James Asher Cart Signed & Numbered from Crete Suite baskets

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Hand Signed by James Asher

JAMES ASHER

Southwest Contemporary Artist

A native of Butler, Missouri, James Asher received his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the Art Center School in Los Angeles.  He went on to work as the art director for a variety of large advertising firms in the Los Angeles area, and before moving to Arizona in 1972, was a principal in Cochrane Chase and Company.  There he received several Printing Industry of America awards for excellence given by the printing industry itself.  He is accomplished in both oil and watercolor techniques as well as sculpture and is recognized as a leader in stone lithography.

Since 1974 Asher has devoted his time to fine art in his Scottsdale studio.  Considering himself a southwestern "Regionalist", he travels throughout the southwest photographing Indians and the magnificent landscape of Arizona for his inspiration.  He draws on his own intimate experiences among the so-called primitive peoples - Hopis in the cornfield, Mexicans who wash their clothes in the Rio Cuale, & the Zuni women of New Mexico who build bee-hive ovens for baking bread.  "I paint the 'Now West', rather than romanticizing the west of the past", says Asher.  "We're living in a time period that will be history later on.  I'm just trying to record it as I see it now."  He adds, "I could work here for the rest of my life and never run out of subjects to paint."

Asher works slowly, giving great attention to detail like the European masters of old, no matter what medium he uses.  He says, "I work with watercolor only after I've done all the conceptual sketching, arranging, and composing beforehand.  Yet, I wouldn't have gotten to that point if I had not observed, firsthand, everything I could possibly observe about Zuni Indian oven makers, for instance.  After all that, the mere physical act of committing it to paper, canvas, or bronze becomes an exercise.  By then, I know exactly what I'm going to do. Almost like rote, like memorization."

Asher's "Now West" has captured the imagination of private collectors as well as the corporate community.  His work can be seen in such places as the Valley National Bank, the Xerox Corporation, the Curtis Corporation, and the Southwest Forest Industries.  Since 1979 his work has been in many group and one-man exhibitions throughout the southwest.  His work also appears in a book by Peggy & Harold Samuels entitled, "Contemporary Western Artists."  Asher currently lives and works in the Phoenix-Scottsdale area.