Brian Fisher Print, Paint and Sculpture Blog

Yerevan (with detail), is a monotype print collage in my Magic Carpet Ride series. Called The Pink City, it’s Armenia’s capital. Yerevan is one of the oldest inhabited cities in the world and was founded by another name (Erebuni) in 782 B.C.E., though the territory was settled in the 4th millennium B.C.E. The Pink City gets its name by way of its building material, a pink stone called tuft, the compacted ash, from Mount Ararat that towers, at a distance, over Yerevan. Yerevan is showing in Pink, Unpacked , an exhibit presented by Seattle Print Arts that explores both pink as color and pink as concept.  March 11-May 1, 2024 at  M. Rosetta Hunter Gallery, Seattle WA.

"Petra" is the legendary rose-red city of the Nabataean people and a monotype print collage I just completed to show in the VIVA 2023 Holiday Art Studio Tour.  The ancient city of Petra, is dramatically concealed behind a wall of mountains, pierced only by the Siq Canyon of Jordan. Built in the 3rd century BC by Nabataeans, who carved beautiful palaces, temples, tombs, storerooms and stables from the soft, red, sandstone cliffs.  Petra is one of my "Magic Carpet Ride" cut monotype paper series, exhibiting in VIVA’s 2023 Holiday Studio Tour   Dec. 2-3 & 9-10 . Check out my studio, #2 on the VIVA Tour Map , and Petra, this Vashon Holiday Art Studio Tour!  

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.  

Nineveh , Monotype collage with 24k gold, 19 1/2" x 28 1/2" on Somerset Velvet Paper   Danny Kopsak and I will show in "Cut and Paste" at Vashon Center for the Arts Gallery, Aug 11-27, 2023. Opening Aug 11, 5-8pm. The title of our show "Cut and Paste" describes a critical part of the process we each undertake to create compositions cut from paper. My monotype print collage, Nineveh, is one of eight pattern compositions inspired by ancient cities of the Middle East, first printed, then cut and collaged, in a series I call- Magic Carpet Ride! Nineveh the ancient Assyrian city of Upper Mesopotamia, was located on the outskirts of Mosul in modern-day northern Iraq. It is located on the eastern bank of the Tigris River, and was the capital of the Neo-Assyrian Empire. Check it all out this month at Vashon Center for the Arts during the Summer Arts Festival!

"Damascus" is a monotype print collage from my Magic Carpet Ride series for “Cut and Paste” showing with paper cut artist Danny Kopsak’s new work at Vashon Center Gallery. Opening Aug 11, 5-8, exhibiting through Aug 27, in VCA's Summer Arts Festival 2023. “Whoever would sit upon this carpet and will it to be taken up and set down upon another site, shall, in the twinkling of an eye, be borne thither, whether that place be near at hand, or distant many a day's journey and difficult to reach.” It is said that Solomon’s magic carpet was made with a warp of green silk and weft of golden thread. It was sixty miles long and sixty miles wide. When he sat upon the carpet he was caught up by the wind and flew so quickly that he could breakfast in Damascus and dine in Media.

  Helios, Oil on Canvas over panel, 16 x 16 in. I'm framing "Helios" today, the last of my work to be framed in preparation for the 2023 Spring VIVA Art Studio Tour, May 6-7 & 13-14, Sats & Suns, 10am-5pm.  I am lucky #13 on the tour map this year! I was delighted to have one of my sunflower paintings selected for this years brochure and poster.  Check it out here, VIVA Art Tour , along with all the other wonderful studios and galleries on the Vashon Island Visual Artists (VIVA) studio tour!

  My monotype print,“The Pearl Divers", is currently on exhibit at JGO Gallery, on Bainbridge Island. My mother in-law was an opera fan. Not long after she moved to the Northwest, Seattle Opera performed The Pearl Fishers, ( Les Pecheurs de Perles),  by Bizet and she declared "You will love it" and "We must attended this performance!"  At the time I was living through hellish back pain.  Perhaps the pain is what made it memorable (I stood in the back of McCall Hall for most of the performance),  but its' beautiful friendship aria, sung by the central characters Zurga and Nadir, have been with me ever since.  Thank you Doris for insisting on the experience!

  "The Queen in Winter" Monotype print with 24k gold over panel, 10" x 10".  Check her out on the 2023 VIVA Art Studio Tour, the first two weekends in May. Link  @vivartists.com Each winter, the beehive clusters, the queen at warmest, center, with the core worker bees shaking, shivering around her to maintaining a survivable heat. The fate of the hive depends on how sufficiently the hive population has prepared for winter.

My Monotype Print, “Queen Bee”, 24k gold, 10" x 10 ", is inspired by the real and historical importance of bees in myth and as pollinators. Check her out, studio  #13 , on the VIVA 2023 Spring Art Studio Tour, May 6-7 & 13-14. The self guided tour hosts 37 art studios and galleries! Visit all the studios the first two weekends in May. Bees as pollinators and the honey they produce are central to mankind's wellbeing, our creation myths, cosmologies and the sacred places of many ancient cultures.  Greek, African, Australian, South American and Hindu-Indian creation stories recognize and highlight the bee as a revered animal and sacred symbol.  Bees evolved soon after the first flowers appeared in the Cretaceous Period, an estimated 130 million years ago!  

Twin Djinn, 10 x 10 in. monotype over wood panel, (currently at Swiftwater Gallery ) is inspired by the Arabic myths of the Qareen, meaning “constant companion” or spiritual double, who is either part of you or a complementary being in another dimension. Sometimes defined as Djinn, the Qareen have parallels in Egyptian mythology, as ka, a tangible "spirit double" and in contemporary stories of the doppelgänger.

  "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.

Mauna Kea, from my sacred circle series, informed by sacred sites, sacred geographies, is a Ltd. Edition, Original Digital Print (1/12). It was created in 2019 but has never been exhibited until now. Stop by my studio 23520 147 Ave SW, Vashon Island, ( #3 ) during the 2022 VIVA Holiday Art Studio Tour , the first two weekends in December. My print “Mauna Kea” is inspired by the most prominent geographic feature of the Hawaiian Islands, a volcanic mountain named Mauna Kea and by the incredible stick maps that Polynesian and Micronesian sailor explorers once made and used to chart Pacific open water travel. In Hawaiian traditions of creation, the Earth Mother, Papahānaumoku, and the Sky Father, Wākea, created the Hawaiian Islands, with Hawai‘i Island being the first and Mauna Kea as the piko (navel or center of beginning or ending), of their union. On Mauna Kea’s sides are many shrines to the pantheon of Hawaiian gods and (it has been suggested) to astronomical phenomena. The top of Maun...

“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/

  My latest Sacred Circle, “St Kilda” is inspired by a species of dandelion that was recently discovered on the Isle of Hirta, in the St Kilda archipelago by Jim McIntosh, a recorder of flora for the Outer Hebrides, during survey work. St Kilda lies 41 miles west of the Western Isles of Scotland. The island was abandoned by the last St Kildans in 1930 after years of slow depopulation when there were only 36 human inhabitants. Permanent habitation on the islands extends back two millennia and St Kilda is one of Scotland’s six World Heritage sites. It’s one of the few sites in the world to hold joint status for its natural and cultural qualities. There are thousands of stone structures and even two early sheep types that live on these remote islands. The Soay are sheep with linage from the Neolithic age and the Boreray are of Iron age linage. My St Kilda is an original digital archival print (edition of 12). Frame size 16” x 13”. If you are interested in this print, DM me about St Ki...

Gabriel, Angel of Communication, Oil on canvas over panel, 36 x 24 in. The English word angel, derived from the Greek ἄγγελος, means messenger.   No where in the Bible are these messengers described as winged nor are they represented in that way in early Christian art.   Sometime in the later part of the 4th century however, Angels appear suddenly to have grown them or at least artwork began depicting divine messengers complete with wings and another fashionable innovation of the period, halos.   My Angel imagery is primarily inspired by the paintings of the early Italian Renaissance artist Fra Angelico.   I have always admired his various depictions of the Annunciation and his rendering of Angel Gabriel's technicolor wings! Gabriel and other paintings in oil and monotype print are in my show about angel story August 5- 28, at Roby King Gallery on Bainbridge Island.  Opening night is 1st Friday aug 5th, 6-8pm.

  The Nature of Angels, monoprint, 6 3/8 x 25 3/4 in. I've been working prints and paintings about angel myth and story for an August 5-28 exhibit at Roby King Gallery on Bainbridge Island. This image is a collograph monoprint, with metal leaf, inspired by remarks made by Joseph Campbell on how religions and mythologies need to change with time in order to maintain their relevance in peoples’ lives. Addressing change, Campbell once said about the digital world and computers, "Have you ever looked inside one of those things? It's a whole hierarchy of angels on slats. And those little tubes-those are miracles."

  Vashon Art Studio Tour is back!!!  And here's my monotype print "A Chorus of Angels" singing hallelujah!!!

“Paper Moon”, from my Leo and Lang series, is a limited edition linocut print for sale in my studio ( #15 ) on the VIVA Spring Art Studio Tour, May 7-8 and 14-15, 2022.  Once upon a time, before cameras were common and digital imagery had replaced film, everyone’s local fair or carnival featured set photography booths where a photo portrait might be taken to document the day, a friendship, or love, paper moons were a standard set. The song Paper Moon was written in 1932 and had already been recorded by many artists when in 1973 Peter Bogdanovich gave it new life by using it as theme music and naming his movie, based on Joe David’s novel Addie Pray and starring Ryan O’Neal, Tatum O’Neal and Madeline Kahn, Paper Moon. The film has since become a classic and words to the song indelible. “It is only a paper moon, Sailing over a cardboard sea But it wouldn’t be make-believe if you believed in me.” Given the time and place I’ve imagined my characters Leo and Lang born into, they must ha...

"Angel Over Atwood", relief monotype print. (1/1). 24" x 36", is named for a small town on the prairie located at the intersection of US Highway 36 and Kansas 25 in Northwest Kansas and nestled in the Beaver Valley on Beaver Creek. This was Cheyenne, Comanche, and Arapaho country before white European settlers replaced them. Under the Works Progress Administration Atwood built a lake and when I was born called itself- Atwood, City by the Lake.    After the American Civil War my Fathers’ family moved to this area and to other small towns and land around Atwood. They came at a time when life meant struggle and to simply endure could be thought of as success. They brought little with them other than the belief that they would persevere and an ability to laugh often. Above all they were practical, though some of them were quite religious and (according to my grandfather) superstitious. I am sure that some saw angels in the tall grass as the wind swept the plains or...

Sphinx, oil on canvas 22"x22" “What has four legs in the morning, two at noon, and three in the evening?” In Greek myth Sphinx is a monster with the body and tail of a lion, the face of a woman, and the wings of a bird. Her infamous siblings Hydra, Chimera and the Gorgons share an equally confusing biology. Hera sent Sphinx to punish the city of Thebes and in her role as threshold guardian she famously challenges the hero Oedipus to a game of riddles. That was her thing, to ask tricky questions to those who wished to pass and eat her unwilling opponent If they were unable to answer the riddle correctly. Oedipus solved the riddle, “Man, who crawls on all fours as a baby, then walks on two legs, and finally needs a cane in old age.” Check out Sphinx on the 2022 Vashon Island Artist Studio Tour, May 7-8, 14-15. Map and info- Vivartists.com . and  @viva_vashon_artists