3 Questions

Painter Tim Reed is a bit of a hippie, but not in an obnoxious way. He's a lover of nature, animals and psychedelia. Reed is an illustrator, sculptor and painter in tune with the heartbeat of the universe, and though it's been a year or two since we've seen an exhibition from him, we knew we had to chat about his upcoming show Oxagwan alongside Chandler Wigton at Freeform Artspace (5 pm Saturday Dec. 1. Free. 1619 C de Baca Lane, 692-9249). Learn more about Reed and his work at deermit.com, or from the Qs below.

How do I pronounce the name of this show?

It has a familiarity with octagon. Freeform asked me if I wanted to be in the show, and I'd never met Chandler, but we connected, we hit it off, and we started to come up with a show title, without any foundation for an idea. And I thought it might be cool since me and Chandler don't have a relationship yet, to maybe use a word that didn't have a meaning, a made-up word. And actually, I'm pretty sure my wife came up with it. I can't really remember how it came up, I was just scribbling and doodling words, and she said it or something like it. I told Chandler, and he liked it, and we just rolled with it. Both of us are very comfortable in open processes. And because we didn't have much time for the show, it made sense to just do stuff. We're open to the chance happenings of process—things just happen and you go with it.

Did that idea of openness influence the body of work you prepared for the show?

Absolutely. But I don't think either one of us knows what's going to be in the show yet. Our plan is just to bring as much stuff as we can and do somewhat of a non-standard installation. We're going to really freestyle; bring stuff, vibe out. It's a really interesting cool space. There might be a really small amount of stuff that I've exhibited already, but there's also going to be a lot of stuff that's brand new. I'll be painting right up until the opening. It's going really well. I've grown.

So when you say you've grown…?

It's been a great success for me to work at a different pace. The process is all about growing in general. For instance, there are always plants in my studio and caring for plants is a big deal, a huge part of me making art. It's been a long, long, decades-long process becoming a painter, or to produce paintings as I see myself producing paintings. And it's not just a relationship with the materials, but with the world. I don't know how to put it, it's outside of the language I use—that's why I put it in a painting and not a book. I hope you can walk up to one of my painting and get lost, like an old castle in a foreign country where you're allowed to just wander, and you keep seeing things you don't recognize or that you never thought of until just then.