Brian Fisher Print, Paint and Sculpture Blog

Dear friends, family and all of you that found your way to my studio for the first time on the Vashon Island 2012 Holiday Studio Tour, Thank You!  I always enjoy seeing everyone and this year so many new people found their way to my studio door.  Aki, our Shiba Inu, spends a lot of creative time with me.  This year she was the official, sometimes vocal, greeter of guests during the tour.  Typical of the breed, she has opinions about everything and everyone.  I know she enjoyed the tour as much as I did and is missing the attention.  Thanks so much and come again!

Weekend two of the Vashon Holiday Studio Tour promises to be a little drier.  We had a great first weekend in spite of the rain.  Thank you friends and patrons for stopping in to see what was new.  I had many questions about my new Rust Prints and rust process.  The photo below features a few of those.

Cabeiri Rites, Rust Print, 24 x 24 in. December 1-2 and 8-9 from 10am to 4 pm the artists of Vashon Island open their studio doors to share art and process with friends and patrons.  This year I am studio number 9 on the tour.  I always look forward to this event.  Here is a link to the Vashon Island Art Studio Tour Holiday 2012 lineup of studios. Cabeiri Rites is one of many new rust prints I will be showing for sale in addition to my other print, paint and assemblage work.

Daedalus and Icarus , Mono Print, 22 x 29.5 in. $900.  Ovid, Metamorphoses, VIII, translated by Frank Justus Miller ...Daedalus, hating Crete and his long exile, and longing to see his native land, was shut in by the sea. "Though he may block escape by land and water," he said, "yet the sky is open, and by that way I will go. Though Minos rules over all, he does not rule the air." So saying, he sets his mind at work upon unknown arts, and changes the laws of nature. For he lays feathers in order, beginning at the smallest, short next to long, so you would think they had grown on a slope. Just so the old-fashioned rustic pan-pipes with their unequal reeds rise one above another. Then he fastened the feathers together with twine and wax at the middle and bottom; and, thus arranged, he bent them with a gentle curve, so that they looked like real birds' wings. His son, Icarus, was standing by and, little knowing that he was handling his own peril, with gleef...

Vashon Allied Arts’s monthly publication Island Arts selected my Rust Print, Triton , for the November cover and to represent our Journey exhibit currently at the Blue Heron Gallery! Triton, herald and son of Poseidon calmed storms and frightened the immortals when he blew upon the conch shell that was his symbol.   When the Argonauts found themselves lost in the deserts of Libya, blown inland by storm, Triton in the guise of an ordinary but incredibly strong man carried their ship Argo to the shores of Lake Tritonis.   Recognizing that the miraculous had taken place a sheep was offered as sacrificed by the Argonauts and Triton who had disappeared into the waters of the lake reappeared in his true form to accept their sacrifice and point them their way.   A favorite poem of my mothers was the Chambered Nautilus by Oliver Wendell Homes. It references Triton’s wreathed horn and I hear her voice when I read these final stanzas... Thanks for the he...

Each month a small community of Vashon Island artists meet in one another's homes to feast, to converse about art and share where their creative paths have taken them since last they met.  The group has been meeting since 2005. In some measure each gathering represents the cycle that defines Journey.  The dinners have come to represent conclusions and beginnings, demarcations that round the individual's creative search for expression that is somehow more fully realized when shared within this community of friends.  In recognition of our shared paths, I am one of nine artists this show represents, we decided a year ago to create new work that would express our personal interpretation and exploration of Journey as subject.   On Tuesday, October 30 I will help gallery director for Vashon Allied Arts, Janice Mallman, hang and mount our show in the Blue Heron Gallery .  I have seen some of the work in progress but I ant...

Fall rains, or our seasonal wet, have finally arrived on Vashon Island and in the Pacific Northwest.  I have been thankful for our delayed Fall weather and the extended opportunity to work outside. Yesterday, though, the fantasy ended and my outside rusting process came to a close.  Here are a few images of me taking apart the process and revealing a rust plate and rusted image. This rust print is sourced in Apollonius of Rhodes description of The Harpies attacking King Phineus of Thrace, (Thrake.)  Phineus first traded his sight for foresight and was subsequently punished by Zeus for revealing too many secrets of the Olympian gods.  Zeus sent the Harpies to snatch any food set before Phineus and befoul any scraps left behind.  When Jason and the Argonauts befriended  Phineus the winged Boreades, Zetes and his brother Calais, gave chase.  They pursued The Harpies to the Strophades Islands where the goddess Iris directed th...

The 11th annual "UNCLAD" Art Show opened yesterday October 12th and will run through the 14th, 10 am to 5 pm, at the Floyd Norgaard Cultural Center in Stanwood.  Admission: $5 suggested donation. The show features over 150 artworks -- all nudes -- by artists from across the country. A variety of styles and mediums are on display, from watercolors and oils to bronze, steel, and glass sculpture. Special Events include a lecture and reception with art historian and travel guide, Vicki Artimovich, on Saturday evening, Oct. 13th, from 6 pm to 9 pm. The "Floyd" is located at 27130 102nd St NW, about two blocks north of SR 532. For more information about the show and a preview of the Art, visit the website. www.uncladart.com At left, Nature’s Priest , is one of four of my own works in the 2012 Unclad show.  Nature’s Priest is an oil on canvas and is 46.5 x 17.5 in.

Hylas, Lost to Love  14  x 14 in.  Rust Monoprint Apollonios Rhodios wrote his version of the Argonautika, the story of Jason and the Quest for the Golden Fleece, in the 3rd century BC but this Hero's story is probably the oldest extant Greek myth. When I began my investigation of “rust” as a medium for creative process a year and a half ago I decided to make the Argonautika the subject for my personal quest and chose Peter Green’s translation of the Argonautika as source for my imagery.  Below, Green describes the fate of Hercules companion, Hylas in a significant chapter of the Argonautika. 'Hylas, then, came to the spring that was known as The Fountains by local inhabitants. Just now, as it chanced, the dances of the nymphs were being held there; for it was their custom, that of all the nymphs who dwelt around that lovely mountain, ever to honor Artemis with nocturnal song. Now all whose haunts were hilltops or mountain torrents, the guardian wood nymphs,...

The Argonauts  Monoprint  (12.5 x 32.5 in.) The Argonauts is another of my new Monoprints created for exhibition at the Vashon Hardware Store Restaurant Gallery.  The show comes down at the end of August but I am happy to say it was captured for posterity or at least for a few cyber years by Google Maps.  Click here to go to Google Maps and the restaurant interior.  Take the virtual tour to the back and right of the restaurant bar, down the hallway and Gallery and see my Monotypes and Monoprints, Rust Prints and Oil paintings. What a Kick!  Let me know which one's you like.

The Calydonian Boar is one of many new Monoprints and paintings on display in my solo show at the Hardware Store Restaurant Gallery , August 3 thru September 5.  I thoroughly enjoyed the Vashon First Friday opening reception.  Thank you friends and patrons for stopping by to see what art I have been making this past spring and early summer. The Hardware Store Resturant and Gallery is a celebrated destination Vashon eatery and unique venue for artists. Thank you Hardware Store Restaurant and Gallery owner Melinda Sontgerath and manager Alex Van Amburg for an invitation to show in the gallery. The Calydonian Boar hunt in Greek myth celebrates the victorious hero Meleager and heroine Atlanta.  They are each also part of the Argonautica crew and the epic quest for the Golden Fleece.

"Europa"   Monoprint,  21 x 21 in. The Roman poet Ovid wrote of Europa’s seduction by Zeus- And gradually she lost her fear, and he Offered his breast for her virgin caresses, His horns for her to wind with chains of flowers Until the princess dared to mount his back Her pet bull's back, unwitting whom she rode. Then—slowly, slowly down the broad, dry beach— First in the shallow waves the great god set His spurious hooves, then sauntered further out Till in the open sea he bore his prize Fear filled her heart as, gazing back, she saw The fast receding sands. Her right hand grasped A horn, the other lent upon his back Her fluttering tunic floated in the breeze. "Europa" is one of many new prints and paintings on display in my solo show at the Hardware Store Restaurant Gallery August 3 thru September 5 with the opening reception August 3 at 6pm.

The Shield of Achilles ,  Monoprint, (29 3/4" x 19 1/2") The Shield Of Achilles by W. H. Auden She looked over his shoulder 
for ritual pieties, 
white flower-garlanded heifers, 
libation and sacrifice, 
but there on the shining metal 
where the altar should have been, 
she saw by his flickering forge-light 
quite another scene. Barbed wire enclosed an arbitrary spot 
where bored officials lounged (one cracked a joke) 
and sentries sweated for the day was hot:  a crowd of ordinary decent folk 
watched from without and neither moved nor spoke 
as three pale figures were led forth and bound 
to three posts driven upright in the ground. 

 The mass and majesty of this world, all 
that carries weight and always weighs the same 
lay in the hands of others; they were small 
and could not hope for help and no help came: 
what their foes like to do was done, their shame 
was all the worst could wish; they lost their pride 
and died as men before their bodies died. She l...

Northwind Art Center in Port Townsend WA is hosting an exhibit of fine art prints this month (July 6-29). The show called “The Printmakers Hand” was juried by Sam Davidson of Davidson Galleries, Seattle WA and sponsored by Port Townsend printmakers guild Corvidae Press .   I was pleased to have Amphora Asterion , a Monoprint from my Asterion series, selected to hang in “The Printmaker’s Hand II”. Amphora Asterion was created using paper stencils, Collograph and by printing dry pigment into wet ink.  I am often inspired by Greek Black and Red amphora painting.  This new print was the first of many exploring amphora shapes as backgrounds and subjects.

Poem By Kay Ryan I marveled at how generally I was aided, " the autobiography of Charles Darwin" 
 I marvel at how generally I am aided, how frequently the availability of help is demonstrated. I’ve had unbridgeable distances collapse and opposite objects coalesce enough to think duress itself may be a prayer. Perhaps not chance, but need selects; and desperation works upon giraffes until their necks can reach the necessary branch. If so, help alters; makes seven vertebrae go farther in the living generation; help coming from us, not from the fathers not to the children. Bless Kay Ryan and her words. She so aptly describes our evolution and also the reach that exceeds the grasp that is creative process.  For the past two months I have been attempting to churn ideas and stories into image.  Above are prints in process.

The 22nd Annual Vashon Island Garden Tour, Saturday June 23, and Sunday, June 24, 10 am to 5 pm, is an offering of five unique gardens with features that will delight your senses.  Read all about the tour here: Vashon Garden Tour. I will be showing and selling my art cards and cut steel “Threshold Guardians,” garden art personifying myth and boundaries, at the Garden Art Market during the tour.  The image above featuring Zeus as a black swan is a sample of my “Guardian” garden stakes. The Garden Art Market is open to the public 10 am to 5 pm both Saturday and Sunday.  You will find the market conveniently located mid island on Vashon Hwy. and on the former K2 building front lawn.  The Garden Market will feature 20 artists, food and musical entertainment.  I will see you there rain or shine!

  The Seattle Erotic Arts Festival opens tomorrow (June 16-24)!  My Monoprint  Asterion was selected to hang in the show.  I entered three images and was delighted to have one accepted after hearing over 2000 images were juried.This is their tenth anniversary gala event and second year in the Fremont  location.  Here is a link with all the details.  http://www.seattleerotic.org/festival2012/  Opening day of the Seattle Erotic Arts Festival coincides with the Fremont Fair and parade and ends the following weekend with Seattle Pride celebrations and parade.  I can’t wait to check out the Erotic Art and all the art the Fremont Fair has to offer!

"Taming Bucephalus"   Oil on Canvas (22 x 22 in.) I hung 15 prints and paintings at La Medusa early this week.  I love the name La Medusa!  What poetry and illusion to Gorgon mysteries.  I can only hope that my work is also received as poetry in this wonderful eatery! La Medusa is located at 4857 Rainier Avenue South in Seattle Washington and serves incredible tastes of Sicilian, Italian food.  The restaurant is beautiful, the staff friendly and ones entire experience is just what "dining out" should be about. Columbia City, La Medusa's home, is a magical mix of cultures, of the now and yesterday and well worth a visit at any time of day. My show at La Medusa hangs until July 30. View my work and enjoy this wonderful restaurant.

Thebes , Rust Monoprint with gold leaf  (30 x 20 in) Before moving on to the next one I want to thank my wonderful family, friends and patrons for their generous support during Vashon Island's 2012 Art Studio Tour! I opened my studio and turned half the house into a gallery.  It was work but I had lots of help and it was so much fun! The open studio experience is a unique opportunity for patrons to see art in context and hopefully get some sense of an images meaning, origin and story when viewed with a body of related work. And now- ON TO THE NEXT ONE!  That's the tittle of the next exhibition I am so happy to show in. My rust prints Thebes, Icarus and Phoenix were selected to be part of the Northwest print  exhibition at gallery Smith and Vallee in Edison, WA June 2 - 30, 2012.  The opening reception is Saturday June 2nd (5-8 PM).  Edison, WA.

Threshold Guardian, Oceanus ( water jet cut steel)   Titan Oceanus , (or Okeanos), one of the pre-Olympian Gods or primeval deities, is the great earth-encircling river and font of all the earth's fresh-water: including rivers, wells, springs and rain-clouds.   My Oceanus is made of water jet cut steel and is enamel painted an orange/cinnamon color.  He is on exhibit in my studio garden with many other Threshold Guardians during the 2012 Spring Vashon Island Studio Tour , May 12 and 13.

To A Friend Whose Work Has Come To Triumph Consider Icarus, pasting those sticky wings on, testing this strange little tug at his shoulder blade, and think of that first flawless moment over the lawn of the labyrinth. Think of the difference it made! There below are the trees, as awkward as camels; and here are the shocked starlings pumping past and think of innocent Icarus who is doing quite well: larger than a sail, over the fog and the blast of the plushy ocean, he goes. Admire his wings! Feel the fire at his neck and see how casually he glances up and is caught, wondrously tunneling into that hot eye. Who cares that he fell back to the sea? See him acclaiming the sun and come plunging down while his sensible daddy goes straight into town. By Ann Sexton Icarus is my Rust Print with gold leaf  (36 in. x 19 in.)  Icarus was made by rusting a steel plate to high thread count muslin and mounting the material to Apersand panel, adding leaf and then fin...

Theseus and the Minotaur   Monotype Print with copper leaf Mothers Day and the second weekend of the Vashon Island Spring Studio Tour is coming up.  I hope to see many more friends and patrons visiting my studio and participating in the final weekend of the art tour May 12-13. I thought I would post a couple images of artwork that sold last weekend.  Theseus and the Minotaur (above) and Hector from the previous blog are now hanging on new walls!

All Day Permanent Red  (To welcome Hector to his death)   by Christopher Logue To welcome Hector to his death God sent a rolling thunderclap across the sky The city and the sea       And momentarily— The breezes playing with the sunlit dust— On either slope a silence fell.    Think of a raked sky-wide Venetian blind.    Add the receding traction of its slats    Of its slats of its slats as a hand draws it up.    Hear the Greek army getting to its feet.       Then of a stadium when many boards are raised    And many faces change to one vast face.    So, where there were so many masks,    Now one Greek mask glittered from strip to ridge.    Already swift Boy Lutie took Prince Hector's nod And fired his whip that right and left Signalled to Ilium's wheels to fire their own, And to the Wall-wide noddin...

Threshold Guardians , new steel garden stakes Today is the 1st day of the 2012 Vashon Spring Studio Tour .  I am hoping for sunny weather and many visitors to share my new work with! Threshold Guardian,  The Minotaur

The Labyrinth Zeus, Zeus himself could not undo these nets Of stone encircling me.  My mind forgets The persons I have been along the way, The hated way of monotonous walls, Which is my fate.  The galleries seem straight But curve furtively, forming secret circles At the terminus of years;  and the parapets Have been worn smooth by the passage of days, Here, in the tepid alabaster dust, Are tracks that frighten me.  The hollow air Of evening sometimes brings a bellowing, Or the echo, desolate, of bellowing. I know that hidden in the shadows there Lurks another, whose task is to exhaust The loneliness that braids and weaves this hell, To crave my blood, and to fatten on my death. We seek each other.  Oh, if only this Were the last day of our antithesis! Jorge Luis Borges, translated by John Updike My Monoprint The Labyrinth is 30 x 22.5 in.  I have done four Monoprint variations around this theme and image.  I used this imag...

The Deeds of Jason   Rust Print  (9 1/4 x 27 3/4 in.) In many a song my past deeds have been sung, And these my hands that guided Argo through The blue Symplegades, still deeds may do. For now the world has swerved from truth and right, Cumbered with monsters, empty of delight, And “midst all this what honor I may win, That she may know of and rejoice therein, And come to seek me, and upon my throne May find me sitting, worshipped, and alone. From "The Life and Death of Jason" by William Morris My Rust Print The Deeds of Jason was made by rusting cut steel plates to muslin. 

Achilles by Carol Ann Duffy Myth’s river – where his mother dipped him, fished him, a slippery golden boy flowed on, his name on its lips. Without him, it was prophesied, they would not take Troy. Women hid him, concealed him in girls’ sarongs; days of sweetmeats, spices, silver songs … But when Odysseus came, with an athlete’s build, a sword and a shield, he followed him to the battlefield, the crowd’s roar, And it was sport, not war, his charmed foot on the ball … But then his heel, his heel, his heel … Carol Ann Duffy, Britain’s Poet Laureate 2009, composed this poem on the occasion of  footballer David Beckham’s injury to his Achilles tendon. Achilles Heel is my Monotype Print (30 x 15 1/4 in.) created for exhibition in my studio during the 2012 Vashon Island Art Studio tour.

Jason and Chiron    (22 x 29.5 in.) When Jason, the son of the dethroned King of Iolcus, was a little boy, he was sent away from his parents, and placed under the queerest schoolmaster that ever you heard of. This learned person was one of the people, or quadrupeds, called Centaurs. He lived in a cavern, and had the body and legs of a white horse, with the head and shoulders of a man. His name was Chiron; and, in spite of his odd appearance, he was a very excellent teacher, and had several scholars, who afterwards did him credit by making a great figure in the world. So Jason dwelt in the cave, with this four-footed Chiron, from the time that he was an infant, only a few months old, until he had grown to the full height of a man. He became a very good harper, I suppose, and skillful in the use of weapons, and tolerably acquainted with herbs and other doctor's stuff, and, above all, an admirable horseman; for, in teaching young people to ride, the...

While priming "Oceanus", my cut steel garden art this afternoon, I was excited by the white on almost white background and took this photo. In Greek myth Oceanus was the personification of the world-ocean and the Titan son of Uranus and Gaia.  My version of the world ocean is a perfect square! You can see and purchase “Oceanus” during the Spring 2012 Vashon Studio Tour , the first two weekends in May, 5-6, 12-13.

The mythic Phoenix is a wonderful symbol of self renewal. There is ever only one Phoenix.  It leads a singular existence.  After living a long life, five hundred years, sustaining itself by eating frankincense and fragrant gums, it builds a funeral pyre  and self incinerates. The story of the Phoenix, it's long life, death in cleansing fire and rebirth from the ashes, appears in many cultures. Perhaps because it affirms a circular story of the individual soul’s regeneration. At left is my Rust Print “Phoenix” to be exhibited during the upcoming Vashon Studio Tour.   It is 30 x 20 in. and mounted to wood panel. “Let me not wander in a barren dream, But when I am consumed in the fire, Give me new Phoenix wings to fly at my desire.” John Keats

A ll afternoon I have been working outside on my Threshold Guardians, (garden stakes and garden art personifying adventure, edges and boundaries), preparing them for primer and paint in colors that compliment the Northwest garden pallet and also reflect the colors I find particularly appealing when I print.  As the sun was setting and after I had wrapped everything, I was amazed to see the silhouettes that began to appear through the plastic bags that had been slipped over everything to protect the cut steel art from rain and our seasonal Alder pollen.   Of course I went looking for my camera! I found the photos wonderfully mysterious. You can see all of my cut steel Threshold Guardians during the Vashon Island Spring Studio Tour, the first two weekends of May.  http://vashonislandartstudiotour.com/Spring2012/

My Rust Print “Jason” is intended  to represent a hero’s  journey.  Specifically it is meant to encapsulate the story of the Argonautika, the Quest for the Golden Fleece and introduce a series of prints made from rust whose subject is Journey. Not long after Jason’s birth the throne of his father Aeson, benevolent king of Iolcus, (Thessaly Greece today), was usurped by Pelias his tyrannical half brother.  Pelias threatened to kill any who might challenge his claim to the kingdom, so Jason was hidden and the story of his untimely death told to deceive Pelias.   Jason , (12 x 12 x 1.5 in.), is made by rusting a COR-TEN steel plate to muslin fabric, mounting that fabric to dimensional panel and then finishing it with acrylic and wax mediums.  Jason and four more Rust Prints from the Journey series will be exhibited in my studio, studio number 6, during the Spring 2012 Vashon Studio Tour.

I just finished this Monotype print called Coral Spring for the Vashon Island Spring Art Studio Tour .  As I was printing I kept looking out my studio window at the Coral Bark Maples that are still glowing though starting to loose their intense winter coral color.  I am thinking of making Ltd. edition digital reproductions from this image for sale in my studio during the tour.   Coral Spring is 12 x12 in.

The Spring 2012 Vashon Island Art Studio Tour Brochurs have arrived and the online Vashon Island Art Tour web link has been launched.  Thank you Sy and Ric of Novak Creative, Inc., and Jan Wall, our outstanding, indefatigable, indomitable, coordinator and leader of many, many successful Vashon Island Art Studio Tours.   Thank you everyone who have been involved in making the Vashon Island Art Tour- Beautiful! Findable!  Possible!  I hope that it is a successful Art Studio Tour for artists and patrons alike.  Preview it now!  http://vashonislandartstudiotour.com/Spring2012/

The symbol often is more potent than the thing itself.  Through distillation Symbol can appear to become the thing itself.  I try to approach my art in that way.  A reduction and simplification of shape that still has meaning and still tells story. Wallace Stephens did it with words.  He says this poem is not an idea about a thing but the thing itself.  However it is his reality and his presentation of the thing itself.  It is still his idea.  In this poem he explores the nature of reality and is searching for the recognizable in the unknowable. "Not Ideas About the Thing But the Thing Itself." At the earliest ending of winter, In March, a scrawny cry from outside Seemed like a sound in his mind. He knew that he heard it, A bird's cry, at daylight or before, In the early March wind. The sun was rising at six, No longer a battered panache above snow... It would have been outside. It was not from the vast ventriloq...

In our image obsessed culture the old, old story of Narcissus and the body beautiful is as new as another gorgeous photo, thank you Bruce Weber, for Abercrombie & Fitch's latest pitch to purchase.  To purchase what?     A reflection of beauty of course.  Made self aware by comparison and confounded by perfection we are all in love with surface but desire depth of being.   So the story of Narcissus forever resonates in the individual’s search for self.   At left is my new Monotype Print, Narcissus Reflected ,  (22 x 29.5 in.)  See it in my studio during the Spring Vashon Island Studio Tour. Here is Mr. Eliot's take on Narcissus, a poem of self awareness and metamorphosis, Cantacal V, Or- The Death of Saint Narcissus by T. S. Eliot He walked once between the sea and the high cliffs When the wind made him aware of his limbs smoothly passing each other And of his arms crossed over his brea...

Winged Zetes and Kalais were twin sons of Boreas, the North Wind and Oreithyria, daughter of King Erechtheus of Athens.  They were also two of the most important heroes chosen by Jason to accompany him on his epic quest for the Golden Fleece. Upon the arrival of the Argonautika at the Bosporus, Zetes and Calais drove the Harpies, sometimes referred to as the hounds of Zeus, away from King Phineas who had been cruelly punished by the Gods for misuse of his prophetic gifts.  Like the modern day Julian Assange , Phineas had revealed too many details about those who rule to go unpunished.  Once the Harpies were banished a thankful Phineas rewarded Jason and his crew with the secret to safe passage through the Clashing Rocks. My Monotypes, Zetes and Kalais, are each 6 x 6 in.  They are currently on exhibit at Archangel  Gallery.

Asterion , Monoprint, 27.5 x 20.25 in. The  rust prints I have been working on inspire me to make simpler compositions when printing with the etching press. I am experimenting again with printing dry pigments into ink made heavy with Setswell Compound and Burnt Plate Oil.  I enjoy the rich play of complimentary colors and the textural results when I throw chunky pigments into the ink. At left is my Monoprint, newly completed, for submission to the Seattle Erotic Art Festival, June 16-24, 2012. It is named Asterion and is inspired by Jorge Luis Borges’s wonderful short story, La Casa de Asterión and is of course about the myth of Theseus and the Minotaur.