Tony Radmilovich

The path to a life as a full-time artist passed through eighteen years of working in and eventually running his family’s wholesale/retail seafood company. Later stops included several years as a music licensing representative for ASCAP, sales manager for a consulting firm and doing performance evaluations for major hotel chains.

His love for fine woodworking made itself known after attending a local art fair in the early 1980’s.  He wasted little time in acquiring a few basic tools and some woodworking books, and set about making jewelry boxes.  Soon after, a gallery owner agreed to show Tony's work, which to his surprise, began to sell.  What began as a part time endeavor turned into a full time business (or as he puts it, a hobby that went bad) in 1994. In 2000, Tony and his partner surrendered to the lure of Central Oregon and moved to Bend, where they share their five acres with the family dogs and varying numbers of ducks. While furniture design and creation remain his primary focus, he manages to maintain a second “career” as a staff writer for PC Pilot, an international computer flight simulation magazine.

The style of Tony's work is based on combining exotic and domestic hardwoods whose color and figure compliment each other, and incorporating them into a design of pleasing shape and proportion with hand rubbed finishes that have become the signature of his work. Tony believes that each piece should be designed to spotlight the woods' natural beauty.  Although many of his pieces may share a similar design, each piece has it's own unique combination of colors and materials. No two are exactly alike.

Since 1995, Tony has placed increasing emphasis on filling individual commissions for fine furniture of all kinds. Tony's designs often combine influences from Asian, Craftsman, Shaker  or Art Deco elements with original ideas to create a pleasing, and often-dramatic aesthetic quality in each piece. The same attention to detail in finishing and construction techniques that have made Tony's Jewelry boxes popular are applied to every piece of custom furniture.  Backs, bottoms, and insides are given the same care as the most visible surfaces.

When accepting a commission, Tony feels it is very important to work closely with the client to ensure that whatever the piece, it blend harmoniously with the space it occupies as well as the clients’ tastes and lifestyle.

In addition to private commissions, Tony's work is represented by galleries such as; the Kebanu Gallery in Bend Oregon; The Real Mother Goose, Portland; The Wood Gallery, Newport; Northwest Fine Woodworking, Seattle, Rejuvenation, Inc., Portland; and has been featured in shows at the Lawrence Gallery in Sheridan, OR and The Hoffman Gallery in Portland.