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."

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 Monotype Print "Animal Parade" with several other animal themed rust prints and collographs  are currently part of the Vashon Heron's Nest exhibit "Coyotes, Cougars and Bears, Oh My!" You may love or fear the wild but you have to deal with it when you have chosen to live on Vashon.   This mercurial subject is explored this September by Margaret Tylczak, Paula Allegrina and Brian Fisher at the Heron's Nest Gallery, 17600 Vashon Hwy SW Vashon Island, WA.

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 ...

Above is my Collograph about the myth of Persephone and Demeter, named “The Persephone Cycle.” Image size, 18x18 in.  It’s on display at Hinge Gallery  in March, April  during the Quartermaster Press Print Show:  Life-Cycle  and during the "Vashon Island Art Studio Tour" at Brian Fisher Studio, map #16. Part 1: The Myth of Persephone and Demeter    Persephone was the daughter of Demeter, Goddess of fertility, harvests, and perhaps the earliest version of a Great Earth Goddess except for Rhea, her own mother.  Beautiful, virginal, Persephone was Demeter’s daughter by Zeus and the maternal focus of her life. Hades, Persephone’s uncle, fell in love with his young niece and decided that he would have Persephone for his bride but knew that Demeter would never approve of such an arrangement.  So, Hades colluded with Zeus, her father, his brother, who agreed to a secret “union” and to his plans for Persephone’...

George Wright, sculpture and director of the Heron's Nest Gallery on Vashon, invited seven artists to create work for an August show in the gallery. She chose Postcards from the Edge as theme and everyone has approached the subject quite differently. I frequently print at an almost postcard scale, particularly when I am searching for accidental compositions to develop as paintings or larger print imagery. The cards are 6 3/4 x 5 inches. Above are a few of the twenty Monotype and Collograph print images I made for the exhibit.