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Alumni Awards List

After declaring at age 12 that he wanted to be an architect, TIM HOSSLER's parents planned their family vacations around Frank Lloyd Wright buildings. Through these travels, his interest in American history, architecture and the world beyond Dodge City (his hometown) expanded. He went to school at Kansas State University to become an architect, but these studies lead to other interests in different forms of design. Video, collage and graphic design became Tim's mediums of choice.

While pursuing the Bachelor of Architecture at K-State, Tim spent the spring semester of his fourth year at the College's Italian Studies program in Castiglion Fiorentino, Italy. During his final year of study, Tim was co-editor of Volume 15 of OZ, the College's student-produced journal, and created posters for the College's lecture series and gallery shows. Also through the College, Tim traveled to Japan in the summer of 1993.

After graduation, Tim left Kansas to have the experience and challenge of living in a big city. In New York, he pursued work as a graphic designer. While doing commercial work for a variety of clients and firms, he continued his own personal work and studies in video and collage. In 1997, he began working as the in-house art director for the photographer Annie Leibovitz. He was originally hired to work on the design of Ms. Leibovitz's forthcoming book, Women, but quickly that position grew to encompass the design and direction of everything that came out of her studio. He left the Leibovitz studio after five and a half years to dedicate more time to his own creative exploration.

Tim's work is a portrait of travel, time and place: specifically America. He travels, observes and collects. The collection is then organized into narratives of his experiences. Traveling through cities around the world, Tim gathered scraps of paper, often trash, which later was taped, layer over layer, to create abstract narratives of each culture. His current work is grounded in the same process and subject; however, instead of collecting paper, he collects images with a digital video camera. As in collage, each image is only part of the whole. Each image alone is virtually meaningless, but it is the arrangement of the collection that gives the work its relevance.

Tim uses the video camera as a still camera with its shutter continually open, collecting all details. He is not shooting a video: he is gathering images. No shot is preplanned. No objects are moved. No lighting is changed. Everything is gathered as is. He edits the raw video like a contact sheet, selecting specific frames that convey a narrative. These frames are then gathered and arranged into objects that take the form of sequential image videos, books and prints.

After living in New York City for nine years, Tim and Ann Shadle Hossler (BArch 1993) moved to Michigan where Tim is pursuing a Master of Fine Arts at Cranbrook Academy of Art. Because they are expecting the impending birth of their first child, Tim will be unable to participate in person in the 2003 Alumni Honoree program.