Tim Urban

Tim Urban is an acclaimed stone artist. Having once been selected by an international jury to represent the art of the entire American West, Tim has an obviously unparalleled eye and hand. A rock has never been just a rock to him. Growing up in the mountains of northern New Jersey amidst one of the most diverse mineral deposits in the country, he collected them by the armful and kept boxes of the prettiest, shiniest, and most colorful in his closet. Tim was fascinated by the inherent artistry of such stones and was determined to one day build something with them.

He earned a degree in architecture from the University of Maryland in 1983 and the following year married Cindy (the beautiful blonde who sat next to him in first year design studio) and moved to northern New Mexico. Tim took his architecture degree for a spin and worked as a self-employed landscaper and stoneworker for over 30 years, during which he gained a reputation for putting rocks together in a way that Santa Fe had not seen before. Characterized by his incredibly natural, large-scale boulder work and the contrasting detail of his finer stone elements, his landscapes became exceedingly popular on local garden tours. Incorporating his signature “picture” work into many of his acclaimed garden designs, the birds, snakes, geckos, and flowers inlaid into his stone patios, walkways, and fountains are admired to this day.

By 2008 Tim began to spend more time in his small home workshop. So was born the “Grindstone Cowboy”. “With all the dust and the dirt flying around while trying to make a rock do something it doesn’t want to do, it’s a whole lot more like a rodeo than an artist’s studio in here.” Employing only a basic hand-held grinder mounted with a dry-diamond wheel and working in a cloud of dust for months at a time, he honed his fine cutting skills on simpler folk art images inlaid on stone countertops and accent furnishings before moving on to works of increasingly difficult detail. The techniques he developed are derivative of an ancient artform that began in the Hellenistic world, first appearing in Italy before spreading to the greater parts of Europe as a decorative tradition. Opus sectile literally translates as “cut work”. Its main difference between the most common type of mosaic, in which the design is composed of many small cubes (tesserae) of stone or glass is that opus sectile pieces are much larger and can be shaped to define larger components parts of the design. Over the years Tim constantly challenged himself to create more finely-crafted images with each new piece he built—rustic woods inlaid with varied quartzites, feldspars, and sandstones creating timeless western scenes—he traveled both near and far to find those perfect stones that made his visions real.

“In the end, combining just enough of an artist’s eye with the skills acquired during a 30-year career in Santa Fe, New Mexico as a high-end landscaper and stoneworker to execute the work, it is without a doubt the God-given patience and the hardcore do-it-again-again-and-again demeanor to survive those long, frustrating days when the progress is more backward than forward that has allowed me to realize my boyhood vision.”

The “Grindstone Cowboy’s” work has been featured in elite national shows such as the Western Design Conference, the Gasparilla Fine Arts Festival in Tampa, and at Trailside Galleries in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. He exhibited his art pieces in the prestigious MADE section of the 2015 Architectural Digest Home Design Show in New York City and was later selected by an international jury as one of “the world’s cutting edge artists” to represent the art of the entire American West at the exclusive Biennale exhibit on the Grand Canal in Venice, Italy the following year.

“A forever moment captured by a forever material. Because it’s those little moments passing all-too-quickly all over the world everyday that seem to be the very essence of life.”

Tim and Cindy moved back to the east coast in 2017. They currently live in Florida.