By Aly Prouty & Kate Edson
Photos by Grace James
The Harrisonburg Farmers Market not only features food and apparel, but also WoodArt, a business which sells a wide range of products made by hand from various woods.
Steve Fischer crafts WoodArt, while his wife, Debra Fischer, sells his works at the market. Steve Fischer became interested in making wooden art about four and a half years ago, when he and his wife were having a pizza night.
“There was a TV show on with this guy, taking wood and making all this stuff. And it became our Tuesday night date, to watch this guy,” Debra Fischer said. “And my husband said, ‘Wow, I’d like to try to do that.’ And I said, ‘Well, you don’t need another tie for Christmas, go get yourself a lade [tool used to make wooden creations].’”
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After her husband bought the lade, the couple moved to Virginia so they could make this their business.
Steve Fischer works in his own studio. “A piece can take anywhere from an hour, to months [to finish],” Debra Fischer said. If the weather is hot or muggy, the project will take longer to complete, as heat makes it difficult for the oils to soak into the wood.
Nothing that the Fischers sell is store bought. Steve Fischer handmakes everything from the wooden beads on necklaces, to the spoons, Christmas decorations, and multi-colored wooden bracelets, producing the different colors through a process called segmenting. The colored chunks on the bracelet are each individual pieces of wood, which Steve Fischer then glues together and turns on the lade to create a finished product.
“Because this is our business, this is what pays our bills,” Debra Fischer said.
The Fischers have three locations where customers can buy wood: two in Virginia and one in West Virginia. The Harrisonburg stand is located in a place where tourists often come and purchase products.
The WoodArt booth attracts a variety of customers with its handmade merchandise. For example, on July 15 Roy and Gillian Myers of Annapolis, Maryland visited the stand for the first time and came away pleased with their purchase, a bowl crafted from box elder wood.
“I’m crazy about wood,” Gillian Myers said. “I love this [bowl] because it has beautiful marking.”
Over the years Gillian and Roy Myers have collected wood from various foreign countries as a result of their extensive global travel. “China, South Africa, Iceland, England, Thailand…so I have lots of wood,” Gillian Myers said.
From expert wood collectors like the Myers couple to young children eager to play with the stand’s display of wooden tops, customers of all ages frequent the stand.
“There’s a good crowd coming through, so [the market is] just a good venue for us,” Debra Fischer said.
The WoodArt booth is open to the public at the Harrisonburg Farmers Market every week, on Tuesdays and Saturdays. To find out more about these works of wood, visit Steve Fischer’s website.
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