Timothy Botts

Last updated
Cover of Book by Timothy Botts with sample of his calligraphy Doorposts Botts.jpg
Cover of Book by Timothy Botts with sample of his calligraphy

Timothy Botts is an artist who has a focus of calligraphy. He was born in Pennsylvania and currently resides in Glen Ellyn, Illinois. [1] He is well known for his transformation of Bible verses into pieces art.

Contents

Early life

Botts is married and has three children. [2] As a child, Botts felt like an outcast, until he had gotten inspiration to try art. This inspiration was from his first-grade teacher. She [3] recognized his artistic ability and continued as his art teacher throughout his elementary years and followed him into high school. During his sixth-grade year, Botts had to do a poster project for school fair. For his project, he used a lettering book that had all different lettering styles that piqued his interest. [2] In the following year, Botts attended junior high where he met his future wife. [2] The two dated through high school and went separate ways before going off to college. [2]

After attending high school, he was attended Carnegie Mellon University to pursue his art. During his freshman year at Carnegie Mellon, he was introduced to calligraphy as a requirement for his graphic design major. [2]

After college, Botts married. [2] Rather than being drafted to Vietnam, the couple were sent to Japan for three years where they taught conversational English and where Botts took Japanese brush writing for five weeks. [2]

Career

Throughout his career, Botts has formed his own font, or what he refers to as a visual language with the use of colors, letter styles, letter paths, and contrast and repetition. [4] He used a mixture of Runes styled calligraphy as well as ancient African scripts he came across from some research of Saki Mafundikwa. He also included 19th century American adaptations of Black Letter, Roundhand, early 20th century Bookhand, as well as urban graffiti. [4]

Botts has had many opportunities to draw on walls of churches and other places that inhabit places of worship with selected murals of scriptures that can be found at Good Shepard Lutheran, Cornerstone Church, Naperville Bible Church, Trinity Church of the Nazarene, St. Francis House High School in Wheaton and Advocate Good Samaritan Hospital in Downers Grove. [3] His art can be found in many formats other than walls which can be found in provided publishings.

His teaching can be found at the College of DuPage and an intermediate class at The Fine Line in St. Charles, Illinois. [2] He hosts weekend workshops throughout the United States as well as at the International Calligraphy Convention. [2]

Published works

Awards

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Epistle to the Romans</span> Book of the New Testament

The Epistle to the Romans is the sixth book in the New Testament, and the longest of the thirteen Pauline epistles. Biblical scholars agree that it was composed by Paul the Apostle to explain that salvation is offered through the gospel of Jesus Christ.

The New Testament (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus, as well as events in first-century Christianity. The New Testament's background, the first division of the Christian Bible, is called the Old Testament, which is based primarily upon the Hebrew Bible; together they are regarded as sacred scripture by Christians.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">William Tyndale</span> English biblical scholar, translator, and revolutionary (1494–1536)

William Tyndale was an English biblical scholar and linguist who became a leading figure in the Protestant Reformation in the years leading up to his execution. He is well known as a translator of the Bible into English, and was influenced by the works of prominent Protestant Reformers such as Martin Luther.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Calligraphy</span> Visual art related to writing

Calligraphy is a visual art related to writing. It is the design and execution of lettering with a pen, ink brush, or other writing instrument. Contemporary calligraphic practice can be defined as "the art of giving form to signs in an expressive, harmonious, and skillful manner".

Sola scriptura is a Christian theological doctrine held by most Protestant Christian denominations, in particular the Lutheran and Reformed traditions, that posits the Bible as the sole infallible source of authority for Christian faith and practice. The Catholic Church considers it heterodox and generally the Orthodox churches consider it to be contrary to the phronema of the Church.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Geneva Bible</span> 16th-century English translation of the Bible

The Geneva Bible is one of the most historically significant translations of the Bible into English, preceding the King James Version by 51 years. It was the primary Bible of 16th century English Protestantism and was used by William Shakespeare, Oliver Cromwell, John Knox, John Donne and others. It was one of the Bibles taken to America on the Mayflower. The Geneva Bible was used by many English Dissenters, and it was still respected by Oliver Cromwell's soldiers at the time of the English Civil War, in the booklet The Souldiers Pocket Bible.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Revised Standard Version</span> English translation of the Bible

The Revised Standard Version (RSV) is an English translation of the Bible published in 1952 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA. This translation itself is a revision of the American Standard Version (ASV) of 1901, and was intended to be a readable and literally accurate modern English translation which aimed to "preserve all that is best in the English Bible as it has been known and used through the centuries" and "to put the message of the Bible in simple, enduring words that are worthy to stand in the great Tyndale-King James tradition."

Charles Rozell Swindoll is an evangelical Christian pastor, author, educator, and radio preacher. He founded Insight for Living, headquartered in Frisco, Texas, which airs a radio program of the same name on more than 2,000 stations around the world in 15 languages. He is currently senior pastor at Stonebriar Community Church, in Frisco, Texas.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hank Hanegraaff</span>

Hendrik "Hank" Hanegraaff, also known as the "Bible Answer Man", is an American Christian author and radio talk-show host. Formerly an evangelical Protestant, he joined the Eastern Orthodox Church in 2017. He is an outspoken figure within the Christian countercult movement, where he has established a reputation for his critiques of non-Christian religions, new religious movements, and cults, as well as heresy in Christianity. He is also an apologist on doctrinal and cultural issues.

A letterer is a member of a team of comic book creators responsible for drawing the comic book's text. The letterer's use of typefaces, calligraphy, letter size, and layout all contribute to the impact of the comic. The letterer crafts the comic's "display lettering": the story title lettering and other special captions and credits that usually appear on a story's first page. The letterer also writes the letters in the word balloons and draws in sound effects. Many letterers also design logos for the comic book company's various titles.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Edward Johnston</span> British craftsman, calligrapher and typographer

Edward Johnston, CBE was a British craftsman who is regarded, with Rudolf Koch, as the father of modern calligraphy, in the particular form of the broad-edged pen as a writing tool.

Early Modern English Bible translations are those translations of the Bible which were made between about 1500 and 1800, the period of Early Modern English. This was the first major period of Bible translation into the English language including the King James Version and Douai Bibles. The Reformation and Counter-Reformation led to the need for Bibles in the vernacular with competing groups each producing their own versions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Western calligraphy</span>

Western calligraphy is the art of writing and penmanship as practiced in the Western world, especially using the Latin alphabet.

Biblical hermeneutics is the study of the principles of interpretation concerning the books of the Bible. It is part of the broader field of hermeneutics, which involves the study of principles of interpretation, both theory and methodology, for all forms of communication, nonverbal and verbal.

Malcom Ollie "Mal" Couch, Jr. was the founder and first president of the Tyndale Theological Seminary. He was a pastor, an author of many books, and writer of 40 documentaries on Bible prophecies and biblical issues. While president of Tyndale Theological Seminary Couch recruited some very well known scholars and Bible teachers to teach the student body. Dr. Norman Geisler, Dr. Paige Patterson, Dr. Robert Lightner, Dr. Arnold G. Fruchtenbaum, and Paul Enns were used in the educational endeavors at Tyndale Seminary. After Dr. Couch retired from Tyndale Seminary he became a Vice President of the Scofield Graduate School and Seminary located in Modesto, California.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tyndale Bible</span> Early Modern English translation of the Bible

The Tyndale Bible (TYN) generally refers to the body of biblical translations by William Tyndale into Early Modern English, made c. 1522–1535. Tyndale's Bible is credited with being the first Bible translation in the English language to work directly from Hebrew and Greek texts, although it relied heavily upon the Latin Vulgate. Furthermore, it was the first English biblical translation that was mass-produced as a result of new advances in the art of printing.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Protestant Bible</span> Christian Bible whose translation or revision was produced by Protestants

A Protestant Bible is a Christian Bible whose translation or revision was produced by Protestant Christians. Such Bibles comprise 39 books of the Old Testament and 27 books of the New Testament, for a total of 66 books. Some Protestants use Bibles which also include 14 additional books in a section known as the Apocrypha bringing the total to 80 books. This is in contrast with the 73 books of the Catholic Bible, which includes seven deuterocanonical books as a part of the Old Testament. The division between protocanonical and deuterocanonical books is not accepted by all Protestants who simply view books as being canonical or not and therefore classify books found in the Deuterocanon, along with other books, as part of the Apocrypha. Sometimes the term "Protestant Bible" is simply used as a shorthand for a bible which contains only the 66 books of the Old and New Testaments.

1 Timothy 3 is the third chapter of the First Epistle to Timothy in the New Testament of the Christian Bible. The author was traditionally identified as Paul the Apostle since as early as AD 180, although most modern scholars consider the letter pseudepigraphical, perhaps written as late as the first half of the second century AD.

In Protestant theology, verbal plenary preservation (VPP) is a doctrine concerning the nature of the Bible. While verbal plenary inspiration ("VPI") applies only to the original autographs of the Bible manuscript, VPP views that, "the whole of scripture with all its words even to the jot and tittle is perfectly preserved by God in the apographs without any loss of the original words, prophecies, promises, commandments, doctrines, and truths, not only in the words of salvation, but also the words of history, geography and science; and every book, every chapter, every verse, every word, every syllable, every letter is infallibly preserved by the Lord Himself to the last iota so that the Bible is not only infallible and inerrant in the past, but also infallible and inerrant today ."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bryant Fedden</span> Letter cutter and sculptor

Bryant Olcher Fedden was a self-taught letter-cutter, glass engraver and sculptor who developed his craft in a workshop environment with craftspeople whom he taught and supported. He was a member of the Gloucestershire Guild of Craftsmen for more than forty years. He was a founder member of the Letter Exchange, a professional organisation promoting lettering in all its forms. Bryant Fedden has work in the Victoria and Albert Museum Collections.

References

  1. Botts, Timothy (Winter 2002). "John 1:14". Christian Century. 119: 56 via Academic Search Premier.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Stetson, Nancy (September 23, 1990). "A man of letters Timothy Botts turns words into a work of art: [FINAL EDITION]". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved November 1, 2019.
  3. 1 2 Asimakoupoulos, Greg (June 23, 2001). "Artist's Scripture etchings leave lasting impression on observers: [D3 Edition]". Daily Herald. ProQuest   312449048.
  4. 1 2 Botts, Timothy (Fall 2011). "Cover artist". Letter Arts Review. 25: 8–11 via Art Full Text.
  5. "Timothy Botts". Faith and Life. January 5, 2004. Retrieved 2019-11-04.