Tim Elverston

A quick bio:

All my life I’ve been making things. When I was a child I was appropriating objects and materials from around the house and making what I now realize was art in many forms. My parents were always supportive of the drawings, origami, paper airplanes, string forms, and wire sculpture I would fill the available space with. One of the most powerful driving forces in my art has always been anything related to the air and flight. Kites are an enduring and amazingly versatile passion in my life. My art is diverse and tends to be sculpture from almost any material. Building kites and solving problems under the inevitable demands of flight have shown me that when something I sculpt is correct it is also naturally beautiful. The eye is often mightier than the calculator.

I am an artist and designer. I work mainly in synthetic materials and composites but I also use metals and paper. I run my own business doing kite designs, kinetic sculpture, mobiles, lamps and kite repair for the kite surfing industry. Visit this page to see my portfolio of kites, lamps, mobiles and other projects. You can find the main WindFire Designs website here.

My wife, Ruth Whiting is an oil painter. She works with oil and canvas but also has been painting kites. She is also working on a book called Lonely Bird. She helps me repair kites sometimes too.

We have a number of blogs:

• WindFire Designs Studio Blog - you can see our current projects here
• WindFire Designs Kite Repair Blog - Things we learn while repairing your kites
• Instances of Make - Ruth Whiting's studio blog about her paintings and other projects

I have a number of friends that have helped me make my way in the kite industry:

• dean jordan of jordan air kites - dean taught me to sew, design, and build my first kites, which actually were his kites. He taught me to think about sequence and to have a complete plan in a project. He is a brilliant guy and great friend to this day. He also taught me to underprice my work and sell it at a loss. Thanks dean!
• Mark Ricketts of GuildWorks - Mark taught me all kinds of things about kite design, morphology and structure. I learned about larger scale fabrication and production methods, and I began to think differently about the kite industry. I also learned how to survive on bagels, sleep on an industrial shop floor and bathe in a large cold water sink.
• Daryl Drown of Extreme Kites - Daryl had me do my very first paid kite repair work. We met on the beach in Treasure Island but it turned out that we were both living in Gainesville at the time. We became friends and he has been a great support to me during this time of building my business at WindFire Designs.
• Bruce Flora of Kiteman Productions - Bruce got us all our very first paid kite flying work. The World Festival of Kites at Epcot Center. Wow, words cannot describe that experience. Thank you Bruce, you changed my life and the lives of many others for the better.
• Peter Lynn - Just go look him up!