How YouTube helped the Blind Woodturner hone his craft

“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.”