Brian Fisher Print, Paint and Sculpture Blog

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 from the c

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.