Tim Stoddard

Ceramic tile artist Tim Stoddard believes in the synchronicity of the universe.How else do you explain the events of last week:Stoddard moved his tile company to Seattle in October.Last week, he returned to Boise to finish up some work.On a day off, hehttp://www.idahostatesman.com/105/story/275660.html

Tim Stoddard, left, works to remove a mural he installed in 1999.Ren Nelson, right, who helped Stoddard install the mural, helps in the removal.

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Titan of Tiles: Tim Stoddard's creationsCheck out the mural at eBay
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Ceramic tile artist Tim Stoddard believes in the synchronicity of the universe.How else do you explain the events of last week:Stoddard - Idaho born and raised - moved his tile company to Seattle in October.Last week, he returned to Boise to finish up some work.On a day off, he happened to stop in the U.S. Bank Building to photograph the mural he installed there in 1999."Someone tapped me on the shoulder and asked if I knew they were going to take it down the next week," he said."I didn't, but I wasn't bummed at all.I'm sure glad someone told me." The building owners are in the process of remodeling the lobby and planned to tear out the mural this week.They had tried to reach Stoddard but didn't have his current information.Luckily, fate stepped in, said Stoddard, who turns 52 today."Some people would say it's a coincidence, but I don't believe in coincidences."Stoddard took this chance to reclaim his mural - a graceful depiction of a Grecian Mediterranean scene - and turn what could have been a frustrating task into a windfall for himself and others, he said.On Jan. 19, he spent an exhausting 5 hours taking down the 180-tile mural."I did too good of a job installing it," he said.He plans to auction the mural on eBay and donate half of the profits to a Tibetan non-profit organization that has helped him reshape his life.The Asian Classics Input Project finds and scans ancient Tibetan and Sanskrit texts and makes them available to the public through a free online database."This organization is really important to me," Stoddard said."They have manuscripts going back to 500 B.C., from the Buddha and the Dalai Lamas and from the first yoga masters."The project is part of the network of businesses run by Geshe Michael Roach, author of "The Diamond Cutter: The Buddha on Managing Your Business and Your Life" (Three Leaves, $13.95) and a Tibetan Buddhist and yoga teacher, with whom Stoddard has studied."One of the first things he taught me is if you want to make a lot of money, you have to learn to give away a lot of money.If you want to get healthy yourself, you have to help others get healthy."Stoddard found himself drawn to art at the age of 6, when he turned his parent's downstairs bathroom into an art studio where he would paint.In college, he added ceramics to his repertoire and eventually became a tile artist and artisan.He creates hand-painted tiles of natural stone, like the U.S. Bank Mural.He also works with glass and creates mosaics and likes to incorporate culturally significant symbology into his work.His work has been featured in Home magazine.He operated his business out of the Treasure Valley for many years.He traveled to study with Italian craftsmen and experimented with different techniques.His work has always been quality, but he hasn't always been the most responsible, he said.Meeting Roach turned that around, he said."I've really taken that to heart," he said.He took a two-day workshop at the Sun Valley Wellness Festival in 2005.Stoddard was dabbling in yoga and its surrounding philosophy at the time, but he found that Roach's teaching has had a lasting impact on his life."It's changed the way I do business and they way I live my life," he said." 'Try to find happiness with what you have.' That's been the big message for me." Since 2005, he's become more involved in yoga, an avocation he started in high school, and now does Bickrahm hot yoga nearly every day.He's adopted more and more personal philosophies that fall in line with yoga teachings.For him, the mural is now part of that path."The world does not come at you, it comes through you," Stoddard said.