Brian Fisher Print, Paint and Sculpture Blog

My new cut steel sculpture "Daphne" will exhibit at Roby King Gallery, Bainbridge Island WA, Feb 7- March 1, 2020 in "A Trio of Print-makers" with Lynn Brofsky, Brian Fisher & Steve McFarlane.  The opening Reception is Feb 7, 6-8 pm.  Check it Out!   Ovid's description of Daphne's pursuit by Apollo, prayer to her father the river god Peneus and subsequent change into the Laurel or Daphne tree is context for my sculpture.  My inspiration though is Kathleen Raine's contemporary poem "Daphne After" and her Me-Too depiction of coping with violation and the victims emotional metamorphosis. 
 Daphne After by Kathleen Raine   In the absence of a heart grown stemwise, silent, slow Daphne drinks unremembering and unknown, in the manner of a laurel thinks in branches, sometimes blossoms.  Real forgetting is her secret, long detachment, no slit sense to heal. Only sentiment and song remember how she suffered, ran in terror, turning tree, an...

"Cygnus"  Monotype Print Cygnus is among the most recognizable and brightest constellations in the Northern sky from June to December.   Look up. Of course those are heavenly wings spread; a beak and tail!   Yes, I see a swan! According to Ovid, Cygnus was a close friend, maybe lover, of Phaethon.   Phaethon died (by his grandfather Zeus’s lightening bolt) when he recklessly scorched the earth while driving the family’s (Sun) chariot. Poor Cygnus’s grief for his beloved transformed him into a swan fearful of fire from heaven and so he chose to live in damp marshes, lakes and rivers. “As he mourned, his voice became thin and shrill, and white feathers hid his hair. His neck grew long, stretching out from his breast, his fingers reddened and a membrane joined them together. Wings clothed his sides, and a blunt beak fastened on his mouth. Cygnus became a new kind of bird: but he put no trust in the skies, or in Zeus, for he remembered how that god had unjust...

Horizon and sky are the most memorable characteristics of the midwestern landscape I was born to.   I suspect the knowledge my father shared with me and with my siblings, lying on our backs in the buffalo grass of our grandparent’s Kansas farm and gazing up through night binoculars, predated his studies at Denver University, Colorado and Hays College, Kansas in the 1950’s and 60’s.   Wherever, whenever, his knowledge came from, his passion for stargazing is memorable and has inspired my Rust Monotype “Cygnus”. My Father, Dale Fisher, was born April 20, 1913 into a world of kerosene and candles, well before manmade light and the Rural Electrification Act of 1936 dimmed his world to the heavens. My dad’s perspective about sky included a classical explanation of the constellations, lay observation of the stars/planets and an avid curiosity about the physical world that caused him to call his family outside to witness sputnik traversing the night sky. His is the voic...

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...

"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.