User:Jawjawgal/Sandbox

Tilley, Lewis (Lew) (1921 Parrott, GA -2005 Colorado Springs, CO) American artist who mastered drawing, painting, printmaking, photography, film, graphic design, digital art and wrote fiction. He also experimented with polyester resin and architecture. Born in rural South West Georgia to educated parents, Lewis Lee Tilley Jr. who studied opera, and Margaret Wright Tilley, unpublished writer. He had private lessons in art, music and elocution. His brother, Wright Tilley, was a photographer, writer and editor  for Columbus (GA) Ledger.

Education 1937-39 Lewis Tilley attended summer school at the High Museum of Art School, Atlanta, GA. and Emory University, Valdosta, GA school term. 1940-42 University of Georgia, Athens with Lamar Dodd, and John Held Jr. ( BFA 1942). Dodd urged Lew to go to the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center to study with the illustrator, cartoonist Boardman Robinson, Adolf Dehn and printmaker Lawrence Barrett. Dodd had studied with Robinson and knew that Tilley's gift as a draftsman would grow under his instruction. Tilley sampled the C.S.F.A.C. in summer school and enrolled for graduate study 1943-45 as teaching assistant to Robinson the C.S.F.A.C. head  and continued until Robinson had to retire because of ill health. At that point in 1947 Tilley took over the running of the school, and a search began to find a permanent replacement. Together Tilley and then Director Sid Stallings nominated Jean Charlot who accepted the position. Tilley had assisted Charlot in the painting of a large mural at the University of Georgia and knew Charlot was a major talent in world terms. Tilley taught at Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center 1945-51. University Southern Colorado, Pueblo 1965-1986.

Marriage to painter Martha Dejiere in 1946 produced two daughters, Eve and Meg.

He purchased his first camera when he was on sabbatical in Mexico in 1951 and added photography to his list of free-lance repertoire. Images from his series "A Life in the Day of Fannie Mae Duncan"  are in The Pikes Peak Library District collection.

Tilley took a break from teaching to work first as writer, producer, director at the Alexander Film Company 1958-62 making commercials and documentaries Then as communication media advisor for United States Agency for International Development in Nigeria with Indiana University 1962-64.

1965-86 he returned to teaching, this time at University of Southern Colorado, Pueblo, finishing his MFA at Instituto Allende, University of Guanijuato, Mexico 1968. He attended the British Film Institute 1972-75, artist in residence University of Georgia, Cortona, Italy, 1985,  and reviewed computer image software in "Your Amiga", London, 1986.

1976-1986 Tilley spent his winter evenings designing and his summer vacations in Parrott, GA building and adding on to an octagonal house (he named Huckaby House) on a lot where his family's mansion had burned to the ground in 1929. He began with purchased blueprints for a ski cabin. In homage to family compounds he'd seen in Nigeria, he used rectangles to connect various sized octagons and half octagons until the 5800 ft. sq. house had 4800 ft. sq. enclosed. The last time the entire family was together at Huckaby House, (2004) he declared, "I never intended to be building something to last forever, this was a Lew Tilley play toy"

"Someone told me I was a better photographer than painter, which may be true. With photography you have to wait until God does it.  The photographer just clicks the picture.  But when you look at that blank piece of paper, you're god." .