Brian Fisher Print, Paint and Sculpture Blog

Daniel Mendelsohn wrote, “The writers we absorb when we’re young bind us to them, sometimes lightly, sometimes with iron. In time, the bonds fall away, but if you look very closely you can sometimes make out the pale white groove of a faded scar, or the telltale chalky red of old rust.”  He was describing how Mary Renault’s books and her correspondence with him had influenced his life.  He could also have been describing the physical scars of a survivor of lightening strike. I first read “Fire from Heaven,” and the “The Persian Boy” when I was 15 and Renault cast a literally spell over how I viewed my adolescent world.   In many ways the characters and places she described continue to influence how I filter circumstance and the art I create. The biblical interpretation of  “Fire from Heaven” is about sacrifice, (burnt offerings) and retribution.  When I created my rust Monotype “Fire from Heaven” shortly after Trump won enough Electoral votes to qualify him for Presidency I admit t

This is "Omphalos", a Rust Monoprint with Gold Leaf, mounted to a coped dimensional panel.  It's dimensions are approximately 36 x 36 x 1 3/4 inches.  I made it by rusting a water-jet cut Cort-en steel plate onto/into an antique linen tablecloth. Omphalos means navel, as in belly button, (umbilicus in Latin) and it also means "The Center."  The Omphalos Stone at the Temple of Apollo in Delphi Greece marked the center of the old Greek world. Each culture has its recognized center.  Sometimes more than one. For instance, the USA's political Omphalos would be the White House in Washington DC and cultural center might perhaps be Rockefeller Center in New York City (or not).  In every culture it depends on who's telling the story! If you would like to see "Omphalos," the current center of my world, please visit the annual Seattle Print Arts Members Exhibition, Pressing On, with an opening reception today, Thursday, November 17th,  5-8 pm, a