Brian Fisher Print, Paint and Sculpture Blog

"Knossos", Collagraph Monotype Print 1/1,  Brian Fisher.  Ariadne awaits without while her lover within unreels  the clue that reveals the quest  that will echo in worlds beyond  their imagining. Brian Fisher

The Goddess of Forgetting, Monotype Print by Brian Fisher "Long ago you kissed the names of the nine muses goodbye and watched the quadratic equation pack its bag, and even now as you memorize the order of the planets, something else is slipping away, a state flower perhaps, the address of an uncle, the capital of Paraguay. Whatever it is you are struggling to remember, it is not poised on the tip of your tongue or even lurking in some obscure corner of your spleen. It has floated away down a dark mythological river whose name begins with an L as far as you can recall well on your own way to oblivion where you will join those who have even forgotten how to swim and how to ride a bicycle." From the poem “Forgetfulness” and the book of poems - Questions About Angels, b y Billy Collins.

  "Night Sky," Brian Fisher, monotype print, 24k gold I've been thinking about SKY and making art about it for several years.  In the VIVA Holiday Art Studio Tour, December 1-2 & 8-9, I will exhibit at least 10 images that are related to sky myths, sky gods and the cosmos.  This is "Night Sky".  “I know that I am mortal by nature, and ephemeral; but when I trace at my pleasure the windings to and fro of the heavenly bodies I no longer touch the earth with my feet: I stand in the presence of Zeus himself and take my fill of ambrosia” ― Ptolemy Claudius Ptolemy wrote Almagest or Syntaxis , his influential treatise on the apparent motions of the stars and of planetary paths, in about 150 AD. He postulated an incorrect though influential cosmology that would become the basis of our understanding of the cosmos and our place in it for the next 1,200 years.  However wrong his geocentric treatise, it included and kept alive ancient Greek trigonometr

In early Greek myth, Lethe was one of five rivers that flowed through the subterranean Kingdom of Hades.  Souls who passed into Hades had need to forget the suffering they had endured, or perhaps, the torment they had inflicted.  So, if a soul were ever to achieve peace and reincarnate, that soul could drink from Lethe, the River of Forgetting and be cleansed of memory.    Check out "Lethe and the River of Forgetting" now and during the VIVA Holiday Art Studio Tour at Gather Vashon Gallery, 17600 Vashon Hwy SW, Vashon, WA 98070 .

Beltane, by Brian Fisher, monotype print with 24k gold, 14 x 14 in. Today, acknowledging the change of Daylight Savings Time to Standard Time, I thought I’d post work about seasonal change. My print Beltane, (the return of the sun) was originally created and exhibited at the Tacoma Art Museum in response to artist Doris Lee’s “Maypole" in the TAM print collection. Beltane will again be exhibited for sale during the VIVA Art Studio tour, Dec. 1-2 & 8-9, 10-4 pm at Fisher Studio, stop no. 21, at 23520 147th Ave. SW. Beltane or May Day celebrates the beginning of summer and is halfway between the spring equinox and the summer solstice.  It’s one of four Gaelic seasonal festivals including Lughnasadh (beginning of harvest in early August), Samhain (celebrating the end of harvest and the beginning of winter at the end of October) and Imbolc (meaning in the belly or womb, and the beginning of spring in early February). These seasonal rituals w

Below are two new images inspired by Doris Lee’s prints in the Tacoma Art Museum collection.  Quartermaster Press  studio will exhibit work in it's latest show Pressing Forward at the Tacoma Art Museum's Cheney class room July 11- September 27, 2018.  Each QMP member artist selected work from the permanent collection and created a new generation of prints in response to subject, image and/or print process.  It has been an exciting challenge! Doris Lee’s “Maypole" image might appear quaint, her pictorial approach intentionally naive, but the subject has as source an ancient fertility rite and I think her take on the subject a little subversive.  Here is a link to her print.  Maypole  I celebrate her vision and explore the mythic spring rite in “Beltane" (the anglicized name for the Gaelic May Day festival) and again in my monotype print version of “Maypole”.    Brian Fisher, "Maypole" Monotype Brian Fisher, "Beltane"  Monotype with

Not a melody, not rhythm.... harmony is all cord. Betwixt and Between, the reality that is not about a moment past or present, but all moments, collected and coalesced... it is the now that is Harmony. Below is my attempt at describing Harmony, visually.  At 6 x 6 in. it is a mall Betwixt & Between Monotype exhibited for your enjoyment.  Please view "Harmony" at stop # 2 during the VIVA Studio tour- May 5-6 and 12-13, the first two weekends in May! Link to Map here,  VIVA Studio Tour

Every rite of passage involves a journey, twist and recognition of center.  That still point is the source of possibility, where new horizons are recognizable.  It's continually active.  If you are alive you seek that point.  It is the eternal now.  It is Betwixt and Between.  What happens next?  Now! Here is my distillation of Betwixt and Between.  A Monotype print mounted to panel on display and for sale, yes the moment can be for sale, during the VIVA Art Studio tour.

VIVA Art Studio Tour is less than a week away and I have been busy finishing and framing work that will be on display in my studio, stop # 2 on the tour.  I just framed this mixed media monoprint with 24k gold leaf yesterday.  It's called "Nature Boy".  Here is a link to the VIVA Studio Tour site for more information.

I am delighted that Corvidae Press has featured my Monotype Print "The Calydonian Boar" as their image on the call for submissions to Printmaker's Hand IV, their 2018 Exhibition! It is always a geat show at the Northwind Art Center in Port Townsend. Last year The Printmakers Hand exhibit coincided with Port Townsend's open studio. That made it all the more fun to visit!  Corvidae Press was on the tour and their studio at For Warden was the highlight for me of the tour. OK~ Quartermaster Press Printers, you only have a few more days to submit!

Lethe, Monotype Print, 24kt gold leaf, 36 x 15 in. Lethe Come to my arms, cruel and sullen thing; Indolent beast, come to my arms again, For I would plunge my fingers in your mane And be a long time unremembering — And bury myself in you, and breathe your wild Perfume remorselessly for one more hour: And breathe again, as of a ruined flower, The fragrance of the love you have defiled. I long to sleep; I think that from a stark Slumber like death I could awake the same As I was once, and lavish without shame Caresses upon your body, glowing and dark. To drown my sorrow there is no abyss, However deep, that can compare with your bed. Forgetfulness has made its country your red Mouth, and the flowing of Lethe is in your kiss. My doom, henceforward, is my sole desire: As martyrs, being demented in their zeal, Shake with delightful spasms upon the wheel, Implore the whip, or puff upon the fire, So I implore you, fervently resigned! Come; I would drink nepent

"Cygnus"  Monotype Print Cygnus is among the most recognizable and brightest constellations in the Northern sky from June to December.   Look up. Of course those are heavenly wings spread; a beak and tail!   Yes, I see a swan! According to Ovid, Cygnus was a close friend, maybe lover, of Phaethon.   Phaethon died (by his grandfather Zeus’s lightening bolt) when he recklessly scorched the earth while driving the family’s (Sun) chariot. Poor Cygnus’s grief for his beloved transformed him into a swan fearful of fire from heaven and so he chose to live in damp marshes, lakes and rivers. “As he mourned, his voice became thin and shrill, and white feathers hid his hair. His neck grew long, stretching out from his breast, his fingers reddened and a membrane joined them together. Wings clothed his sides, and a blunt beak fastened on his mouth. Cygnus became a new kind of bird: but he put no trust in the skies, or in Zeus, for he remembered how that god had unjustly hurled

Brian Fisher, "The Green Man", Monotype Print with Gold Leaf, 10 x 29 in. The Greenman by XTC   Please to bend down for the one called the Greenman He wants to make you his bride Please to bend down for the one called the Greenman Forever to him you're tied And you know for a million years he has been your lover He'll be a million more And you know for a million years he has been your lover Down through the skin to the core Heed the Greenman Heed the Greenman Please to dance round for the one called the Greenman He wants to make you his child Please to dance round for the one called the Greenman Dressed in the fruits of the wild And you know for a million years he has been your father He'll be a million more And you know for a million years he has been your father Run to his arms at the door Lay your head, lay your head, lay your head, lay your head on the Greenman Lay your head, lay your head with mine Lay your head, lay y

I'm currently exhibiting work at Plymouth Church in Seattle.  Above is "The Mill of Time," a Rust Monottype with Gold Leaf, 30x30 in.  And below is "Vortex of the Eternal Now," also a Rust Monotype with Gold Leaf and with the same dimensions. "The Mill of Time" and "Vortex of the Eternal Now" celebrate with process and image the mystery of Time.  Measurable but elastic, time is experienced only in the present but is anticipated as future and remembered as past!  

"Europa"  Brian Fisher, Monotype Print, 25 x 25 in. I am delighted to have my Monotype Prints, “Europa” and “The Caledonian Boar,” exhibited in “The Printmaker’s Hand III”! Corvidae Press Guild of Port Townsend WA in association with Northwind Arts Center, also of Port Townsend WA, are hosting “The Printmaker’s Hand III”, an exhibition of fine art prints, September 4th - 27th, 2015.  The opening reception is September 5 in conjunction with Port Townsend’s Art Walk.  On September 6, Juror, Sam Davidson owner/director of Seattle’s premier print gallery,  Davidson Galleries, will talk about the art of print and the juried work chosen for exhibition in “The Printmaker’s Hand III”. Northwind Arts Center is located at 701 Water Street, in the historic Waterman & Katz Building, Port Townsend WA.  Find more details about the show, location and Sam Davidson’s talk here “The Printmaker’s hand III.”   And link here to more information he

"Adrianople"  Monotype print & Gold Leaf   Artist, Brian Fisher B2 Gallery  Fall Exhibition 711 Saint Helens Avenue, Suite 100 Tacoma, WA. 98402 Gallery Hours: Tuesday – Saturday, 11am – 5pm September 26 – October 24, 2015 Artist Reception: Saturday, September 26, 2015 | 5-8pm "Adrianopple" is one of the Monotypes I am showing at B2 Gallery's Fall "Pop Up" Exhibition in September. 

"Warriors Waiting", Monotype Print with gold Leaf mounted to panel. “Whatever you are physically...male or female, strong or weak, ill or healthy--all those things matter less than what your heart contains. If you have the soul of a warrior, you are a warrior. All those other things, they are the glass that contains the lamp, but you are the light inside.” ― Cassandra Clare , Clockwork Angel I am currently reading and enjoying Clockwork Angel , Cassandre Clare's book one of "The Infernal Devices".  I think I enjoy it because her Nephalem and Demon characters are heroes with weaknesses and shortcomings.  They are flawed and therefore real in their struggle to overcome plot circumstance (life).  There is an edge of realism in the struggle with oneself that is missing when a Hero is too complete and is inspirational when a character that we identify with is, like us, not perfect.  My Monotype Print, "Warriors Waiting&q

Ralph Waldo Emerson's poem "The Sphinx" was the inspiration for a recent series of eight small prints.  Each was created by printing a cut cork plate over monotype backgrounds.  The cork matrix was an experimental material but definitely one that I will use again. Above is "Life, Death Overtaking" and below "Daedalion Plan"   (5 3/8 x 4 3/4 in.)

In October of 2012 Tim Timmerman, director of the Minthorne Gallery at George Fox University , invited me to exhibit my work.  What a wonderful opportunity! I've been thinking and making art for this exhibit ever since. I was at that time working on "Journey" as theme and rust as medium and the work made for this exhibition continues my exploration of the hero's journey in Monotype Print, Rust Print and Sculpture in steel and wood.  The circle is a reoccurring element in many of these new images.  It is for me symbolic of the hero's quest for balance in his exploration of the creative, spiritual and cultural impulses of humankind.  Nine of these rust images were made  by using an open steel plate and acetate stencils; a variation on the water-jet cut steel plates I typically print from. The image at left, "Kentro" (The Center), is a Rust Print, 30 x 30 in.  The image below, "Kore" is a Rust Print, 30 x 30 in. I am inspired by the

"Dog Walkin Waltz" , Monotype with gold leaf,  26” x 20”. This will be very fun!   Janice Mallman, curator of the Vashon Island Allied Arts- Art Gallery, has invited 14 artists who love dogs to exhibit their doggy work at the Blue Heron from January 10-30, 2014. One of my favorite poets, Pablo Neruda, once wrote about his own dog- Joyful, joyful, joyful, as only dogs know how to be happy with all the autonomy of their shameless spirit. We are renewed in their Joy!  The image I have posted above tittled "Dog Walking Waltz" was made several years ago to celebrate the spirit of Shitashi, my wonderful Shiba Inu companion, who taught me how to dance every day. Below is the invite to the Dog Show!  My Monotype is at upper right and titled "The Aki Walk" in honor of my Shiba Inu, love and companion, Aki.  She is four now but still has a predilection for chasing birds and has often, (darn near), dislocated my shoulder in her chase!