parents had been taken to court several times over home-schooling issues, Timlin chose to enter ninth grade at Farwell High School, about 10 miles from the farm.

"It was really overwhelming for me," he remembers. "It took me until my junior year until I really got to understand how to take tests and how to study. It just took me a while to get accustomed to that whole style of learning. I was so nervous about tests. We had never taken tests before."

The real test

Timlin graduated in 1989, having made the honor roll several times. After a trip to Germany with Youth for Understanding, he returned to the family farm but became restless and decided to move back to Dearborn. He worked for eight years as a kidney dialysis technician, saved money and started buying houses in Detroit's Cultural Center. He fixed them up with the skills he learned on the farm, eventually buying the building that now houses Detroit Contemporary.

"The roof was falling in, water pipes were busted, and plaster walls and ceilings were collapsing," Timlin says.

When his sister Rachel Timlin, 26, visited him early last summer, she proposed they hold a family art show in the building. In addition to their parents, all of the Timlin siblings - the youngest 15 - are involved in artistic pursuits. Aaron paints, though he doesn't exhibit his work.

Aaron and Rachel thought a show could raise money first to pay the taxes on the family farm, which the Timlins now keep as an artists' retreat, and then help Rachel with her expenses at the University of Glasgow, Scotland.

By August, the Woodbridge storefront was ready. Timlin passed his biggest test yet.

"We made enough money from the show to pay taxes on the farm for one year," says Timlin, who also manages the apartment building he lives in on Prentis near Wayne State University. Rachel didn't get any extra money, but Timlin says she's getting along without it.

In November, Timlin held his second show, "sight;sonic: the art of music," which incorporated sculpture, music and large installations, and drew a large crowd.

Steve Zeff, in-house counsel at Bozelle Worldwide in Southfield, was there.

"It was packed. Total Detroit-Woodward Corridor scene, like the Majestic or Union Street-type crowd. A lot of people in the band scene, a lot of young people."

Zeff sees the gallery as a player in Detroit's resurgence. "It has that Detroit look and feel."

Timlin's next show, "3d@dc," with sculpture from established Detroit artists, will open 6-9 p.m. on Feb. 13. After that, he's planning an exhibition titled "Naked," which will bring together works on human nakedness by established and emerging multi-media artists. It'll open March 27.

Timlin is optimistic about the Detroit art scene.

"It's a matter of convincing people that there's a lot of good stuff here - I think there's going to be an explosion in Detroit that's going to make us pacesetters for the art world. There's just so much stuff here and so many ways of expressing the creative mind in Detroit."

He sees the blighted landscape bordering his gallery as an extension of the farm. There is quietude all around and many fertile acres.

There can be rebirth. There can be magic.

He's a believer.