Tim Belliveau is an artist currently working out of Calgary, AB. He is a member of the "Bee Kingdom" glass collective which is comprised of two other artists, Phillip Bandura and Ryan Marsh Fairweather. Belliveau (and Bee Kingdom) have received critical acclaim for both glass and for illustrative work. Recently we asked Tim to answer a few questions about his work:

1)Q: what do you consider your most important tool as a designer/artist?
A: Adaptation. It sounds cheesy but I have so many times been in situations where I'm trying a new project or working under pressure in different settings that I have to be ready to work with the best tools and the worst. Its important to learn things with crappy tools so that the right ones, when you can afford them are helpful but not required. If you can make your art with the wrong tools while you're poor and out of time, you can do well. Also my custom made bag that holds my entire studio and can usually fix any situation where I'm unprepared. If we need an object for this question, its that!

- Q: how do you feel illustration aids in your glass work? does it? what can illustration give you that glass can not?
A: Illustration is cheaper than glassblowing so I do a ton more of it. That said, glass naturally wants to make rounded, flowing shapes and over time, my illustrations have picked up on this. Its a feedback loop between the two processes and now most of the things I draw, I can make as glass sculptures, which wasn't always true. The illustration makes the glass better because I can really visualize it in advance and the illustrations have gained a very rounded sculptural quality.
Also making glass is a massive financial and bureaucratic battle where drawing is free, therapeutic and I can lord over it like an OCD tyrant! The balance between them is probably a good thing.

- Q: who are your current working art/design hero's?
A: Judith Schaechter a stained glass artist based in Philadelphia taught me a lot about making art and surviving the inevitable crises that come with it. Jack (John) Bride for similar reasons. Werner Herzog, even though he says he's a craftsman not an artist and that art today is criminal (esp. because of that). Also Keith Tyson, Cai Guo Quiang, Josh Keyes and Walton Ford. I have a pile of art heroes who have helped me out too; more than I can list here.

- Q: complete the line "in 20 years I will be........"
A: ...Aged 47 and far more cynical for sure; that's like a rising stock as far as I can tell. Hopefully its funny by then. I will be past the age where they say fame will destroy you so, I wouldn't mind collecting a lot then, it helps with some things in the arts.

and anything else you would like to say about your work!!!
This is where the art comes from: Whenever I'm out of ideas, I learn a new technique, whenever I'm bored of technique I record dreams. When I can't make any use of those I read. I succeed when any of that connects with a viewer and I have a survey you can fill out if you want to connect with words!
https://beekingdom.dc1.netfirms.com/futureforest.net/information/survey/surveypage.html

Also come to my show:
http://www.beekingdom.ca/

Thanks!
-tim