Brian Fisher Print, Paint and Sculpture Blog

My sculpture 'Haiku' with yucca and a stunning white rose. The Vashon Garden Tour is this weekend.  I was honored to have my Threshold Guardian stakes and sculpture in the garden of Ron Gawith and Linda Weiss.  Their contemporary home and the garden that surrounds it are absolutely stunning. Behind me is 'Hyperion' in stainless steel, hung from Gabion cage.

I just returned from a nice First Friday night out on Vashon.  Bergamot Studio's themed show is White on White this month and I was delighted to have three mixed media collages included in the exhibit.  Above and at center are "The Challenge," "Threshold Guardians" and "Center." Each represents an aspect of the Hero's Journey.

The 22nd Annual Vashon Island Garden Tour, Saturday June 23, and Sunday, June 24, 10 am to 5 pm, is an offering of five unique gardens with features that will delight your senses.  Read all about the tour here: Vashon Garden Tour. I will be showing and selling my art cards and cut steel “Threshold Guardians,” garden art personifying myth and boundaries, at the Garden Art Market during the tour.  The image above featuring Zeus as a black swan is a sample of my “Guardian” garden stakes. The Garden Art Market is open to the public 10 am to 5 pm both Saturday and Sunday.  You will find the market conveniently located mid island on Vashon Hwy. and on the former K2 building front lawn.  The Garden Market will feature 20 artists, food and musical entertainment.  I will see you there rain or shine!

Threshold Guardian, Oceanus ( water jet cut steel)   Titan Oceanus , (or Okeanos), one of the pre-Olympian Gods or primeval deities, is the great earth-encircling river and font of all the earth's fresh-water: including rivers, wells, springs and rain-clouds.   My Oceanus is made of water jet cut steel and is enamel painted an orange/cinnamon color.  He is on exhibit in my studio garden with many other Threshold Guardians during the 2012 Spring Vashon Island Studio Tour , May 12 and 13.

While priming "Oceanus", my cut steel garden art this afternoon, I was excited by the white on almost white background and took this photo. In Greek myth Oceanus was the personification of the world-ocean and the Titan son of Uranus and Gaia.  My version of the world ocean is a perfect square! You can see and purchase “Oceanus” during the Spring 2012 Vashon Studio Tour , the first two weekends in May, 5-6, 12-13.

A ll afternoon I have been working outside on my Threshold Guardians, (garden stakes and garden art personifying adventure, edges and boundaries), preparing them for primer and paint in colors that compliment the Northwest garden pallet and also reflect the colors I find particularly appealing when I print.  As the sun was setting and after I had wrapped everything, I was amazed to see the silhouettes that began to appear through the plastic bags that had been slipped over everything to protect the cut steel art from rain and our seasonal Alder pollen.   Of course I went looking for my camera! I found the photos wonderfully mysterious. You can see all of my cut steel Threshold Guardians during the Vashon Island Spring Studio Tour, the first two weekends of May.  http://vashonislandartstudiotour.com/Spring2012/

The symbol often is more potent than the thing itself.  Through distillation Symbol can appear to become the thing itself.  I try to approach my art in that way.  A reduction and simplification of shape that still has meaning and still tells story. Wallace Stephens did it with words.  He says this poem is not an idea about a thing but the thing itself.  However it is his reality and his presentation of the thing itself.  It is still his idea.  In this poem he explores the nature of reality and is searching for the recognizable in the unknowable. "Not Ideas About the Thing But the Thing Itself." At the earliest ending of winter, In March, a scrawny cry from outside Seemed like a sound in his mind. He knew that he heard it, A bird's cry, at daylight or before, In the early March wind. The sun was rising at six, No longer a battered panache above snow... It would have been outside. It was not from the vast ventriloq...

Above and below are images of my " Threshold Guardians ,” art made for the garden, personifying adventure, edges and boundaries.    Those above also double as stakes for your/my lilllies when gravity is just too much! Inside my studio and outside in the garden I have had wonderful conversations around art and garden this past weekend and look forward to the next Saturday and Sunday (May 14-15) of the Vashon Island Spring Studio Tour .  I hope you can stop in!

Today, at least on Vashon Island, it feels like we are at the threshold of a new season.  It has been a cold Winter, a wet spring and a very long time since I have anticipated Summer so much.   How much?  Enough to inspire art and personify a season.  Above is my Monotype print with gold leaf that I call Summer Breeze .  It is an image about time, accumulated memories of Summer and the associated pleasures that sunshine brings.   Tomorrow I am framing it, the last of the monotype work made for the 2011 Spring, Vashon Island Art Studio Tour , May 7-8 & 14-15, but I am still working on “Natures Priest” an oil painting and finishing my cut steel “Threshold Guardians,” art made for the garden, personifying adventure, edges and boundaries.    My Monotype with Gold Leaf, Summer Breeze is 9 x 22 in.