Brian Fisher Print, Paint and Sculpture Blog

It’s the Bellevue Botanical Garden, ART IN THE GARDEN SHOW!   August 26 - 28,  2011.  Gayle Pickens, of Gallery by the Bay has curated a wonderful selection of garden art by regional artists. Come view the sculpture throughout the garden and meet the artists who made it. According to Gayle, some sculpture will be clearly visible, some work will be tucked into corners and still more waiting for your discovery around the next bend of the garden path. Art by 30 outstanding Northwest artists will grace this special garden show.  From the serious to the whimsical, this exhibit will include works in metal, wood, blown and fused glass, ceramics, bronze and other materials. Come visit Friday from 1 PM to 6 PM, or Saturday or Sunday, 10 AM until 6 PM.  It is free to see and there will be lots to buy.  Here is a link for directions and to find out more about the artwork and artists represented.  http://www.gallerybythebay.com/art-in-the-garden Above

Chiron and Jason My plates are RUSTING.   The Cor-Ten Steel seems to be shedding rust in large flakes.  That might be interesting?  I intend to find out tomorrow when I will place two of the plates on dampened Rives heavy weight paper and hope for remarkable rust!  I will post the results. Over the weekend, while rust was happening, I participated in an inspiring workshop with Valerie Willson and eight others.  Three days learning process, making and modifying etchings on zinc plates at the new Vashon Island print studio of Quartermaster Press with Valerie, was exhilarating!  Here is a Facebook link with descriptions and some photos.  Quartermaster Press Above and below are the results of my own efforts.   I look forward to Valerie’s followup Etching workshop.  Argos Etchings, Prints and Plates   

Zetos I am working on compositions based upon the subject of " Journey," specifically “The Argonautika”  and the mythic story of Jason and  his quest for the Golden Fleece.   It is an old, old, (really old), hero’s journey.  Older even than Homer’s Iliad, wherein the Argos and its’ many heroes are referred. Through millennium the Argosy and the Argonauts have become synonymous with adventure, discovery and in our present age name pervasive to every product and service one might imagine.  Just Google Argosy and you will currently see (about) 8,000,000 results.  I find that remarkable, daunting and relevant to why Jason's mythic quest is still potent.  “The Argonauticka” is a classic tale of betrayal, vengeance and like many Greek myths has a tragic ending.  It is a story of group dynamics (a crew of 50 heroes), about stretching geographical boundaries and like every important myth it also explores the very human behavioral aspects of quest and t

George Wright, sculpture and director of The Heron's Nest Gallery on Vashon Island invited me to create work for a self portrait exhibition at the gallery this month.  Above is my contribution, "Back to Back, They Faced Each Other" an 8 x10 x 2 inch Monotype print, portrait, mounted to a wood panel box. The show is quite fun and a bit of a challenge to identify fellow artists and friends. Here is a link to The Heron’s Nest .  Stop by when you have a chance.

Morning, Monotype/Collage 26"x 20" Robi King Galleries on Bainbridge Island has selected  Americana as subject and tittle for its' July Exhibition.  Above and below are three Monotype/Collages that will be my contribution to the exhibit.  
Each image was created with 40‘s family ephemera; cards and letters from my Aunts, Grandmother and Great Grandmother, written to and about my brother Harvey in the late 1940‘s and are the foundation imagery for my Monotype print process.  Americana will be on display from July 1-30, 2011. Noon, Monotype/Collage 26"x 20" Night, Monotype/Collage 26"x 20"

In May Valise Gallery on Vashon chose censorship as subject and invited the community to respond and participate in their exhibit titled “The Elephant in the Room.” It was an interesting and thought provoking show.  Here is the image I selected to exhibit and it’s written explanation as it appeared at Valise. Monotype/Collage 30 x 22.5 in. After 9-11 and the subsequent lead up to the US invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq we were bombarded by euphemisms to sell and provide cover for war.  Preemptive War, promoting a war to prevent war is a good example, as is Collateral Damage, people killed in military actions who were not the intended target. How about Enhanced Interrogation? I mean torture.  This kind of verbal misdirection as practiced by Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Rice, besides being distortion of truth, lead to congressional censorship of individuals and of sovereign nations.  Hear Only, See Only, Speak Only Evil is a state

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.

In addition to the upcoming (May) Spring Vashon Artist Studio Tour I will also be showing on Bainbridge Island with Roby King Gallery in their Streets, Roads, Paths, group exhibition.  The exhibit opens Friday May 6 and runs through the 28th.  New work I have created for this show expresses my pleasure in a daily routine; walking the dog.  At right is my Monotype, The Aki Walk.  Aki is my 15 month old Shiba Inu and with the advent of Spring the walk for her has become all about chasing Robins.  Bless whoever invented those spring loaded, self retracting dog leads! The format, technique and oblique perspective is intended to reference Japanese Art and Print.  Shiba Inu's are a Japanese dog breed. The Aki Walk is a Monotype Print with Gold Leaf and measures   24.25 x 7 in. 

T he Vashon Island Spring Studio Tour is on the horizon.  The first two weekends in May, 7-8 & 14-15, Vashon Artists open their studios for a public, self guided tour. For the first time this year I am on the Spring tour and even on the cover of the brochure. I have been printing and painting, even working on some garden art for this event and will be writing the next several blogs about the imagery I have created.  The image for the brochure (above) is called Nature's Priest.  Here is a link for the event and map of artists studios on the tour. Vashon Island Studio Tour Spring 2011.

The 10th annual Unclad Art show opens March 12 at Gallery by the Bay in Stanwood Washington  I am excited to participate again this year.  The show celebrates the nude in art by more than 90 artists from across North America.  The scope and scale of the art represented is a rare treat to see. A digital gallery of the work on exhibit may be found at Unclad 2011 as well as directions and a schedule of the many special events planed around the show. My Monotypes Gentle Bower, (above) and Centauromachy or Battle of the Centaurs, (below) are my contribution to Unclad 2011.  In the gallery gift shop I will also have 24 different card images and two smaller monotypes for sale.

O ne evening while the lovely Leda, Queen of Sparta, went about her bath, Zeus spied her from his perch on Mt. Olympus and was smitten, enamored, or at the very least, fell deeply in lust.  Libidinous Zeus then changed himself into a swan, a bird sacred to Aphrodite, and swept down from the heavens to join Leda in her watery ritual.   Artists through the ages have depicted this union in many, many ways, perhaps because this particular miracle is a challenge, but fun, to imagine.  My Monotype collage version of this amorous encounter depicts Leda as self aware but unaware and slippery Zeus as diminutive, not unlike a bath toy.  I guess I was thinking of soap on a rope.  Really, who could be afraid of that? This mythic union is very important because one of Leda’s children by The Swan is beautiful Helen. Helen’s abduction by Paris, a prince of Troy, will lead to the Trojan War and destruction of Troy, the death and memorialization of many heroes, set the stage for the future