APRIL 2025 ARTIST OF THE MONTH
Tim Bohlin
April’s Artist of the Month, Tim Bohlin, grew up fishing, swimming, and playing in lakes,
streams, and bays of South King County and the family cabin near Hood Canal. After 34 years in the corporate world, Tim decided in 2022 to dedicate himself full time to foraging, cooking, and crafting in nature. His business, Salish Forager, focuses on sharing that dedication with others. When you visit his website, www.salishforager.com, you will be presented with the opportunity to book experiences fishing, crabbing, shrimping, and foraging. Additionally, you will see a page titled “Prints”. This is where the Guemes Island Art webpage gets interested. What you will find on this page is Tim’s artwork…artwork that embodies his love of the sea and the bounty it provides.
Gyotaku 魚拓, from gyo "fish" + taku "stone impression" is the traditional Japanese method of printing fish which dates to the mid-1800s. Very simply, ink is applied to a fish and pressed onto special paper of rice or mulberry. This form of nature printing was used by fishermen to record their catches and became an art form of its own. Sometime around 2006, Tim came home from Uwajimaya with a farm-raised tilapia fresh from the tank. His wife, Liz (whom he met their freshman year of college), asked him what he was doing, and he said something like “oh, just printing a fish.” The next print he made was a salmon caught off Strawberry Island in 2012. He noticed that transferring nature in three dimensions to a print skewed the perception a little - "just like transferring a world that’s round to a flat chart.” According to Tim, “print-making reminds us that every fish is unique and the decision to harvest takes a life for the benefit of others. In Gyotaku, the creative process is given over to something beyond our control. We can work with intention for how ink is applied, color, if used, absorbency of the paper and part of the print we wish to bring forward with pressure, but what is pulled always brings surprises. Non-toxic inks are easy to find allowing for full appreciation of the harvest after the prints are done.”
Tim shared that “early on, there would be a certain perspective or effect I was trying to get, and what it became looked very different. Sometimes, I wanted to wad it up, throw it in the fire and try again. It’s funny. I found that when I revisited those prints in a day, a week, or a month later, the way I experienced them was very different.” He shared this concept with a group around a crab cracking table at the resort. Without hesitation, the women next to him said “yes, that’s wabi-sabi.” Her comment gave Tim a more complete understanding of what is meant by acceptance of imperfection. The imperfection can actually be the thing. His daughter, Andrea, is degreed in fashion design at the School of the Art Institute and delights in the negative space this process creates. He feels that creativity is available to us all. “Anything I have become good at always started with a very strong desire and commitment to start.” Tim takes inspiration from people with shared values and interests that result in the feeling of a connection. “I was having a conversation with a musician about his creative process. What emerged was the idea of ‘never wasting inspiration’. If it’s a powerful inspiration, there is always a way to capture enough of the idea for now so it’s available to return to.”
I asked Tim what he does when he’s not creating his art. He replied that 2025 will be his 60 th year. He now takes people, families, friend groups, their pets on foraging trips in and around the San Juan Islands. Nature needs stewards and without fathers, aunts, and uncles to teach people to fish, crab, shrimp, and forage that knowledge would be lost. “It’s not a man or woman, rich or poor thing, black or white, gay or straight thing and kids of almost any age respond so well when they are brought in to contribute.”
Guemes Island seems like the ideal place for the Bohlin Family, so I asked what brought him here. They have lived in Woodinville since 1994 and foraged, hunted and fished many of the areas and rivers south to the Columbia, west to Willapa, and north to the Canadian border. Guemes seems to be hiding in plain sight. “When hunting Padilla Bay for Brant, I always wondered about the Island I could see just to the NW and wondered what kinds of things happened there. One morning, when the kids were around 8 and 10, I took them salmon fishing on the west side near the row of cabins at Indian Village in our boat Forager. We didn’t see any fish that day, but the vibe on the beach was amazing. I had a strong feeling of it being home. I think we all might experience those feelings from time to time. For me the feelings were very strong. I popped on to Zillow one day and found our cabin for sale. It was just on the edge of affordability for a family like ours and needed a lot of love. My Dad had just passed, and I had always been encouraging him to honor his value of ‘family’ with a place to be shared. This seemed to be the perfect thing at the perfect time and in retrospect, it was. While trolling for salmon, a guest asked me how I felt about our decision to buy our cabin—I asked ‘financially or emotionally’ and before they responded, I realized I didn’t need clarification to know how I felt.”
If you’re interested in purchasing some of Tim’s work, you can visit Guemes Island Resort or you can find prints posted on www.salishforager.com. There are also some print-making images on Instagram @salishforager. If someone wants to make prints themselves, everything you need is available at www.dickblick.com. If you have questions, you can reach out to Tim at tim@salishforager.com.”
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