Brian Fisher Print, Paint and Sculpture Blog

The mythic Phoenix is a wonderful symbol of self renewal. There is ever only one Phoenix.  It leads a singular existence.  After living a long life, five hundred years, sustaining itself by eating frankincense and fragrant gums, it builds a funeral pyre  and self incinerates. The story of the Phoenix, it's long life, death in cleansing fire and rebirth from the ashes, appears in many cultures. Perhaps because it affirms a circular story of the individual soul’s regeneration. At left is my Rust Print “Phoenix” to be exhibited during the upcoming Vashon Studio Tour.   It is 30 x 20 in. and mounted to wood panel. “Let me not wander in a barren dream, But when I am consumed in the fire, Give me new Phoenix wings to fly at my desire.” John Keats

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/

My Rust Print “Jason” is intended  to represent a hero’s  journey.  Specifically it is meant to encapsulate the story of the Argonautika, the Quest for the Golden Fleece and introduce a series of prints made from rust whose subject is Journey. Not long after Jason’s birth the throne of his father Aeson, benevolent king of Iolcus, (Thessaly Greece today), was usurped by Pelias his tyrannical half brother.  Pelias threatened to kill any who might challenge his claim to the kingdom, so Jason was hidden and the story of his untimely death told to deceive Pelias.   Jason , (12 x 12 x 1.5 in.), is made by rusting a COR-TEN steel plate to muslin fabric, mounting that fabric to dimensional panel and then finishing it with acrylic and wax mediums.  Jason and four more Rust Prints from the Journey series will be exhibited in my studio, studio number 6, during the Spring 2012 Vashon Studio Tour.

I just finished this Monotype print called Coral Spring for the Vashon Island Spring Art Studio Tour .  As I was printing I kept looking out my studio window at the Coral Bark Maples that are still glowing though starting to loose their intense winter coral color.  I am thinking of making Ltd. edition digital reproductions from this image for sale in my studio during the tour.   Coral Spring is 12 x12 in.

The Spring 2012 Vashon Island Art Studio Tour Brochurs have arrived and the online Vashon Island Art Tour web link has been launched.  Thank you Sy and Ric of Novak Creative, Inc., and Jan Wall, our outstanding, indefatigable, indomitable, coordinator and leader of many, many successful Vashon Island Art Studio Tours.   Thank you everyone who have been involved in making the Vashon Island Art Tour- Beautiful! Findable!  Possible!  I hope that it is a successful Art Studio Tour for artists and patrons alike.  Preview it now!  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 ventriloquism Of sleep's faded papier-m

In our image obsessed culture the old, old story of Narcissus and the body beautiful is as new as another gorgeous photo, thank you Bruce Weber, for Abercrombie & Fitch's latest pitch to purchase.  To purchase what?     A reflection of beauty of course.  Made self aware by comparison and confounded by perfection we are all in love with surface but desire depth of being.   So the story of Narcissus forever resonates in the individual’s search for self.   At left is my new Monotype Print, Narcissus Reflected ,  (22 x 29.5 in.)  See it in my studio during the Spring Vashon Island Studio Tour. Here is Mr. Eliot's take on Narcissus, a poem of self awareness and metamorphosis, Cantacal V, Or- The Death of Saint Narcissus by T. S. Eliot He walked once between the sea and the high cliffs When the wind made him aware of his limbs smoothly passing each other And of his arms crossed over his breast. When he walked over the meadows He was s