Brian Fisher Print, Paint and Sculpture Blog

This is my Green Man collograph, Bayani.  Visit him during the Vashon Island Art Studio Tour, the first two weekends in May 6-7 & 13-14, 2017. Banyani was inspired by a Philippine creation, vegetation/resurrection myth.  This story is interesting because it involves a combination of three gods to bring mankind into this world. One, Bathala, (caretaker of the earth), battles, kills and burns the second, his challenger, Ululant Kaluluwa, (sky serpent, orphaned spirit), befriends and loves the third, Galang Kaluluwa, (winged, wandering spirit).  Upon the peaceful death of and request by Galang Kaluluwa, Bathala buried Galang’s body where the serpent god Ululant Kaluluwa had once been killed and burned. From their common grave grew a tall tree with a large round nut, the coconut palm.  Its’ leaves looked like the wings of Galang Kaluluwa, but the trunk was sinuous like the the serpent Ulilang Kaluluwa. When Bathala husked the nut he found what looked like two eyes, a nose,

The mythic Green Man represents a union of humanity and the vegetative world.  He is the sacrificial human conduit and connection to the plant cycle of birth, reproduction, revitalization and resurrection. Known by many names, through time and a spectrum of cultures, including but not limited to: Dionysos, Orpheus, Osiris, Adonis, Cernnunos, Khidir etc… he is the god born to sacrifice and through his union with the goddess to be born again.   Historically, his seasonal incarnation was worshiped locally.   My print Atticus (man of Attica) celebrates the area of Greece that includes the region centered on the Attic peninsula that projects into the Agean Sea , encompass ing the city of Athens, capital of Greece.  Atticus is the first of many Collograph images I have made to celebrate The Green Man.

Artist Valerie Willson shared her approach to collograph in a couple wonderful workshops at Vashon's Quartermaster Press.  We attached thin materials like paper and cloth to plexiglass plates with gloss acrylic medium and created texture with modeling paste.  The result was a very sturdy collograph plate. Inspired by what I learned, I've been exploring the process in a series of prints about myth in nature.  Here is a drawing and collograph plate of "Atticus," from my Green Man series. Collagraph, collograph, no matter how you spell it, refers to a collage of materials glued to a substrate to create a printable plate.  Ink may be applied to the high surfaces of the plate with a brayer, like a relief print, or ink may be applied to the entire plate and then removed by wiping from the upper surfaces leaving ink between and around collage elements, resulting in an intaglio print.  I now employ both methods when making my own collographs.  Below is a detail that

Prints by Lynn McClain and Janice Campbell Ilse Reimnitz and I teach a monotype workshop one or two times a year.  It is always fun to share this print process with others and spend creative time with Ilse.  Above and below are a few examples from our April 2017 workshop.   Each was made using oil base etching inks over a smooth plexiglass plate and printed in layers with a Takach etching press. Prints by John Riley and Lou McBride

"Byzantium"  Oil on canvas,  15 3/4 x 39 3/4 in. My painting takes it’s name f ro m the ancient city of Byzantium, at the confluence of trade between the Aegean and Black Sea, founded in 667 by Byzas of Megara, Greece.  It would in the course of history become Constantinople, (324 AD), the Eastern capitol of the Christian, Roman Empire and eventually the seat of the Muslim, Ottoman Caliphate, (1453 AD). Today it is called Istanbul and a remarkable city that is representative of what is past, passing and to come. This painting is inspired by Yeats vision of a layered but fixed world that is artificial, unchanging, where ornament or object are perhaps the ideal incarnation of the soul.  These lines from his poem “Sailing to Byzantium”, in particular, are a reference for my painting “Byzantium”. Once out of nature I shall never take My bodily form from any natural thing, But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make Of hammered gold and gold enameling To keep a dr

Above is my Collograph about the myth of Persephone and Demeter, named “The Persephone Cycle.” Image size, 18x18 in.  It’s on display at Hinge Gallery  in March, April  during the Quartermaster Press Print Show:  Life-Cycle  and during the "Vashon Island Art Studio Tour" at Brian Fisher Studio, map #16. Part 1: The Myth of Persephone and Demeter    Persephone was the daughter of Demeter, Goddess of fertility, harvests, and perhaps the earliest version of a Great Earth Goddess except for Rhea, her own mother.  Beautiful, virginal, Persephone was Demeter’s daughter by Zeus and the maternal focus of her life. Hades, Persephone’s uncle, fell in love with his young niece and decided that he would have Persephone for his bride but knew that Demeter would never approve of such an arrangement.  So, Hades colluded with Zeus, her father, his brother, who agreed to a secret “union” and to his plans for Persephone’s abduction. One day Persephone w

Left: Plate for Persephone cycle series of prints  Right: "Persephone Cycle II" Part 2: The Myth of Persephone and Demeter When Zeus could no longer ignore the suffering of mankind.  He sent Hermes as emissary to negotiate Persephone’s return to her mother.  Hades reluctantly agreed to her release and in parting gave Persephone, who had eaten nothing since her abduction, a pomegranate.  This apparent act of kindness was instead a deception and curse.  Anyone who eats the food of Hades must remain in his realm.  Persephone ate only a few seeds but that was enough for Hades to make the legitimate claim that she must remain with him. Finally, Rhea, the mother of Zeus, Demeter and Hades, proposed a compromise. Persephone would have to stay with Hades in the Underworld for six months each year. The rest of the year, she would be allowed to ascend to Earth and live with her mother.  Hades would have Persephone as a consort and Demeter