Brian Fisher Print, Paint and Sculpture Blog

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!