- [John] Let's go get some cherries, sweetie pie.
- [Anni] All righty. You wanna grab your hat?
- [John] Good ole Indiana Jones hat.
- [Anni] Yes.
- [John] I love this thing.
- [Anni] Yes, all righty.
(acoustic guitar music)
All righty.
What a pretty day.
- [John] It is.
- [Anni] It's like perfect.
- [John] We met each other at the Piano School of Technology
for the Blind.
She was an artist painting a piano fundraiser,
and I was going there doing extra classes
because the school mainly taught tuning and basic repair.
And I happened to be working in the same classroom
as she was painting the piano, and I walk in and put my hand
on the web paint, of course.
We both say, "Oh no! Sorry!"
Because I thought I destroyed her painting and she was-
- I was really awkward because, I don't know,
I'd never really been around blind people very much.
- She asked me out first.
I had this huge patch of peas
at the Marshall Center Community Garden.
And so I called her back and asked if she wanted to help me
pick peas in the garden.
- But I loved it.
It was the best first date that I've ever been on.
(wheel spinning)
- I love to be in my wood shop
because I get lost in my projects.
It's definitely my happy place because when I've
got a bowl on the lathe and I'm carving away,
there's just, there's nothing else but me and that bowl.
I see it in my mind and I feel the wood change
as I'm carving and you're not really supposed
to have your hand on it while you're carving,
but it changes so fast, if I didn't,
it would look like a blind guy made it.
One of my main inspirations is just creating things.
"The Woodwright's Shop" on PBS,
I always loved watching that guy, especially the lathe.
It just transforms like magic.
And I remember wishing I could do those kinds of things.
My name is John Furniss, I'm 37 years old
and I live in Washougal Washington,
but I grew up in Colorado, Wyoming and Utah, basically.
At 16 years old, I attempted suicide by shooting myself
and luckily only lost my sight and sense of smell.
My mind was left completely intact.
I finished out high school and then when I turned 18,
I moved out back to the town I grew up in
and that was a bad idea.
I got into meth and I got into trouble with the law
and ended up on probation and just downward spiral, really.
I moved back in with my folks after that happened and they
helped me get off of meth and get off probation.
Little ways after that, I started attending
fine woodworking classes at a school for the blind
in Salt Lake City.
I found my thing.
It's like seeing again to me to be able to take that image
in my mind and make it a real object.
Anni put the things that I was making on Facebook
and people wanted to order them.
I jokingly say she's my press secretary,
but it's totally true because I don't know anything
about Facebook or Instagram
and I'd probably be taking pictures of my nose anyway.
- It helps that I'm your biggest fan.
- Yeah, that too, because really without her putting me
out there on Facebook and Instagram,
no one would know who I am.
(upbeat drum music)
What do we got there, sweetie pie?
- That one looks like padauk.
- [John] Anni helps me separate the colors.
- [Anni] And this one is yellowheart.
- [John] Okay.
I just picture them in my mind.
I've got a full CAD program in my mind.
This one here, is that dark or light?
- [Anni] This one, it's like a light medium.
- Okay, so it'll...
And I try to come up with as unique of a design
as I possibly can.
Every bowl starts pretty much as a slab of wood like this,
depending on, you know, size or whatever.
You sand it, you cut it to size,
and then sand it and flatten it out as much as possible
where your glue joints are gonna be.
And I am particularly picky about my glue joints.
I will do a dry fitting like this one here without any glue,
and then I take that knife, and if the tip of that blade
fits into a gap along that seam,
I take it apart and I sand more.
As you can see, this one's ready to rock and roll.
(gentle piano music)
- Art has been an important tool for me in my life.
I have struggled with depression since I was about 16 or so.
My mother gifted me my great grandfather's oil paints.
It was just a really great way for me to work through
some pretty dark times that I was dealing with.
I struggled with eating disorders for many, many years,
and art was a really great way for me to hone my focus
on something else instead of, you know,
maybe the pain that I was feeling at the time, or, you know,
feeling maybe like I was lonely or didn't belong.
I really believe that for my paintings at least,
when I use, when I repurpose them, I love using
the collective energy that is underneath the canvas.
I am working on a piece
that is dedicated to my friend Kelly.
Kelly was a very prolific artist in Vancouver
and she just passed away from cancer.
And she was a very dear friend of mine.
So this piece is dedicated to her.
When we were in the hospital with her,
it was close to her last...last day. And...
John had told her, "And the wind whispered Kelly."
This is what this one's gonna be called.
I had started a painting of my grandmother
and I just couldn't quite get it to where I wanted it,
and so it kind of has just sat there.
And when I came across it, I'm like, well, that's perfect.
I'll create the painting of Kelly on the canvas
of the painting of my grandmother.
She has the same eyes as my grandmother
and she just reminded me so much of her,
and I think that's actually one of the reasons
we connected so deeply.
What better way to honor both of them
than to use the same canvas.
I was raised in a very, very loving home,
and I draw a lot of my inspiration from my family
and my friends.
My little sister's adopted from Korea.
My brother-in-law is Vietnamese.
We always had a very diverse group of people in our home
because my sister was part of the International Club.
The religious traditions or cultural,
I have really absorbed those into my own life.
For the last several years I've been drawing my inspiration
from my husband, from John, and his amazing story
and the love that he shares with me.
A lot of my pieces, you'll see that the subjects,
the eyes are closed.
John has his eyes closed because his eyelids
have nerve damage.
And I always joke with him that he looks like he's reaching
Nirvana or something, 'cause he just looked so peaceful.
- I do have some times that I get discouraged
when I'm working.
I've cut the whole side off of a bowl before
because I wasn't paying attention.
(wheel cutting sounds)
Those times it can get discouraging,
but I step away from it for a while
and come back to being calm and just go back to it.
(music plays from iPhone)
- [Anni] This is a iPhone amphitheater
or smartphone amphitheater?
- It just doubles it.
(upbeat music)
- This is a honeypot and you open it, you put honey in it.
And there's the dipper.
Sometimes John makes bowls that we call, oops.
I made at-da!
- [Anni] That have just little flaws
or blemishes like this.
- I had some ash and I made this out of it.
- [Anni] And then this ring John made for me,
it was our second anniversary?
- [John] Yeah.
- [Anni] Right. I love that ring.
He's my calm in the storm.
We jokingly call him "The Anni Whisperer"
because I have pretty bad anxiety and he helps chill me out.
- [John] It's like we were just meant to be.
Bye.
- [Anni] We actually just celebrated seven years together.
I'd say things are going pretty well.
- [John] I'd have to agree.
(laughing)
- [Announcer] The program you just watched
was presented as part of "Move to Include,"
a public media initiative made possible with support
from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting,
a private corporation funded by the American people.