How YouTube helped the Blind Woodturner hone his craft
Oct 18, 2021 – minute read
“When I’m in the workshop turning a piece of wood, my mind fires with all these mental images and colors,” Chris Fisher says. “I find it emotional. I find it cathartic. I find it a sensory experience.”
Today, Chris, also known as the Blind Woodturner, is a reputable woodturner in the UK. But he first turned to the craft because of another passion of his: horror films. A huge fan of the vampire genre, he wanted to create a stake as a Halloween prop, and turned to YouTube to learn the basics of woodturning. “After that first piece, I was completely hooked and obsessed with woodturning,” he says.
He listened to hundreds of hours of YouTube videos to hone his craft. “It taught me tools and techniques, sanding, finishing a piece, coloring,” Chris says. “It’s multifaceted as an art form, and I suppose you never stop learning.”
Now he’s a YouTube creator himself, sharing videos of his experiences in woodturning and challenging the perception of what people with disabilities can achieve. “I’ve always been a cheeky chap, and I love to talk,” he says. “So I started documenting my journey on YouTube for the reason of inspiring and motivating as many people as I could.”
In 2019, Chris became the first blind Woodturner to be accepted to the Register of Professional Turners. Today, he sells his products worldwide, does demonstrations across the UK, and recently exhibited his work in a local gallery in Ashbourne.
“It’s wonderful to be able to share my talent, my business, my products, with the rest of the world,” he says. “Woodturning has changed my life beyond recognition. It’s given me an income. It’s given me happiness and new friends, and the future is, pun intended, very bright.”