Welcome to the Journey!
Tim's Bio
Timothy Bernard Cooney (Tim) is a lifelong artist, musician, landscape photographer, and writer. He spent decades building an extraordinary archive of creative works while living a parallel life in finance and politics, and raising his family on Cape Cod. Now retired, he is unveiling a multimedia memoir, that includes his incredible life story, original music, visual art, and family film history.
Tim’s diverse professional path straddled the analog and digital ages, including roles as a paperboy, boat builder, sailor, carpenter, car salesman, chef, truck driver, and sledgehammer laborer, before achieving significant success as a computer expert and financial advisor, where he attained the prestigious "Court of The Table" status and earned his CLU, ChFC credentials.
Born fourth to a clan of eight, Tim was the black sheep of the family but broke from the flock to roam the world as a lone wolf. Tim came of age during the 60s and was hooked by Rock and Roll and founded the band Turtleback on Cape Cod and The SunTurtles in California. He also founded SunTurtle Studios in Sonoma County where he now lives. He was also deeply involved in community development and arts initiatives on Cape Cod, including founding the "Holly Days and North Pole Express Christmas" programs, still running today.
Tim is a loving father to three young adults, the oldest trapped in a world of addiction, and his twins who graduate this month, one from Pratt Institute, the other from UMASS Eisenberg School of Business, both with honors. He is also a doting grandfather to his grandson Mason, now six.
Tim is a graduate of the University of Massachusetts and The American College in Philadelphia.
Stay tuned for excerpts from my 120,000 word memoir spanning 5 generations from Ireland and Scotland to California.
The Journeyman
By Timothy Bernard Cooney
Born into Chaos, Driven by truth, Saved by love
Synopsis:
The Journeyman is a sweeping, soul-baring memoir that traces five generations of inherited trauma, artistic yearning, and hard-won redemption. From the stormy streets of Boston to the redwood quiet of Northern California, Timothy Bernard Cooney navigates a life marked by abandonment, addiction, and exile—yet fueled by an unshakable instinct to create and survive.
Raised in a family haunted by secrets, Tim spends decades seeking belonging—first in reckless youth, then in the corporate cage of Wall Street, and finally in the healing wilds of music, art, and fatherhood. Along the way, he witnesses the implosion of his son’s life to addiction and chooses the agonizing path of letting go in order to save the next generation: his innocent grandson.
With painter’s eyes, a poet’s heart, and a survivor’s grit, Cooney chronicles his journey not only as an artist but as a man forged by suffering and softened by grace. From singing in the bars of Cape Cod to building SunTurtle Studios in California, The Journeyman is a love letter to the lost, the resilient, and those who dare to start again.
Told in lyrical prose with flashes of humor, rage, and wonder, The Journeyman is a testimony to the redemptive power of creativity—and to the idea that it’s never too late to become the person you were meant to be.
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I look forward to the Journey with you!
Tim