Brian Fisher Print, Paint and Sculpture Blog

Babylon, is one of my "Magic Carpet Ride" collage monotypes exhibiting in VIVA's 2023 Holiday Studio Tour, the first two weekends in December.  I'm #2 on the tour map.  This work is named for the ancient city located on the lower Euphrates river, in southern Mesopotamia, within contemporary Iraq and is inspired by these words describing a people dispossessed of their homes and made subject to an invading power, from the King James Bible-  By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion.  We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof.  For there they that carried us away captive required of us a song; and they that wasted us required of us mirth, saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion.  

  "Jacob Dreams of Angels" is my monotype print, (1/1), with silver metal leaf, currently on exhibit at  Vashon Center for the Arts Gallery, Jan 6-29, 2023 in The Notable Collection .   The Torah and the Bible tell of Jacob’s vivid dream about a stairway or ladder to heaven with angels ascending and descending. It is in this dream that the God of his grandfather Abraham and father Isaac, appears to Jacob and promises the land that he sleeps upon to his descendants and that through Jacob and his descendants that all the families of the earth shall find blessing. What a profound dream and the ladder a powerful symbol of connection between the physical and an unknown where dreams are sourced or realized.

“Raguel, Angel of Winter”, monotype print with 24k gold. According to Judaic tradition, is the leader of angels, known as Principalities, who are responsible for the administration of justice on Earth and among angels. Raguel is the messenger who shares the importance of tolerance so that all may live in peace. He delivers justice with fairness, harmony, with vengeance and redemption. Raguel is also known as an Angel of Winter because of his cool and tranquil deliverance when administering justice. I just finished framing Raquel for the 2022 Holiday VIVA Art Studio Tour, the first two weekends in December. You can preview the tour at- https://vivartists.com/viva/

“Taming Bucephalus” Oil on Canvas  with 24k gold, 20 x 20 in.  I nspired by Alexander of Macedon, Alexander the Great, this painting "Taming Bucephalus" is about his famous war horse.  There is much real, documented, history about Alexander and of course the larger than life lore that grew up after his death.  All of it has kept his story active, alive, 2,345 years after his death. My mother gave me the Mary Renault books about Alexander when I was young.  I recently reread the first book in Renault's Alexander trilogy, Fire From Heaven, first published in 1969.  Historical fiction can be informative and entertaining.  This story, his story, is powerful, and still relevant!  Delighted that Taming Bucephalus and it's companion painting, Hephaestion,  just sold.

Delighted to show with these Fine Art Print Artists! Quartermaster Press and invited guests at the Hardware Store Restaurant on Vashon Island Nov 5-30, 2021.

  Mystras, an oil on canvas painting is my contribution to the 2021 Vashon Center for the Arts Gala Art Auction  at Vashon Center for the Arts Gallery. The auction begins First Friday, September 3, with hundreds of works generously donated by island artists, as well as dozens of unique one-of-a-kind experiences. Bidding will take place for three weeks from September 3 until September 24 and will close at the start of the Gala Livestream event at 7PM on September 24. All items will be featured online and in the VCA gallery. If you'd like to see the art in person, gallery hours are Wed thru Sun from 12-5PM. Mystras is named for the archaeological site and Byzantine city in the Peloponnese of modern Greece, where ruins of churches and palaces, houses, and bridges, were built on a steep mountain slope. Its ruins tell the story of a beautiful city that once flourished as the provincial capital of the Byzantine Despotate of Morea. Founded in 1248 by William II of Villehardouin, Fran...

Mauna Kea, Sacred Circle, is inspired by the most prominent geographic feature of the island of Hawai’i, the mountain volcano Mauna Kea and by the stick maps that Polynesian and Micronesian sailers once made and used to chart their open water travel. In Hawaiian traditions of creation, the Earth Mother, Papahānaumoku, and the Sky Father, Wākea, created the Islands, with Hawai‘i Island being the first and the mountain, the piko (navel or center of a beginning or ending), of their creation.   On the mountains sides are many shrines to the pantheon of Hawaiian gods and (it has been suggested) to astronomical phenomena.  The top of Mauna Kea was historically considered kapu and only accessible to priests and the highest chiefs but, beginning in the late 1960s, a number of large telescope observatories have been built at the 13,796 ft. summit where the air is cold, dry and visibility of the heavens is near perfect. In 2019 the construction of the Thirty Meter Telescope, was stoped ...

My monotype print “Amphora Asterion”, exhibits in "A Trio of Printmakers", ( Lynn Brofsky, Brian Fisher & Steve MacFarlane).  Feb 7- March 1, 2020 at Roby King Gallery on Bainbridge Island. The opening reception is  Feb. 7, 6-8 pm. Amphora Asterion is a   Monotype Print,  29 1/4 x 21 1/2  in. depicting Asterion, the Minotaur of Cretan Myth. And the Queen gave birth to a child who was called Asterion. —Apollodorus   A mingled form where two strange shapes combined, And different natures, bull and man, were joined. —Euripides  

Brian Fisher Studio is stop #2 on the 2019 Vashon Island Holiday Art Studio Tour.  Check out all 45 tour studios and galleries at Vashon Art Tour featuring 120 plus artists! This VIVA event is a fun and informative experience! Make a date with a friend, choose your route and experience Art on Vashon!

The Temple of the Winds, monotype print 1/1, Brian Fisher Not so very long ago humans anthropomorphized and deified elements of nature.  Would that we still respected and recognized our symbiotic relationship to nature instead of attempting to monetize our very existence.  The “answer my friend” to climate change depends on you and me.  Elect representatives to government that will affect responsible climate policy. Please. My monotype print “Temple of the Winds” has its inspiration in the myths of the Anemia, the four winds and their children associated with Earth's cycle of seasons and once worshiped as: Boreas the North-Wind, Zephyrus the West-Wind, Notus the South-Wind, and Eurus the East-wind. You can check out my monotype print, “The Temple of the Winds”, Studio #21, during the VIVA, Holiday Studio Tour.  This Vashon art studio tour is self guided with 38 studios & galleries, featuring 115 local artists.  Decemb...

Brian Fisher, "Summer of '84, Babylon Beach NY", Oil on panel, 24 x 24 in. “Festival 25, Catch Us While You Can”, a month-long celebration of visual artists and musicians who have shaped Vashon island’s cultural landscape for 25 years or more, opens Friday, Sept. 7 at 6 PM. The festival is hosted by Open Space, sponsored by VIVA, Vashon Events, and 4Culture.   Envisioned and curated by artist and arts advocate Christine Beck, Festival 25 embodies the wealth of creativity that is foundation to the artistic Vashon we know and love. Visual artists each selected a work from their creative past and a piece that is representative of what they are currently making. My oil on panel, “Summer of ’84”,  painted in 1989, is one image from the Dance of Death series I was working on when I moved to Vashon. Kat Eggleston, One More Mile, Portage Fill Big Band and Bob Krinsky perform for the opening. The party continues throughout the month with gallery hours each weekend except Sep...

It's almost Mom Day and the second weekend of the VIVA Tour, May 12 &13.  Check out Brian Fisher Studio stop # 2.  Link to map here: http://vivartists.com/StudioTour/Spring2018/index.html

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.

These photographs were taken of Quartermaster Press studio in about 2001, courtesy of Marian Wachter.  QMP studio was originally located on Quartermaster Drive and on the property of Michael Richards and Rita Brogen in what was formerly a potting shed.   Valerie Willon's press made by Ray Trayle, is at center of the interior photo. Check out the scale of the wheel!   Pinned to the wall are prints Marian Wachter was working on.  It was a sweet place even if a bit drafty! Below are members Bonnie Wilkins, Adrienne Edmonson, Suzanna Leigh, Brian Fisher, Ilse Reimnitz, Laura Davidheiser and Marian Wachter in publicity photo for QMP. QMP Publicity Photo 2001 QMP Interior 2001

QMP, Quartermaster Press, was founded in 1993 when artist Valerie Willson moved to Vashon Island, Washington with a very large etching bed press.  The press was new.  Valerie had commissioned Ray Trayle to build it two years before when her second story studio in the Pearl District of Portland, Oregon could easily accommodate it and two other presses. Valerie's new, smaller, Vashon Island studio could not accommodate the press and so she and a handful of Vashon Island artists came together to form Quartermaster Press.  The new cooperative shared a press, studio, ideas and friendship. Twenty five years later those foundational ideals are still common denominators of Quartermaster Press.  Below is a 1995 publicity photo of QMP artists Jill Stenn, Valerie Willson, Sue Grant, Bonnie Wilkins and Ilse Reimnitz.  Valerie Willson has been the constant in this artistic equation.  Thank you Valerie for your dedication and contributions to the exploration of pri...