Tim Bruckner's
earliest memory of sculpting was when he was seven. He sculpted little
heads of the Seven Dwarves out of wax tubes a disgustingly sweet
liquid candy was packaged in. From the very beginning, he was a wax
sculptor. He uses a different kind of wax now and stays away
from sweets, for the most part. He started working professionally at
18 as a jeweler's apprentice/wax carver. He sculpted several hundred
wildlife waxes that became rings, pendants, broaches and belt buckles.
It was the single most valuable experience of his professional life.
In those two years he learned the foundation of his art that would
sustain him for over forty years.
After leaving the jewelry
racket, he found a very patient and sympathetic agent and started
working as a freelancer. His first free lance job was for Max Factor,
sculpting a menagerie of fanciful animals and decorative objects.
From there he sculpted two
alligator suits for the movies Joe Panther and Alligator.
He did a handful of album covers for various artists; Ray Charles,
Ringo Starr, The Average White Band, George Clinton and Parliament and
a dust jacket for Cat Stevens. He stepped away from sculpting for
awhile to pursue a music career. When common sense returned in the
form, shape and substance of his amazing wife, Mary, he went back to
sculpture with a vengeance.
A partial client list (partial
because he can't remember all the crap he made and for whom he made
it.) includes: DC Direct, Mattel, Kenner, Hasbro, Toy Biz, Bowen
Designs, Sideshow, Gentle Giant, Electric Tiki, Reel Arts, Enesco,
Dakin, The Hamilton Group, Hallmark, Applause, American Greetings,
Department 56, Ashton Drake, Franklin Mint, Geometric, Graham Nash,
Harry Nilsson and the Danbury Mint. He was under contract to DC Direct
for awhile and worked almost exclusively for them for almost a dozen
years. One of his most gratifying
professional experiences was designing and sculpting the DC
Dynamics line based on the art of J. C. Leyendecker.
Recently he’s been busy designing and sculpting resin kits. His Ode to
Joy kit, a bust of Beethoven caught mid- chuckle, will be among the
featured images of the great man in a book published this year by
Bildersammlung Museum
Beethoven-Haus, Bonn, Germany.
For the past 26 years he and his wife, their two kids and three dogs
have lived and thrived on a 40-acre hobby farm outside a small town in
western Wisconsin.