Brian Fisher Print, Paint and Sculpture Blog

It's a blue sky day!   Great weather for a drive and some island hopping.  That's what I am about to do because tonight is my opening at Roby King Galleries on Bainbridge Island.   Here is a link to the images I will be exhibiting.   Brian Fisher at Roby King Galleries I am very excited to be showing my Rust Monoprints and several new wall sculptures.  The sculptures are a bit of a twist to what I have been doing with steel,(rusting.)  Two of the sculptures are made from stainless and one of those combines stainless with carved and painted wood. It has been my intention to combine carved wood with cut steel and since the beginning of the year, sculpture, Elaine Hanowell has been teaching me to carve in wood.  She is a wonderful artist and teacher and I am grateful for her instruction.  "Okeanos," is the Titan who personified the world ocean encircling the "known world" in Greek Myth.  My wall sculpture "Okeanos," at right, is 47.5 x 24 x 4.

May 3 to June 1,  2013, Roby King Galleries of Bainbridge Island will exhibit the Paintings of Martha Brouwer and Rust Monoprints by Brian Fisher. Gull Descending, 18x11 in. I am honored to exhibit with Martha Brouwer and thank Andrea and Wes, the owners of Roby King Galleries, for the opportunity to exhibit my new rust work. Martha describes her work:  "My design skills and my interest in patterns and textures are reflected in my approach. I enjoy layering different media to accomplish depth of tone and meaning."  When thinking of her subject she says: "My paintings celebrate the interconnected of all life -  the birds of the air, the fish of the sea, humans. These connections imply a responsibility for caring for each other and sharing the planet.”  www.marthabrouwer.com Sowing the Dragon's Teeth, 14x14 ln. I also embrace the importance of caring connection to the world around us and revere the human past that defines us.  Much of my imagery is

The Vashon Allied Arts retail gallery, the Heron's Nest, is reopening after an extensive remodel April 5th and on Vashon's First Friday Art Walk.  Earlier today I dropped off art and art cards. Here are some of my HepCat Club boxed  card sets they will be selling. The images were inspired by jazz and bebop musicians like Oscar Pettiford, Herbie Mann, Carlos "Patato" Valdes, Lester Young, and Joe "King" Oliver. I grew up listening to King Oliver.  My Grandpa Ed had a great Victrola in his billiard room.  While we grand kids abused his pool table we would listen to records like Wille, the Weeper.

This year I have been printing about, painting, carving and thinking about "center" as concept and source for imagery.  This is not a new subject for me to explore but a recognition that all of the stories I am drawn to, make art about, have at core the search for center.  Within mythic story, center is generally a tribally circumscribed place, a point of connection between sky and earth where cardinal directions meet.  Whether that center be Delphi or Delos, the Temple Mount or the Black Hills, it is the same symbolic center.  It might be called Omphalos or Axis Mundi, Bindu or Bethyle  but details and superficial observations aside it functions as the still point from which all objective reality is a manifestation. Spiritually it is the point we search from and for which we search. My image “Center” is a mixed media bas-relief, 13 x 10 in.

I just returned from a nice First Friday night out on Vashon.  Bergamot Studio's themed show is White on White this month and I was delighted to have three mixed media collages included in the exhibit.  Above and at center are "The Challenge," "Threshold Guardians" and "Center." Each represents an aspect of the Hero's Journey.

Dear friends, family and all of you that found your way to my studio for the first time on the Vashon Island 2012 Holiday Studio Tour, Thank You!  I always enjoy seeing everyone and this year so many new people found their way to my studio door.  Aki, our Shiba Inu, spends a lot of creative time with me.  This year she was the official, sometimes vocal, greeter of guests during the tour.  Typical of the breed, she has opinions about everything and everyone.  I know she enjoyed the tour as much as I did and is missing the attention.  Thanks so much and come again!

Weekend two of the Vashon Holiday Studio Tour promises to be a little drier.  We had a great first weekend in spite of the rain.  Thank you friends and patrons for stopping in to see what was new.  I had many questions about my new Rust Prints and rust process.  The photo below features a few of those.

Cabeiri Rites, Rust Print, 24 x 24 in. December 1-2 and 8-9 from 10am to 4 pm the artists of Vashon Island open their studio doors to share art and process with friends and patrons.  This year I am studio number 9 on the tour.  I always look forward to this event.  Here is a link to the Vashon Island Art Studio Tour Holiday 2012 lineup of studios. Cabeiri Rites is one of many new rust prints I will be showing for sale in addition to my other print, paint and assemblage work.

Daedalus and Icarus , Mono Print, 22 x 29.5 in. $900.  Ovid, Metamorphoses, VIII, translated by Frank Justus Miller ...Daedalus, hating Crete and his long exile, and longing to see his native land, was shut in by the sea. "Though he may block escape by land and water," he said, "yet the sky is open, and by that way I will go. Though Minos rules over all, he does not rule the air." So saying, he sets his mind at work upon unknown arts, and changes the laws of nature. For he lays feathers in order, beginning at the smallest, short next to long, so you would think they had grown on a slope. Just so the old-fashioned rustic pan-pipes with their unequal reeds rise one above another. Then he fastened the feathers together with twine and wax at the middle and bottom; and, thus arranged, he bent them with a gentle curve, so that they looked like real birds' wings. His son, Icarus, was standing by and, little knowing that he was handling his own peril, with gleef

Vashon Allied Arts’s monthly publication Island Arts selected my Rust Print, Triton , for the November cover and to represent our Journey exhibit currently at the Blue Heron Gallery! Triton, herald and son of Poseidon calmed storms and frightened the immortals when he blew upon the conch shell that was his symbol.   When the Argonauts found themselves lost in the deserts of Libya, blown inland by storm, Triton in the guise of an ordinary but incredibly strong man carried their ship Argo to the shores of Lake Tritonis.   Recognizing that the miraculous had taken place a sheep was offered as sacrificed by the Argonauts and Triton who had disappeared into the waters of the lake reappeared in his true form to accept their sacrifice and point them their way.   A favorite poem of my mothers was the Chambered Nautilus by Oliver Wendell Homes. It references Triton’s wreathed horn and I hear her voice when I read these final stanzas... Thanks for the heavenly message brought by the

Each month a small community of Vashon Island artists meet in one another's homes to feast, to converse about art and share where their creative paths have taken them since last they met.  The group has been meeting since 2005. In some measure each gathering represents the cycle that defines Journey.  The dinners have come to represent conclusions and beginnings, demarcations that round the individual's creative search for expression that is somehow more fully realized when shared within this community of friends.  In recognition of our shared paths, I am one of nine artists this show represents, we decided a year ago to create new work that would express our personal interpretation and exploration of Journey as subject.   On Tuesday, October 30 I will help gallery director for Vashon Allied Arts, Janice Mallman, hang and mount our show in the Blue Heron Gallery .  I have seen some of the work in progress but I anticipate the thrill of seeing th

Fall rains, or our seasonal wet, have finally arrived on Vashon Island and in the Pacific Northwest.  I have been thankful for our delayed Fall weather and the extended opportunity to work outside. Yesterday, though, the fantasy ended and my outside rusting process came to a close.  Here are a few images of me taking apart the process and revealing a rust plate and rusted image. This rust print is sourced in Apollonius of Rhodes description of The Harpies attacking King Phineus of Thrace, (Thrake.)  Phineus first traded his sight for foresight and was subsequently punished by Zeus for revealing too many secrets of the Olympian gods.  Zeus sent the Harpies to snatch any food set before Phineus and befoul any scraps left behind.  When Jason and the Argonauts befriended  Phineus the winged Boreades, Zetes and his brother Calais, gave chase.  They pursued The Harpies to the Strophades Islands where the goddess Iris directed them to turn back and leave the Harp