The Artist formerly known as the glassblower Oliver Doriss is currently known as the Viceroy of Hilltop for a reason (somewhere in the background several voices are whispering the word “timeless”). “I was born in Davenport, Iowa, but I’m from Massachusetts”, says the local gallery tycoon who purchased a building on 13th and MLK Jr. Way last September, renovated it himself (with the help of some choice friends) and opened the Fulcrum Gallery by December.

The space is dedicated to the “Fine Art of Professional Career Artists,” and Oliver would know what it means to be exactly that.

Doriss has been blowing glass, teaching glassblowing, and rocking the Museum of Glass Hot Shop for longer than I’ve been doing anything. His work has been featured, praised and sold on both coasts, and despite the gallery he still blows two or three times a week and teaches at the M-Space hot shop downtown. Currently he is working with a lighting designer in Boston for a showroom concept in Manhattan, and has a collaborative show with Joe Miller: Skyponds hanging in the W.W. Seymour Botanical Conservatory at Wright Park.

I spent a good part of Sunday afternoon over a pair of 24-ounce canned malt beverages on a table covered in very green sod in front of the gallery, taking notes on the man destined to become a Tacoma legend.

There isn’t much that escapes Doriss’ notice, and the lens through which he understands his world shows everything in a connected web. He tells me, “The only reason Fulcrum operates is because my community allows it, supports it and makes space for it.”

When he’s not wearing the hat of a gallery director or glassblower, you can catch him under the needle as DJ Broam, usually accompanied by a dance floor full of wild sweaty abandon.
Doriss tells me the secret to doing so many jobs is in the costume that you are wearing.

“Throw on a pair of coveralls and you are a better gallery janitor instantly …wearing my nice clothes helps me to talk shop with prospective art buyers and understand the voices of that culture.” I had to ask him how he does it all, he shrugged his shoulders and in his matter-of-fact oration, “You have to do all the jobs yourself before you can have someone do them for you.” 

This innovative artist/businessman hybrid says when he grows up, “I want to get paid to be exactly who I am.”

This mentality should be studied and replicated.

Stop by and hang out.

[Fulcrum Gallery, 6-9 p.m. Thursday, noon to 6 p.m. Saturday-Sunday, or by appointment, 1308 Martin Luther King Jr. Way, Tacoma, 253.250.0520]