TOM SKERRITT
ARTIST BACKGROUND
Tom Skerritt is an Emmy Award-winning actor whose celebrated career spans more than six decades and includes iconic roles in MASH*, Alien, Top Gun, Steel Magnolias, A River Runs Through It, and the television series Picket Fences, for which he won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series.
A longtime resident of Seattle’s Madison Park neighborhood, Skerritt has called the Pacific Northwest home since 1988. Beyond his work in film and television, he is an artist, writer, educator, and dedicated supporter of the arts in the Seattle community. He co-founded TheFilmSchool in Seattle and has remained deeply involved in cultivating storytelling and creative work throughout the region.
More recently, Skerritt has turned his creative eye toward photography, capturing the natural beauty and everyday landscapes surrounding his home in Madison Park and throughout the Pacific Northwest. His photographs offer another window into his longstanding connection to the region and its landscape.
ARTIST STATEMENT
"I have found that imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited, while imagination embraces the entire world." Albert Einstein
I have had the privilege of learning from and working with some of the most remarkable artists in the world - Redford, Altman, Miles Davis and Ridley and Tony Scott. Each taught me something different, and those lessons blended to shape the artist, actor, and teacher I have become.
Through them I learned to bring honesty, vulnerability, and truth to my work.
But the greatest artistic influence in my life was my brother, Jim. We grew up in a two-family flat in Detroit and he had only a high school education, but he possessed a rare gift for seeing beauty where others saw ordinary moments. Jim gave me imagination. He reached me through music and through his soul. By turning out the lights, putting on a jazz record, and using nothing more than a flashlight and the movement of falling leaves, he could create magic.
Jim taught me that art begins with curiosity, generosity, and imagination.
To this day his cherished trumpet hangs near my desk as a tribute to him and the gifts he gave me.