Timmy Lee was one of 12 children born to Brutus and Sarah Lee on October 17, 1925. The Family lived in the Central Valley of California. Brutus was the owner of an orchard started by his great grand father. But Brutus was never meant to cultivate the land and so took a job as a deputy sheriff for Toulume county and the family settled into the little foothill town of Sonora.
Lee grew up restless and when he finished high school, he immediately joined the Navy. When he was discharged he came back to California and landed in the lumber industry of Northern
California. Because of his training of painting the sides of the Navy ships while at sea, Lee was very agile and could climb a tree fast and surely, and the need for climbers were always a priority. After a few falls, he made his way to jobs in the local lumbermills and worked the saws until a freak runaway man-size saw blade accident left him an arm and two toes short.
After the accident, Lee discovered religion and became a member of the flock of the Church of the Reasonable Christ. Filled with the holy spirit, Lee soon opened, Carving for Christ, a wood carving studio deep in California’s northwest. It was a mixture of the losing of limbs and gaining of spirituality that gave Lee a new fervor in which to make things of art and he worked with a passion.
In time, Lee was introduced to the Doof Wood Collective who had a chapter near Lee’s home and longed admired how Lee did all his carving with just a handsaw. They invited him to join in their wood carving get-togethers and Lee accepted. Lee became exposed to the image of the Doof and had his second religious experience. He became obsessed with the image and is still carving Doofs at the ripe old age of 87.
Timmy Lee's Photo Gallery
In the late 1980’s created a series of work that closely resembled the sculptural work of H. C. Westerman. The pieces were carved from redwood posts that were the cast offs that Lee would collect in his old pick-up truck from construction sites in the area.
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