Brian Fisher Print, Paint and Sculpture Blog

I'm matting and framing today in preparation for the second weekend of the Vashon Island Art Studio Tour.  The first weekend was well attended with good sales!

Brian Fisher, Sacred Circles- Mallorica, Pazzi, York, digital collage The circle is said to represent wholeness, softness, completion, inclusion, the life cycle, heaven-hell and eternity. That’s a lot to embody for a seemingly simple shape! Circles are sacred symbols for a reason.  Circles are a natural, physical phenomena that best describe our round planet circling the light of a round, life-giving sun.  Earth’s cycle, as circle, occurs over, over and again in the myriad planet, star, relationships of our expanding universe.  Scientists who look at the spiral building blocks of nature, our DNA, find stacked interlocking circles. From the whorls of our fingertips, the irises of our eyes, to our cells and the egg that gave each of us life, we are manifestations of the circle. My images about circle reflect the symbolic nature of the shape.  Their names reference the sacred sites, temples, cathedrals that more often than not were built and built again upon already sacred sites.

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

Brian Fisher, "The Pull of the Earth" 84x60 in.  oil on canvas, 1985 Haikus on Gravity by Philip Hart For the weakest force, A simple poem form, for the Least understood force. The sun does not set, Leaving the world in darkness - The world turns away. To move forward, you Must lift yourself from the ground And let yourself fall.   Only the weakest Of the four forces directs The paths of the stars.   The moon falls earthward, The earth falls into the sun, And both keep missing.   Puffy, lazy clouds - Daring gravity to do Something about it.   Her body bends light, Pulls on the planets and stars - How should I resist?  I've been making images of Green Men and tree people for as long as I can remember, at least since I first read J. R. Tolkien's descriptions of Fangorn forest and it's tree shepherds.  This painting, The Pull of the Earth is from a series that explored relationship, desire and the mysterious force that is physical attraction.  If every o

My Green Man Albus Darach is a more traditional representation of the Green Man, or "foliate head” of the British Isles.  You may find Albus Darach in my Studio, no.16 with his Green Man collograph print siblings, during the Vashon Island Art Studio Tour, May 6-7 & 13-14, 2017. Darach is Gaelic for "Oak tree.” Around him you can see the leaves and acorns of the tree and rectangular portals representing passage, change or transformation.  The Oak is almost synonymous with strength, steadfastness and historically is associated with the sacred groves and forests of of the Druids. The Roman Gaius Plinius Caecilius Secundus lived in Gaul during the 1st century CE and wrote that Druid priests performed all their religious rites in Oak groves, where they gathered mistletoe from the trees with a golden sickle.  Dense forests of Oak covered most of Northern Europe at that time and the tree's human-like attributes of trunk/body, branches/arms, twigs/fingers, and sap/bloo

Katsura is my Green Man collograph named for the beautiful Katsura tree, native to China and  Japan.  Please visit Brian Fisher Studio and Katsura during the Vashon Island Art Studio Tour May 6,7-13-14. This Green Man is inspired by the mythic Japanese Kodama, spirit guardians and animated souls of the mountain forests of Japan.  Kodama spirits are revered by Japanese as gods and protectors  of trees. The Kodama bless the land around their forest with fertility.  The villagers who find Kodama inhabited trees designate them with sacred rope known as a Shimenawa.   Japan honors nature and these sacred Kodoma spirit trees are often found within the grounds of Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples.

Baobab is Africa's tree and also what I have named my Green Man collograph. Baobab trees are  indigenous to 31 African countries.  Because the Baobab has a fibrous bark  and has no tree rings, it’s not clear how long the tree lives, though experts say a Baobab may live for 500 years, others estimate as many as 2000! By any standard the Baobab is the living elder of plants on a continent which reveres elders. Many myths and legends are associated with the Baobab.  Stories of the mischievous spirits that reside within them were collected by  explorers of East and West Africa in the early twentieth century.  In the Northern Cape Province of South Africa some people still believe wood spirits inhabit the flowers of the Baobab and it's said that those who pick them will be eaten by lions! In many African communities the tree is recognized as a deity who has decided to live among humans. Village life and it's rituals are celebrated beneath it.  In Burkina Faso, a mournin