Tyler Mercier

Tyler Mercier was born in Denver, Colorado and attended schools in Colorado, New York, Arizona, Texas, and finally Jakarta, Indonesia where he graduated from the Joint Embassy High School in 1975. While in Indonesia, Tyler met Chris and followed her to Oregon where they attended college. While in college he had numerous jobs and started a company to sell art and jewelry to gift stores along the Oregon coast.

In 1979, Tyler and Chris moved to Dallas, Texas where he began his art career after graduating from Richland College. Tyler sold his paintings in Dallas and Los Angeles, where he had numerous shows. After studying at the Art League of Northern Virginia he moved to Los Alamos, New Mexico where he began casting bronze sculptures from his clay works at foundries in Santa Fe.

A year after moving to Los Alamos, Tyler started an independent radiation monitoring program to address widespread fears that Los Alamos National Laboratory was releasing radiation and causing health effects in the region. Instead of alleviating fears, his monitoring results led to increased concerns about the operations of the Lab and their dumping of nuclear waste. Tyler was appointed by the Governor to a panel overseeing a health study federally funded to investigate cancer rates in Los Alamos.

In 1996, Tyler and Chris moved to northern California where Tyler was able to refocus on his art career. He cast bronze sculptures at foundries in Berkeley, Italy, and eventually started his own foundry in Santa Cruz. Tyler frequently travelled to Hawaii to escape the stress of Silicon Valley and get back to the tropical island climate and beaches that he and Chris loved. After spending time on every island, they bought property on their favorite island of Hawaii. In 2007, Chris and Tyler stuffed all their belongings into a container and shipped it and their cars to the island of Hawaii.

Since moving to Hawaii, Tyler has focused on writing and digital art. He has maintained a radiation monitoring program and continues to work on a radioactive isotope chart which he hopes will assist in radiation monitoring by graphically portraying isotopes created during a nuclear reaction. Tyler’s first book, “Your Ideal Hawaii Home”, is an overview of house design, gardens, and climate issues in the tropics that people should know about before moving to Hawaii. He is currently working on a book about how to significantly improve your health by small changes in daily routines.