Tim Hahne

When I got out of the military after Viet Nam, I had the GI bill which paid me to go to school. I had become a Christian during the Jesus People Revolution in Febuary1971 and now had purpose and hope, so I took almost every Art class Orange Coast College offered. One of my teachers a OCC put in a recommendation as an illustrator at a greeting card company, but in the meantime, I had met my wife and gotten married in October of 19 72. My roommates gave me a potter’s wheel for our wedding present, and I began making many pots and found out about a little art show just before Christmas which I did and sold a lot of my pots. I graduated from OCC in February of 1973. My wife and I prayed what I should do for income, and we thought we’d give pottery a go. I supported my family till just after Sawdust !996 and moved to Romania as Christian Missionaries and stayed there until a week before Christmas 2019. And have been in the Sawdust for the last four years,

Now I need to rewind time. So in 1974 I did the Art-a-Fair when it was on coast highway, then did the Festival of Arts from 1975-1978…. Then I came to my senses and applied for the Sawdust in 1979 and did it every year till1996 mainly with my pottery and tried to sell some of my Chinese Brush Paintings. I sold a few but could not support my wife and kids from my paintings.

While in Romania we worked with orphans, gypsies and the elderly as well as anyone who was interested in Christianity. We had moved to a small city and after a few months started a church which I pastored for around 20 years. We were getting older and our kids wanted us to move back here as well as the medical care there was not the best. IO couldn’t do pottery there but did a lot of art. I started painting with watercolors and using pen and ink. I was doing what i call doodle art and many art projects for my wife and her ministry for women, I never dreamed I could do pottery again, but we moved to Laguna Woods where we found out they have a wonderful ceramic studio for residence. I worked in it for two weeks when Covid and the Lock Down hit m, no more pottery for the next year but in the meantime, I was talking a lot of walks and discovered my phone had a camera on it and started taking pictures of all these marvelous trees and then expanded to trying beach scenes from my photos. So my painting carrier was birthed from the Covid lock down. I started drawing them in my sketch book and tried water coloring them and adding ink outlines. I posted some on Face Book and some friends started buying them and i kind of wondered if wasn’t pity sales as we had just come back from Romania and had no jobs.

Right when the lock down eased up the Sawdust did an “Outdoor Market Place” at the end of 2020. There were only 50 artists and only 250 people were allowed.on the grounds at a time and everyone was to be fully masked. We sighed up and got in the first two weekends. That allowed us to see if people who were not our friends would buy our art and they did. I got in the regular Sawdust the next two years as a guest artist and after reviewing my past 18 consecutive year as a Sawdust exhibitor I was grandfathered back in and am so grateful to be here

This summer will be my 23rd year in the show and it’s one of my most favorite places to be. I have so many old friends and new friends here… It’s kind of magical here. The art, the people you meet every day, the fun it is to teach a watercolor class every Saturday for the last four years and to be able to do it again this year is a pleasure to see people go home with a work of art that the made is amazing. The music, the food and the majestic Eucalyptus trees which happen to be my favorite thing to paint are all around me and they are constantly changing their colors. THIS PLACE IS AMAZING!

PS….I’ll see if I can figure out how to send photos. I do have many many photos of my work and booth and the Sawdust on my Instagram page if you want to see them, It’s Tim Hahne Designs on Instagram ,

It’s to bad you don’t have access to past years because they have many photos of the last few years