Tim Sample is a Maine illustrator, graphic artist, author, and humorist whose work reflects a lifelong dialogue between image and story. Trained at the Portland School of Art (now the Maine College of Art & Design), Tim began his career in commercial illustration, creating designs for books, posters, and other publications before gaining wider recognition as a voice of Maine culture through albums, books, and appearances on CBS Sunday Morning.In 1996, a turning point reshaped both his life and his art. Entering recovery from substance use disorder at St. Mary’s Hospital in Lewiston, Tim sought new ways to reconnect with creativity on his own terms. A few years later he began carrying a Bristol pad and Micron pens everywhere—airports, waiting rooms, meetings—drawing without a plan. “It was just for me,” he says. “No expectations. No audience.”Over the next two decades, he filled more than a hundred pads with intricate pen-and-ink drawings. Hybrid creatures emerged, along with ambiguous forms, abstracted shorelines, and dreamlike architectures. None of it was staged. All of it felt personal. “I found myself again in those pages,” Tim says. “A part of me I didn’t even realize I’d lost.” These drawings reveal a quieter register than his performance career, each page functioning like a meditation—memory, recovery, and imagination unfolding in line. There are no captions and no fixed narratives, only the invitation to look, to notice, and to be surprised by what arrives next.In 2024, Tim retired from live performance after five decades, closing that chapter with a final show in Boothbay Harbor. Studio time now sits at the center of his practice. He divides his time between Portland, Maine, and Albuquerque, New Mexico, and draws daily. “I’m not trying to say something specific,” he says. “I’m just trying to let something out.”Listen to Tim’s story on Radio Maine.