![]() Baird continues to work prolifically as multi-media artist, painter, filmmaker, musician, sculptor, jewelry designer, and teach. Baird was an inspiration to Tim as a Master craftsman, inter-disciplinary Artist, and a great teacher. He worked for Baird at the Berkeley High Adult Education Program assisting him in the classroom and in his workshop where he made custom jewelry. He then transferred to Cal State Hayward where he landed a job as an Assistant to renowned Jewelry Artist, Roger Baird from California College of Arts and Crafts. He attended Merritt College as a Music Major. This quickly ignited into a bona-fide passion and was to become Tim’s second career, something he has never put aside. It was about that time that Tim took up the guitar. Tim made sure the knives were perfectly sharpened for the chefs who prepared dinner for the President. His father created the menus, had the food sent ahead to the commissaries, and the finishing touches were done on the airplane. He started sharpening knives for his father who, by that time, was the Executive Chef for Pan Am Presidential Flights. In his teens, Tim ran his first successful business. Throughout his teens and into his twenties, in tandem with his metal work, he explored the medium of wood with a focus on the wood lathe and bowl making. When the family returned to Oakland, Tim picked up woodworking. To master an ancient handicraft became one of Tim’s passions. It was here that the flame of inspiration, stoked in his father’s workshop, was set ablaze. Back then, they didn’t get young surf kids from California in the bazaar. It was dimly lit, cacophonous, and mysteriously ancient, Tim recalls, and the men were just as curious as he was. He was mesmerized by the Master Goldsmiths as they placidly cast, welded and hammered gleaming metal in appointed booths amidst the bustling chaos. At thirteen, Tim was able to venture alone into the serpentine streets and underground bazaars of Tehran. The family took a two-week tour of Iran and Tim got his first glimpse of Old World metalworking. In 1962, Tim went along with his mother to visit his father, who had been contracted by Pan Am to help Iran Air start its airline. The simplified lines and mastery of material continues to inform his work today. When the family lived in Hong Kong and Tim attended a British school, he became fascinated by Asian art forms. It was there that Tim was inspired by the creative process- and the idea that, with enough imagination and know-how, one could make or repair just about anything.īecause Tim’s father worked for Pan Am, the family traveled worldwide. He remembers how they once made a skateboard with an aerodynamic louver on the bottom to add lift. He watched, and sometimes helped, as the two men fabricated toys and widgets out of discarded everyday objects, broken machinery, and various ‘odds and ends. ![]() ![]() From an early age, Tim McLean recalls spending hours with his father and grandfather in the basement-workshop of their home in Oakland, California. ![]()
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