Brian Fisher Print, Paint and Sculpture Blog

  The Nature of Angels, monoprint, 6 3/8 x 25 3/4 in. I've been working prints and paintings about angel myth and story for an August 5-28 exhibit at Roby King Gallery on Bainbridge Island. This image is a collograph monoprint, with metal leaf, inspired by remarks made by Joseph Campbell on how religions and mythologies need to change with time in order to maintain their relevance in peoples’ lives. Addressing change, Campbell once said about the digital world and computers, "Have you ever looked inside one of those things? It's a whole hierarchy of angels on slats. And those little tubes-those are miracles."

"Knossos", Collagraph Monotype Print 1/1,  Brian Fisher.  Ariadne awaits without while her lover within unreels  the clue that reveals the quest  that will echo in worlds beyond  their imagining. Brian Fisher

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...

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)

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

Marian Wachter will display several images in the Quartermaster Press 25 Retrospective Exhibition at Vashon Center for the Arts, April 6 - May 25, 2018.  Featured here is “Garden Symphony” a mixed media relief and intaglio print. 17 3/4 x 23 1/2 in. Marian’s work is beautiful, graphic and innovative. If you are a print artist looking at her work you will constantly be asking “What the, How the” questions?  Watching her hand print from carved leather-hard clay plates, for example, opened my eyes to yet another realm of printing possibilities.  She experimented with collagraph, printed in relief and intaglio, relief printing using wood, linoleum and un-fired clay. All her prints were layered with these and other techniques and frequently finished with collaged elements, photo transfer or drawing/painting directly on the prints.  Garden Symphony, mixed media relief and intaglio print by Marian Wachter  

This is "Dryad", a collograph print depicting my vision of a wood spirit or nymph.   In Greek drys signifies "oak". Thus, dryads are the nymphs of oak trees, though the term has come to be used for all tree nymphs in general.   Traditionally dryads are female and in myth are often pursued by another woodland creature, the Satyr.  But I thought why should they have all the fun, or unwanted attention, so my dryad is male and experiencing a seasonal change.  "Dryad" is currently showing at Roby King Gallery on Bainbridge Island Washington, November 3-27, 2017.

"The Willow Men," another of my Green Man myth interpretations is currently showing at Roby King Gallery on Bainbridge Island, November 3-27-2017.    The Green Man myth represents a union of humanity and the vegetative world.  He is the sacrificial human connection to the plant cycle of birth, reproduction, revitalization and resurrection. Known by many names through time and a spectrum of cultures, including but not limited to: Osiris, Dionysus, Orpheus, Adonis, Cernnunos, Khidir etc… He is the god born to sacrifice and through his union with the goddess to be born again.  I think that this myth is particularly appealing because the Green Man's seasonal life mirrors our own limited mortality. "The Willow Men" image is a Collograph. The plate from which it was printed was made by using acrylic medium to attach paper that I had previously embossed to a plexiglass plate.  Any texture thin enough t...

My Green Man Albus Darach is a more traditional representation of the Green Man, or "foliate head” of the British Isles.  You may find Albus Darach in my Studio, no.16 with his Green Man collograph print siblings, during the Vashon Island Art Studio Tour, May 6-7 & 13-14, 2017. Darach is Gaelic for "Oak tree.” Around him you can see the leaves and acorns of the tree and rectangular portals representing passage, change or transformation.  The Oak is almost synonymous with strength, steadfastness and historically is associated with the sacred groves and forests of of the Druids. The Roman Gaius Plinius Caecilius Secundus lived in Gaul during the 1st century CE and wrote that Druid priests performed all their religious rites in Oak groves, where they gathered mistletoe from the trees with a golden sickle.  Dense forests of Oak covered most of Northern Europe at that time and the tree's human-like attributes of trunk/body, branches/arms, twigs/fingers, and sap/bloo...

Katsura is my Green Man collograph named for the beautiful Katsura tree, native to China and  Japan.  Please visit Brian Fisher Studio and Katsura during the Vashon Island Art Studio Tour May 6,7-13-14. This Green Man is inspired by the mythic Japanese Kodama, spirit guardians and animated souls of the mountain forests of Japan.  Kodama spirits are revered by Japanese as gods and protectors  of trees. The Kodama bless the land around their forest with fertility.  The villagers who find Kodama inhabited trees designate them with sacred rope known as a Shimenawa.   Japan honors nature and these sacred Kodoma spirit trees are often found within the grounds of Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples.

The mythic Green Man represents a union of humanity and the vegetative world.  He is the sacrificial human conduit and connection to the plant cycle of birth, reproduction, revitalization and resurrection. Known by many names, through time and a spectrum of cultures, including but not limited to: Dionysos, Orpheus, Osiris, Adonis, Cernnunos, Khidir etc… he is the god born to sacrifice and through his union with the goddess to be born again.   Historically, his seasonal incarnation was worshiped locally.   My print Atticus (man of Attica) celebrates the area of Greece that includes the region centered on the Attic peninsula that projects into the Agean Sea , encompass ing the city of Athens, capital of Greece.  Atticus is the first of many Collograph images I have made to celebrate The Green Man.

Artist Valerie Willson shared her approach to collograph in a couple wonderful workshops at Vashon's Quartermaster Press.  We attached thin materials like paper and cloth to plexiglass plates with gloss acrylic medium and created texture with modeling paste.  The result was a very sturdy collograph plate. Inspired by what I learned, I've been exploring the process in a series of prints about myth in nature.  Here is a drawing and collograph plate of "Atticus," from my Green Man series. Collagraph, collograph, no matter how you spell it, 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.  I now employ both methods when making my own collographs.  Below is a ...