Artists are inventors. They can even reinvent themselves. Chuck Fischer, the New Hope-based artist, is a great example of protean creativity. He began studying architecture, switched to graphic design, worked as a soap opera actor, designed wallpapers for the high-end firms Brunschwig & Fils and F. Schumacher & Co., painted murals for the blue-chip interior designers Parish Hadley, and then started making pop-up books and greeting cards based on famous architecture. His pop-up book “Christmas in New York” (published in 2005) is a perennial bestseller.
Are you breathless just reading that Candyland-curvy career journey? It doesn’t end there. His most recent reinvention has him creating in 3-D and in living color. Now Fischer makes what he calls “Geometric Abstractions.” These are constructions of copper, aluminum, wood, and wire, textured and painted in a spectrum of colors, and assembled to attract and involve the eye.
He says that this has been the hardest thing he has done.
“I had to break through the fear involved in finding what is inside me, to make artwork that reflected that,” Fischer says. “I wanted to make artwork I wanted, in addition to commissions.”
If it’s been a challenge, he says it has been the most rewarding part of his artistic career.
“I pushed myself. I sat down and got in conversation with the materials,” he says. “Once I had a breakthrough, I could not stop because I wanted to see what’s next.”
Fischer’s sculptural pieces do not generally begin with a sketch. “When I begin, I don’t know how that piece will end up.” He revels in the process of discovery; It motivates him. He thinks about the colors and materials he wants to use and then begins shaping and painting the pieces.
“I play piano a little and I think of what I’m doing as a musical composition,” he says. “I do something, then I choose whether to harmonize with it or give it a counterpoint.”
He builds his compositions by intuition, using materials to convey movement, harmony, repetition, and contrast. “Symmetry is all about balance. My goal, by contrast, is to use asymmetry to create balance and harmony.”
Since joining the Arts & Cultural Council, he has been a popular and unique exhibitor in member shows. Viewers tell him that they relate to his constructions as if they are intricate clockworks, or that their eye enters a piece and then follows a line and suddenly they are in a chutes-and-ladders experience finding their way around a piece.
“I love hearing that, how people feel the motion in the work. I love that they get involved in it,” he says. “These aren’t mazes where you get stuck trying to find a way out. These are all about finding a way in and enjoying the discoveries you make once you’re inside!”
Is it any wonder that an artist who has spent a lifetime taking new paths and discovering new talents that he has should now be offering viewers the chance to make discoveries themselves?
Local Color is a column produced by the Arts & Cultural Council of Bucks County. It appears on the first Thursday of each month.
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