About Marty Oppenheimer Reprinted with permission. Written by Esther Smith, Hood River News staff writer, March 24, 2004

Back in the 1970s Oppenheimer enjoyed success creating dolphin sculptures in wood and bronze and selling them in galleries Oregon and California. He's also taught woodworking and art in Hood River and The Dalles, and occasionally still teaches portrait drawing classes in his studio and in Adult Education classes.

But by 1981 gallery checks for his bronze sculptures weren't coming in as regularly. So he accepted a "real job" in Ohio. He worked in sales and advertising for a tool manufacturing company. During those years about the only creative outlet he had was learning about computers and using them for ad design for his company. Meanwhile he grew homesick for Oregon.

"I missed Oregon a lot," he said. "I didn't really appreciate how great it was until I left. I finally came back here in 1990.

It was his computer that brought Oppenheimer back to art, in a way. He met his wife, Janine, on the Internet, and because she was living in Bend he started making many trips there to spend time with her, which took him regularly through the Warm Springs Indian reservation.

"I was always intrigued with the people," he said. "So I called numerous tribal members at the Warm Springs Museum and other places around Warm Springs, and got a few names. I made friends with one of the elders of the tribe, whose father had been a respected medicine man and healer. She invited me to her home, and later to some of the tribe's celebrations, pow-wows, and traditional salmon bakes."

After getting permission to take photographs at these events and securing model releases from the subjects of the photos, Oppenheimer had a wealth of reference material for his paintings, charcoal drawings and sculptures. He has often included with the artwork a biography of the subject and sometimes a poem about them, as a way of sharing some of their lives, culture and spirit.

While portrait painting is his first love and the one that reconnected him to art, working with wood is another passion. He started collecting black walnut about 15 years ago.... The wood needs to be fully dry before he can work with it, and it takes a year per inch of thickness to dry. "It takes a lot of work to get it ready for drying,"

Oppenheimer said. "It has to be trimmed and either cut into chunks for sculpture or slabs for tables. I need a variety of shapes and sizes. The wood is stored on wood 'stickers' between the lumber to allow air to circulate until the wood's dry. "This six-inch thick piece will take six years to dry."

Not only can the walnut take years to dry, but it isn't often that a big walnut tree comes down, so Oppenheimer is always on the alert for a walnut tree being cut down. And once he hears of one that's available he's there with his 36-inch chainsaw to harvest it. He has recently been promised wood from a huge old black walnut tree that is soon to be cut down in Hood River, and once he harvests that and deposits it in his "walnut bank," he'll have enough wood to keep him in projects for the next ten years.

Oppenheimer's tables are all different, carved from slabs of black walnut and other wood, with various groupings of tree frogs in bas relief and inlays of turquoise, malachite, azurite. Several tables are in the shape of butterflies. All his tables are signed-one-of-a-kind, numbered, and extraordinary.

The tables and wood sculptures are often inlaid with colorful designs of the semi-precious minerals or contrasting wood. The tables are topped with a thick piece of round-corner glass, protecting the carved surface so it's a piece of art that's functional and even child-safe table.

Creating the art is the fun part. As any artist knows, the selling of the art is the tricky but equally important part. "I'm just trying to place my work in some quality galleries," Oppenheimer said. "I have work in Ashland Hardwood Gallery. and Art of The Edge in Depot Bay, and a new gallery opening soon on the Alabama coast.

Acting as his own artist's representative is very time-consuming, as was setting up a Web site. His work can be seen at www.oppenheimerart.com.

With the details of wood grain, the delicate shapes and inlays, it does help to see his work up close and personal. His stated goal "to create shapes and forms to capture light playing on these natural organic forms, and the beauty from the spirit within.

... If there is a sweet internal glow experienced by others, then this artist knows he has warmed twice: once in the joy of creating the artwork, and again in the spirit of those who view it."