Theodore Fisher

I was born and have lived almost my entire life in beautiful Portland, Oregon, which has powerfully shaped my art. I always knew I was an artist, taking art classes as a youth. I started carving at age 14, and fell in love with the medium. I only managed to survive a year of college as an art student, though, discovering near that year's end a deep antipathy to ArtSpeak. You know - "The artist's clear refrences to a tradition of socially alert codification of nomadic realities combined with what I may call static linearity conditions the viewer to an expectation of revealed truths that may instintively re-affirm marginalized . . ." At which point I start to scream and foam at the mouth, throwing codified nomatic objects at the static speaker. I have continued my work without recognition or any great level of success, mostly because I fell early on under the spell of the grain, which I reveal by a sanding process using every grit available, some 12 to 15 steps requiring tremendous time and not a little pain; thus my per-hour for the some 75 pieces I have sold has never made it possible to support myself by it. The process of hand-rubbing has given me Leukemia (not, thankfully, active!) so anybody what wants this stuff now is gonna pay through the nose! (Oh, wait - I better not say that!)


Oops! Too late!

My philosophy as an artist is that if the artist hasn't said what he has to say in his work, he ought to shut his yap. Beyond that, I'm afraid I simply don't have lofty goals for my work. Art has been long released from the duty to portray beauty, and it is well that this is so; but beauty is all I seem to want to show as an artist and as a human being. Most of us, especially in this amazing western world, walk, swim, live and breathe such beauty every day, every moment; stars, sky, flowers, clouds, the very air about us drenched in such delight. It really is all I want to show, the common everyday beauty of all growing and living and loving things. Silly, isn't it?

But if you promise you won't tell anyone - promise? - I'll let you in on a little secret. Here, lean in close so's I can whisper. (Every line, shape, form, texture in my work is all about the beauty of the human form. Hush, now; remember, you promised!)

So much for lofty goals and erudite exposition. I know, I know; such an antiquated viewpoint is beyond anachronistic, and condemns me to obscurity. But obscurity has it's benefits. The hours are good, for one.


Still - I'd like to get me some of them art groupies.

I use no power tools in my work. None.

Not because I'm some sort of purist, mind. Just because I ain't got'em.

Be a lot of fun to have some. A router. I may take an hour or two just making the rabbett for a picture frame. Imagine the fun of owning a good plunge router! WHHHHHRRRR! and in seconds, a room full of dust! Wow!

Sanding equipment would be great, too, although nothing I've ever tried has helped - the sander invariably makes ridges and waves that I then have to spend hours by hand smoothing out, so in the end it doesn't help. I'm more a sanding machine myself than a sculptor; for instance, 'Rose is ...' took about twenty-five hours to sculpt, about the same for the incised lettering - and about 125 for the sanding! Ish!

A table saw would be nice, too, and a band saw - I love the noise of a bandsaw. Zzzzzinggggg, and a shape cut out in minutes! Or a chain saw! THINK of the damage I could do with a chain saw! Whole forests would quake at my approach! No, no - a power nailer, one of those big jobs that load cartridges to drive nails into concrete! Oh, I know, I know, I don't do anything like that in my work, but gosh, the sounds - POW! POW! POW!


Anyway, no power tools were used at any stage in the production of these works.

Dammit.