Brian Fisher Print, Paint and Sculpture Blog

The Temple of the Winds, monotype print 1/1, Brian Fisher Not so very long ago humans anthropomorphized and deified elements of nature.  Would that we still respected and recognized our symbiotic relationship to nature instead of attempting to monetize our very existence.  The “answer my friend” to climate change depends on you and me.  Elect representatives to government that will affect responsible climate policy. Please. My monotype print “Temple of the Winds” has its inspiration in the myths of the Anemia, the four winds and their children associated with Earth's cycle of seasons and once worshiped as: Boreas the North-Wind, Zephyrus the West-Wind, Notus the South-Wind, and Eurus the East-wind. You can check out my monotype print, “The Temple of the Winds”, Studio #21, during the VIVA, Holiday Studio Tour.  This Vashon art studio tour is self guided with 38 studios & galleries, featuring 115 local artists.  Decemb...

The Bull of Heaven,  monotype print, Brian Fisher Taurus is perhaps the most prominent constellation in the northern hemisphere’s winter sky. One of the oldest described constellations, dating at least from the early Bronze Age when it marked the location of the Sun during the spring equinox, Taurus is symbol for the bull in the oldest mythologies of Sumer/Babylon, Egypt, India, Minoan Crete and Greece. Wild bulls of Europe and Asia were huge, possibly as large as 6 feet at the shoulder, Whether referenced in visual art or described in writing the bull was venerated as the embodiment of supernatural strength and virility. In the Epic of Gilgamesh, the hero Gilgamesh angered Innana, (Sumerian Goddess of love, sex war, and… justice) with his refusal to be her mate.  So spurned, she called down “The Bull of Heaven” to destroy Gilgamesh, Uruk his city, drink up all the water, devour the pasture and strip the land bare. The hero Gilgamesh and his best bro,...

The River of Forgetting, Monotype print with 24k gold leaf by Brian Fisher  (22 1/2 x 29 in. ) In early Greek myth, Lethe was one of five rivers that flowed through the subterranean kingdom of Hades.  Souls who passed into Hades had need to forget the suffering they had endured, or perhaps, the torment they had inflicted.  So, if a soul were ever to achieve peace and reincarnate, that soul would drink from Lethe, the River of Forgetting and be cleansed of memory.    My original print, "The River of Forgetting" will be on display during the VIVA Holiday Art Studio Tour, the first two weekends in December 1-2 & 8-9, Saturday & Sunday from 10am-4pm.  Maps are available at Vashon Island businesses and online at VIVArtists .

Enkidu, mixed media monotype print on vintage linen over panel, Brian Fisher “Dat ain't a mythic memory of pre-civilized humanity, dat's a song!” Jimmy Durante sings Inkydo! When Enkidu was a living myth, he and his best bro Gilgamesh were described and inscribed as cuneiform writing in clay.  Their story, The Epic of Gilgamesh, first written c. 2100 BCE recounts a king’s struggle with his fear of death, and his foolish quest for immortality. Enkidu was created by the gods as match, equal, companion and (thank the gods) solution to the extreme passions Gilgamesh exhibited as ruler of the Sumerian city-state, Uruk. Enkidu, a child of nature, roamed the plains of Mesopotamia (land between the rivers, modern Iraq).  His friends were beasts and he protected them by thwarting hunters and destroying their traps.  Gilgamesh eventually sends a priestess of Innana (goddes of love, sexual desire, fertility, war and justice), to tame him, re...

"Gilgamesh," mixed media rust print on vintage linen, Brian Fisher The Epic of Gilgamesh, regarded as the earliest surviving great work of literature,  is an ancient Sumerian poem describing the life and ambitions of Gilgamesh the demigod, hero and king of the Sumerian city-state of Uruk. The story first describes Gilgamesh as larger than life, beautiful to behold, with an expansive imagination and passions.  He’s the epitome of the civilized man.  He’s a builder, a dreamer but as it turns out, he’s also a despot. His abused and oppressed subjects pray to the gods for deliverance.  The gods respond by creating an opposite, a match, for Gilgamesh.  His name is Enkidu. He’s a natural, a wild man who's friends are the beasts of the wild.  They brawl when they meet but learn quickly to respect each other. It’s a twenty-seventh century B.C.E. bromance. With Enkidu’s tempering influence the great city of Uruk is finally ruled by a just and wise King.  G...

  "Night Sky," Brian Fisher, monotype print, 24k gold I've been thinking about SKY and making art about it for several years.  In the VIVA Holiday Art Studio Tour, December 1-2 & 8-9, I will exhibit at least 10 images that are related to sky myths, sky gods and the cosmos.  This is "Night Sky".  “I know that I am mortal by nature, and ephemeral; but when I trace at my pleasure the windings to and fro of the heavenly bodies I no longer touch the earth with my feet: I stand in the presence of Zeus himself and take my fill of ambrosia” ― Ptolemy Claudius Ptolemy wrote Almagest or Syntaxis , his influential treatise on the apparent motions of the stars and of planetary paths, in about 150 AD. He postulated an incorrect though influential cosmology that would become the basis of our understanding of the cosmos and our place in it for the next 1,200 years.  However wrong his geocentric treatise, it included and kept alive ancient Greek trigonometr...

In early Greek myth, Lethe was one of five rivers that flowed through the subterranean Kingdom of Hades.  Souls who passed into Hades had need to forget the suffering they had endured, or perhaps, the torment they had inflicted.  So, if a soul were ever to achieve peace and reincarnate, that soul could drink from Lethe, the River of Forgetting and be cleansed of memory.    Check out "Lethe and the River of Forgetting" now and during the VIVA Holiday Art Studio Tour at Gather Vashon Gallery, 17600 Vashon Hwy SW, Vashon, WA 98070 .

"Pazzi, Sacred Circle" by Brian Fisher, original digital print Filippo Brunelleschi designed the Pazzi Chapel, part of the Basilica di Santa Croce in Florence, Italy as a perfect space, a circle within a square with harmonious vertical proportions, for Andrea de’ Pazzi in 1429.  The vibrantly glazed terracotta dome beneath its portico was created by Luca della Robbia and is the inspiration for my original digital print Pazzi.  Today the chapel is used as the chapter house by Santa Croce friars.

Beltane, by Brian Fisher, monotype print with 24k gold, 14 x 14 in. Today, acknowledging the change of Daylight Savings Time to Standard Time, I thought I’d post work about seasonal change. My print Beltane, (the return of the sun) was originally created and exhibited at the Tacoma Art Museum in response to artist Doris Lee’s “Maypole" in the TAM print collection. Beltane will again be exhibited for sale during the VIVA Art Studio tour, Dec. 1-2 & 8-9, 10-4 pm at Fisher Studio, stop no. 21, at 23520 147th Ave. SW. Beltane or May Day celebrates the beginning of summer and is halfway between the spring equinox and the summer solstice.  It’s one of four Gaelic seasonal festivals including Lughnasadh (beginning of harvest in early August), Samhain (celebrating the end of harvest and the beginning of winter at the end of October) and Imbolc (meaning in the belly or womb, and the beginning of spring in early February). These seasonal rituals w...

"Borgund" Sacred Circle, Brian Fisher, original digital art Scientists who look at the spiral building blocks of nature, our DNA, find stacked interlocking circles. From the whorls of our fingertips, the irises of our eyes, to our cells and the egg that gave each of us life, we are manifestations of the circle. My images about circle reflect it’s symbolic nature. Their names reference the sacred sites, temples, cathedrals, that more often than not were built and built again upon already sacred sites.  My print Borgund references a medieval wooden church located at Borgund in Lærdal Norway beside the Sognefjord.  It is one of the best preserved stave churches in Europe and combines Christian motifs and Viking themes. Related to timber framing, a stave church is built with post-and-beam construction and it’s wall frames are filled with vertical planks. The walls and doors of Borgund church are heavily carved with runic inscriptions....

"The West Wind"  Monotype Print with 24 k gold leaf by Brian Fisher, Image 14x14 in. Zephyrus was one of the four Anemoi, (Wind-Gods) representing the cardinal points of the compass.  A son of Titans Astraeus and Eos, Zephyrus personified the West Wind.  His brothers were Boreas, the North Wind, Notus, the South Wind, and Eurus, the East wind. In ancient Greece the West Wind, Zephyrus, was thought to live in a cave on Mount Haimos, (Balkan Mountains) in Thrace.  He was worshiped as the gentle and fertile harbinger of Spring. My Aunt Fern first told me of Zephyrus when I was 12 as we traveled West aboard the California Zephyr, the scenic and historic passenger train, named for him, that ran between Chicago, Illinois and Oakland, California via Omaha, Denver, Salt Lake City, and Reno Nevada. My monotype print “The West Wind” will be exhibited for sale during the 2018 Vashon Art Studio Holiday Tour, Saturdays & Sundays, Dec...

Pics from QMP artists Collography demonstration. PRESSING FORWARD – Layered Perspectives in Printmaking, the Quartermaster Press Exhibit at Tacoma Art Museum’s Cheney Classroom that opened July 11 is still on exhibit until September 27, 2018. Eight Quartermaster Press artists accepted the challenge to create new work inspired by the Tacoma Art Museum's print collection.  The resulting exhibit is a spectrum of print process with etchings, linocuts, collagraphs, and monotypes and is as visually complex and compelling as the work that was it's inspirational source. Artists Patricia Churchill, Debi Shandling Crawford, Brian Fisher, Sue Hardy, Suzanne Moore, Christina Nichols, Jayne Quig and Deborah Taylor originally worked from online images to create their prints.  In mid July they were able to see the original artwork that initially inspired them. QMP members have also demonstrated collography and monotype print process during the course of the exhibit.  Above ...

Brian Fisher, "Summer of '84, Babylon Beach NY", Oil on panel, 24 x 24 in. “Festival 25, Catch Us While You Can”, a month-long celebration of visual artists and musicians who have shaped Vashon island’s cultural landscape for 25 years or more, opens Friday, Sept. 7 at 6 PM. The festival is hosted by Open Space, sponsored by VIVA, Vashon Events, and 4Culture.   Envisioned and curated by artist and arts advocate Christine Beck, Festival 25 embodies the wealth of creativity that is foundation to the artistic Vashon we know and love. Visual artists each selected a work from their creative past and a piece that is representative of what they are currently making. My oil on panel, “Summer of ’84”,  painted in 1989, is one image from the Dance of Death series I was working on when I moved to Vashon. Kat Eggleston, One More Mile, Portage Fill Big Band and Bob Krinsky perform for the opening. The party continues throughout the month with gallery hours each weekend except Sep...

Save the Last Dance for Me Once upon a time “Red Shoes” were linked to status, wealth and power.  The cost of red dyes like cochineal, and madder , used to die cloth and leather, made them affordable only to the rich. Popes, Emperors and Kings wore red shoes to symbolize a divine right to rule.  By the late 18th century red shoes had become a sign of aspirational fashion for men and for women. When author Hans Christen Anderson published “The Red Shoes” in 1845 he linked Christian themes of sin, pride, disobedience and redemption to a Danish folk tale and red shoes took on a darker meaning.  His protagonist Karen and by extension women who wore red shoes, became cultural transgressors of the acceptable feminine norm.  Red shoes were recast as symbols of passion, as uncontrollable urges and in Anderson’s version, red shoes possessed a will of their own…to dance. The only way Karen could stop dancing was by having her feet and shoes removed by axe.   Since...

My monotype “Gemini” is exhibiting in "The Printmakers Hand IV" at Northwind Arts Center, 701 Water Street, Port Townsend Washington from July 5-29, 2018.  The exhibition is co-sponsored by Corvidae Press of Port Towndsend and juried by Bob Kochs of Augen Gallery in Portland, OR.  The opening reception and awards are on July 7, 5:30-8:00.  A talk by Bob Kochs is at 1:00 pm on July 8 at Northwind Arts Center.   It's a busy summer.  Jayne Quig, a fellow Quartermaster Press printer, and I recently hung QMP's exhibit "Pressing Forward" at the Tacoma Art Museum's Cheney class room, July 11- September 27, 2018.  The official opening is July 19 when I will also demonstrate a monotype/collagraphy process.   Below is my monotype print Gemini exhibiting in "The Printmakers Hand IV" at Northwind Gallery and my monotype King of the May showing with QMP at the Tacoma Art Museum. Brian Fisher Monotype Prints-   Gemini ,  22.5" x 15"  a...

VIVA, the Vashon Island Visual Artists organization, will be selling Garden Totems during  Vashon's Strawberry Festival July 21-22.  Each one is unique and hand-crafted by Vashon Island artists. Proceeds go towards funding the new VIVA website.  The Totems will sell for $175. each. Below are my contributions, Byzantium and Susa, to the project.

Below are my new Leo and Lang images inspired by Karen Gantz's print in the Tacoma Art Museum collection.  Here is a link to Karen's "Puppet" . Quartermaster Press  studio will exhibit work in it's latest show- Pressing Forward , at the Tacoma Art Museum's Cheney class room July 11- September 27, 2018.  Each QMP member artist selected work from the permanent collection and created a new generation of prints in response to subject, image and/or print process.  What an exciting challenge! Brian Fisher,  "Love Puppets" and" The Dating Game", intaglio prints from the "Leo and Lang" series. The Intaglio prints I created in response to Karen Gantz's print, “Puppet", (which I read as role play), have become a personal print series exploring relationship and role play within relationship. "Love Puppets” and “The Dating Game” are visual moments in the tale of Leo and Lang, twin sons of different mothers who f...

Below are two new images inspired by Doris Lee’s prints in the Tacoma Art Museum collection.  Quartermaster Press  studio will exhibit work in it's latest show Pressing Forward at the Tacoma Art Museum's Cheney class room July 11- September 27, 2018.  Each QMP member artist selected work from the permanent collection and created a new generation of prints in response to subject, image and/or print process.  It has been an exciting challenge! Doris Lee’s “Maypole" image might appear quaint, her pictorial approach intentionally naive, but the subject has as source an ancient fertility rite and I think her take on the subject a little subversive.  Here is a link to her print.  Maypole  I celebrate her vision and explore the mythic spring rite in “Beltane" (the anglicized name for the Gaelic May Day festival) and again in my monotype print version of “Maypole”.    Brian Fisher, "Maypole" Monotype Brian Fisher, "Beltane"  Mo...

It's almost Mom Day and the second weekend of the VIVA Tour, May 12 &13.  Check out Brian Fisher Studio stop # 2.  Link to map here: http://vivartists.com/StudioTour/Spring2018/index.html

The Tour begins!  Brian Fisher Studio is stop #2 on VIVA Art Studio Tour.  Vashon Island Visual Artists invite you to participate, connect and interact when they throw open their studio doors in a sharing, showing, sales event the first two weekends of May,  5-6 and 12-13, 2018.   Here is a link to the studio tour map. VIVA STUDIO TOUR Brian Fisher Studio, 23520 147 AVE SW, Vashon Island WA, Tour stop #2, Spring 2018  

My monotype print, The River of Forgetting, like several prints on display in my studio during VIVA's Spring Studio Tour , is about a betwixt and between liminal state of being.  Lethe’s Temple, the Temple of Forgetting, has its foundations in a river.  In early Greek myth, Lethe was one of five rivers that flowed through the subterranean Kingdom of Hades.  Souls who passed into Hades had need to forget the suffering they had endured, or perhaps, the torment they had inflicted.  So, if a soul were ever to achieve peace and reincarnate, that soul would drink from Lethe, the River of Forgetting and be cleansed of memory.     The River of Forgetting, Monotype print with 24k gold leaf by Brian Fisher  (22 1/2 x 29 in. )

Check out Satyr Play during the VIVA Studio Tour, May 5-6 & 12-13 at Brian Fisher Studio, no. 2 on the Tour. Satyr Plays, a genre of ancient Greek drama, are named after the mythological satyrs who were half-goat, half-man, highly sexual creatures and often part of Dionysus' entourage. Dionysus, the god of wine and ecstasy (among other things), was considered by the Greeks as the patron of theatre.  A Satyr Play might itself be tragic, but the satyr chorus, with its irreverent outlook on life provided comedic relief and made the play more interesting and less somber than the tragedies that proceeded and followed it.   I designed the satyrs within my "Satyr Play" first as elements of a frieze beneath my studio's eves.  Until I find time to make that happen they will appear as monotype print imagery!  Satyr Play,  Monotype Print  (1/1)  by Brian Fisher,  7 x 29 1/2 in.

Not a melody, not rhythm.... harmony is all cord. Betwixt and Between, the reality that is not about a moment past or present, but all moments, collected and coalesced... it is the now that is Harmony. Below is my attempt at describing Harmony, visually.  At 6 x 6 in. it is a mall Betwixt & Between Monotype exhibited for your enjoyment.  Please view "Harmony" at stop # 2 during the VIVA Studio tour- May 5-6 and 12-13, the first two weekends in May! Link to Map here,  VIVA Studio Tour

Every rite of passage involves a journey, twist and recognition of center.  That still point is the source of possibility, where new horizons are recognizable.  It's continually active.  If you are alive you seek that point.  It is the eternal now.  It is Betwixt and Between.  What happens next?  Now! Here is my distillation of Betwixt and Between.  A Monotype print mounted to panel on display and for sale, yes the moment can be for sale, during the VIVA Art Studio tour.

"Morning Mist"(1/3) is a ltd. edition linocut print displayed and for sale at Brian Fisher Studio, stop # 2 on the VIVA (Vashon Island Visual Artist) Spring Studio Tour.  Map link here- VIVA Studio Tour   "Morning Mist"is intended to evoke that feeling of mystery, displacement and suspended time that fog will conjure when encountered.  This happens often where I live and I revel in the cloud that muffles sound and redefines the familiar. Morning Mist (1/3), Linocut by Brian Fisher, 19 1/2 x 27 in.

VIVA Art Studio Tour is less than a week away and I have been busy finishing and framing work that will be on display in my studio, stop # 2 on the tour.  I just framed this mixed media monoprint with 24k gold leaf yesterday.  It's called "Nature Boy".  Here is a link to the VIVA Studio Tour site for more information.

We've all heard the phrase- "I know nothing about art but I know what I like when I see it".  Liking is a jumping off place for collecting and with collecting comes knowledge and a broader appreciation for whatever is being collected.  People collect Art for many reasons and yesterday April 28, art patrons and friends of Quartermaster Press gathered at VCA to discuss just why they collect.  It was a fun afternoon and we got to hear many personal stories from those who attended and whose collections made up the "Collectors' Wall" that was our backdrop and the focus of the event.  Thanks to everyone who could come and share the conversation. Quartermaster Press 25's next special events will be First Friday, May 4 at 5:30, a talk by Suzanne Moore about Tradition and Transformation in printmaking and at 7:00 a Multi-plate Etching Demonstration by Deborah Taylor.  For more details link here to Vashon Center for the Arts . 

VIVA, Vashon Island Visual Artists, invite you to participate, connect and interact when they throw open their studio doors in a sharing, showing, sales event the first two weekends of May,  5-6 and 12-13, 2018.   Here is a link to the studio tour map. VIVA STUDIO TOUR "SALIX" Monotype Print by Brian Fisher  6x6 in. Salix, The Willow Wife, is one of my new prints on display this VIVA tour,  Available at studio stop # 2. 

Brian Fisher and Debi Shandling Crawford demonstrate Collagraphy at VCA Koch Gallery Here is a YouTube link to the Collagraphy Demonstration by Brian Fisher , filmed last weekend, April 14, when Brian Fisher and Debi Shandling Crawford demonstrated Collagraphy plate and print making in the Vashon Center for the Arts, Koch Gallery to a receptive audience of art and print enthusiasts. Thanks VCA and Rick Skillman's video crew for filming the event! Basically, a Collagraph plate is made by gluing relatively flat or thin elements to a substrate.  In this demonstration paper was glued to a plexiglass plate to create shallow relief that was then inked as an intaglio and relief plate, then printed to paper on a small etching press. This was just one of the QMP 25 special events.  Next weekend, Saturday April 28 at 1:30 Quartermaster Press and Brian Fisher will host "The Collectors Conversation" at Vashon Center for the Arts.  We’ll find out...

Brian Fisher, assisted by Debi Shandling Crawford, will share the art of Collagraphy plate and print making tomorrow, April 14, in the Vashon Center for the Arts, Koch Gallery at 1:30 pm.  Art and printmaking enthusiasts please join us to learn about this very simple way to make and print a collagraph. Collagraphy refers to a collage of materials glued to a substrate to create a printable plate.  Ink may be applied to the high surfaces of the plate with a brayer, like a relief print, or ink may be applied to the entire plate and then removed by wiping from the upper surfaces leaving ink between and around collage elements, resulting in an intaglio print.  This demo is the first of many scheduled events (check out the VCA link above for dates) in celebration of the Quartermaster Press Studio's 25 Anniversary.   Collagraphy Plates 1&2 (left) and Prints from plate 2 (right)

Last night Quartermaster Press Studio kicked off it's 25th Anniversary Celebration and retrospective exhibit with a talk by Valerie Willson.  She spoke about QMP's founding in a potting shed on Quartermaster Drive in 1993, the subsequent move to it's present location at Beall Greenhousese in 2010 and the studio's group history and the evolution of printmaking at Quartermaster Press.   Many of the founding members were present to hear Valerie briefly describe the experimentation and complexities of making fine art prints.  The Koch Gallery and Vashon Center for the Arts Lobby walls are filled with almost every kind of print process.  Valerie pointed out with explanation to examples of  etchings, viscosity monotypes, monoprints, collagraphs, linocuts,... and more! Co-curator Pat Churchill introducing Valerie Willson at QMP 25 opening April 6, 2018   Print enthusiasts and QMP fans listen to Valerie Willson speak at QMP 25 opening April 6, 2...

Vashon Island's print collective, Quartermaster Press, is celebrating it's 25th anniversary with an exhibition that features work by 31 past and current QMP members at Vashon Center for the Arts, April 6, 2018 through May 25, 2018. The first opening will begin at 5:30, April 6 when Valerie Willson will share QMP history and talk a little about print process.   More talks and demonstrations by QMP members are scheduled in April and May. The first demonstration will be about collagraphy on Saturday, April 14 at 1:30 when Brian Fisher will show how a collagraph plate is made, inked and printed. Below is "Persephone Cycle" a collagraph print, 17 1/2" x 17 1/2" by Brian.  It's one of many unique prints on display at VCA for your enjoyment.  Please join us for this visual celebration! "Persephone Cycle"  Collagraph print by Brian Fisher

Today the Quartermaster Press 25 Retrospective Exhibit, April 6 - May 25 at Vashon Center for the Arts Lobby and Koch Gallery really started coming together!  QMP printers, past and present, delivered work that will challenge and inspire viewers of this show.  Thank you QMP printers! Pat Churchill, Deborah Taylor and Devin Grimm, VCA gallery manager, received and documented what was coming in the door while Suzanne Moore and Brian Fisher began hanging "The Collectors' Wall" in the VCA lobby.  By the end of a long day everyone was involved with arranging, shifting and rearranging 39 framed prints to everyone's satisfaction, ( though tweaks to come are already anticipated)! Tomorrow the fun continues when we hang the Koch Gallery.  Here's a public preview of the Collectors' Wall.  How'd we do ? QMP 25 Collectors' Wall, Vashon Center for the Arts, Vashon Washington, 2018

Print artist Beth Dunn has been an intermittent and influential Quartermaster Press member since she first began printing at QMP in the late 1990’s.  When she gave her photo exposure machine to the Vashon Island print collective, she forever changed the equation of print variation at QMP. Below is Beth’s photo engraving “I Was of Three Minds Like the Blackbird” inspired by Wallace Stevens’s Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird . It will be one of many prints by QMP members exhibited on the “Collectors Wall” in the Lobby at Vashon Center for the Arts during the QMP 25 Retrospective Exhibit, April 6 through May 25, 2018. Photo Etching, Chine -collé by Beth Dunn from the collection of Brian Fisher Here is another from the ”Collectors Wall”, a collage created by Quartermaster Press artists in 2003.  It also contains a Stevens inspired compositional element by Beth Dunn. Monotype, Linocut, Photo Etching, Collage by QMP Artists f...

Quartermaster Press celebrates it's 25th birthday!  The party and exhibit by past and current QMP printers begins April 6, 5:30 PM at Vashon Center for the Arts Koch Gallery.   Below is a publicity photo taken in 2010 at the original QMP studio just two years before it moved to its' new sunny and central Vashon address at the historic Beall Greenhouses, 18531 Beall Rd SW.  Left to right are members Edith Sehulster, Francesca Fuller, Beth Dunn, Suzanne Moore and Lisa Guy .  (Thank you Michael Rosenberg for our photo!) Below is the exhibition invitation that the 2010 publicity photo above was taken for.  A show about diversity in print process.  That's something that members of Vashon's print collective, Quartermaster Press have always pursued in real time!  Discovery as process!

QMP, Quartermaster Press, was founded in 1993 when artist Valerie Willson moved to Vashon Island Washington with a very large etching bed press. Valerie had commissioned Ray Trayle to build the press two years before.   Before his retirement, Ray worked for Archer Blower and Pipe for 32 years. However, he will forever be  remembered for the design and fabrication of 63 fine art etching presses that he built for the Northwest print community.  Because of this, in 1997, he was awarded the Oregon Governors Art Award and in 2002  became the inspiration for the Ray Trayle Print Prize . In this photo, courtesy of Jil Stenn, Ray Trayle is shown assembling the press he had made for Valerie Willson in Quartermaster Press's first cooperative studio.