Brian Fisher Print, Paint and Sculpture Blog

Last night Quartermaster Press Studio kicked off it's 25th Anniversary Celebration and retrospective exhibit with a talk by Valerie Willson.  She spoke about QMP's founding in a potting shed on Quartermaster Drive in 1993, the subsequent move to it's present location at Beall Greenhousese in 2010 and the studio's group history and the evolution of printmaking at Quartermaster Press.   Many of the founding members were present to hear Valerie briefly describe the experimentation and complexities of making fine art prints.  The Koch Gallery and Vashon Center for the Arts Lobby walls are filled with almost every kind of print process.  Valerie pointed out with explanation to examples of  etchings, viscosity monotypes, monoprints, collagraphs, linocuts,... and more! Co-curator Pat Churchill introducing Valerie Willson at QMP 25 opening April 6, 2018   Print enthusiasts and QMP fans listen to Valerie Willson speak at QMP 25 opening April 6, 2018 QMP 25 Spec

Vashon Island's print collective, Quartermaster Press, is celebrating it's 25th anniversary with an exhibition that features work by 31 past and current QMP members at Vashon Center for the Arts, April 6, 2018 through May 25, 2018. The first opening will begin at 5:30, April 6 when Valerie Willson will share QMP history and talk a little about print process.   More talks and demonstrations by QMP members are scheduled in April and May. The first demonstration will be about collagraphy on Saturday, April 14 at 1:30 when Brian Fisher will show how a collagraph plate is made, inked and printed. Below is "Persephone Cycle" a collagraph print, 17 1/2" x 17 1/2" by Brian.  It's one of many unique prints on display at VCA for your enjoyment.  Please join us for this visual celebration! "Persephone Cycle"  Collagraph print by Brian Fisher

Today the Quartermaster Press 25 Retrospective Exhibit, April 6 - May 25 at Vashon Center for the Arts Lobby and Koch Gallery really started coming together!  QMP printers, past and present, delivered work that will challenge and inspire viewers of this show.  Thank you QMP printers! Pat Churchill, Deborah Taylor and Devin Grimm, VCA gallery manager, received and documented what was coming in the door while Suzanne Moore and Brian Fisher began hanging "The Collectors' Wall" in the VCA lobby.  By the end of a long day everyone was involved with arranging, shifting and rearranging 39 framed prints to everyone's satisfaction, ( though tweaks to come are already anticipated)! Tomorrow the fun continues when we hang the Koch Gallery.  Here's a public preview of the Collectors' Wall.  How'd we do ? QMP 25 Collectors' Wall, Vashon Center for the Arts, Vashon Washington, 2018

Print artist Beth Dunn has been an intermittent and influential Quartermaster Press member since she first began printing at QMP in the late 1990’s.  When she gave her photo exposure machine to the Vashon Island print collective, she forever changed the equation of print variation at QMP. Below is Beth’s photo engraving “I Was of Three Minds Like the Blackbird” inspired by Wallace Stevens’s Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird . It will be one of many prints by QMP members exhibited on the “Collectors Wall” in the Lobby at Vashon Center for the Arts during the QMP 25 Retrospective Exhibit, April 6 through May 25, 2018. Photo Etching, Chine -collé by Beth Dunn from the collection of Brian Fisher Here is another from the ”Collectors Wall”, a collage created by Quartermaster Press artists in 2003.  It also contains a Stevens inspired compositional element by Beth Dunn. Monotype, Linocut, Photo Etching, Collage by QMP Artists from the c

Quartermaster Press celebrates it's 25th birthday!  The party and exhibit by past and current QMP printers begins April 6, 5:30 PM at Vashon Center for the Arts Koch Gallery.   Below is a publicity photo taken in 2010 at the original QMP studio just two years before it moved to its' new sunny and central Vashon address at the historic Beall Greenhouses, 18531 Beall Rd SW.  Left to right are members Edith Sehulster, Francesca Fuller, Beth Dunn, Suzanne Moore and Lisa Guy .  (Thank you Michael Rosenberg for our photo!) Below is the exhibition invitation that the 2010 publicity photo above was taken for.  A show about diversity in print process.  That's something that members of Vashon's print collective, Quartermaster Press have always pursued in real time!  Discovery as process!

QMP, Quartermaster Press, was founded in 1993 when artist Valerie Willson moved to Vashon Island Washington with a very large etching bed press. Valerie had commissioned Ray Trayle to build the press two years before.   Before his retirement, Ray worked for Archer Blower and Pipe for 32 years. However, he will forever be  remembered for the design and fabrication of 63 fine art etching presses that he built for the Northwest print community.  Because of this, in 1997, he was awarded the Oregon Governors Art Award and in 2002  became the inspiration for the Ray Trayle Print Prize . In this photo, courtesy of Jil Stenn, Ray Trayle is shown assembling the press he had made for Valerie Willson in Quartermaster Press's first cooperative studio.

Jil Stenn is passionate about landscape design and has built sustainable healthy gardens throughout the Puget Sound for the last 30 years.  She is also a founding member of Quartermaster Press.   In 1993, 25 years ago, Jil Stenn and Valerie Wilson, each new to Vashon Island life, crossed paths and discovered a shared artistic love for print making.  From this meeting the seeds of Vashon Islands's QMP print cooperative were sown. Jil printed at the QMP studio until 1995 and only left when her first child was born.  She actually gave birth just after attending Quartermaster Press's very first opening exhibition at The Blue Heron Gallery, what today is named Vashon Center for the Arts and Koch Gallery . Thank you Jill for sharing your love of print and this monotype, "Where's Waldo" for the QMP  25 Exhibition at the Vashon Center for the Arts, Lobby and Koch Gallery, April 6 - May 25, 2018. Where's Waldo , Monotype by Jil Stenn

Joan Wortis began printing at Quartermaster Press soon after she arrived on Vashon Island.  Her career and background before she came to print was in fiber arts.   She says that her experince at QMP has been the cornerstone of her working method of experimenting with combining monotype and collage and she has continued to do that through many different iterations for the last 20 plus years. Joan's wonderfully textural monotype collage "Whispered Secrets" 15 x 12 in. is one of the works showing at the Quartermaster Press 25 Retrospective Exhibition in the Koch Gallery at Vashon Center for the Arts April 6 - May 25, 2018. "Whispered Secrets" monotype collage by Joan Wortis

Quartermaster Press, the Vashon Island Print cooperative, celebrates its 25th anniversary with an exhibit of current and past work by members. Expect many talks and print demonstrations throughout the two months the show is hanging, April 6 - May 25.  Location and dates for events can be found at Vashon Center for the Arts Koch Gallery .  The opening is April 6, and first talk by Valerie Willson will be at 5:30 during Vashon's First Friday Art Walk.  Please join the celebration!   QMP current members 2018 gathered round the press from left to right are: Sue Hardy, Brian Fisher, Jayne Quig, Valerie Willson, Christina Nichols,  Patricia Churchill, Deborah Taylor, Suzanne Moore, Lisa Guy, Debi Shandling Crawford, and Katherine Tonnessen Quartermaster Press 2018

Marian Wachter will display several images in the Quartermaster Press 25 Retrospective Exhibition at Vashon Center for the Arts, April 6 - May 25, 2018.  Featured here is “Garden Symphony” a mixed media relief and intaglio print. 17 3/4 x 23 1/2 in. Marian’s work is beautiful, graphic and innovative. If you are a print artist looking at her work you will constantly be asking “What the, How the” questions?  Watching her hand print from carved leather-hard clay plates, for example, opened my eyes to yet another realm of printing possibilities.  She experimented with collagraph, printed in relief and intaglio, relief printing using wood, linoleum and un-fired clay. All her prints were layered with these and other techniques and frequently finished with collaged elements, photo transfer or drawing/painting directly on the prints.  Garden Symphony, mixed media relief and intaglio print by Marian Wachter  

Jenn Reidel's photo etching "She placed her ghosts in the bath in an effort to clean up her past." will be on display during the Quartermaster Press 25 Retrospective Exhibition at Vashon Center for the Arts , April 6 - May 25, 2018.   Jenn is a conceptual artist whose narrative work combines her favorite mediums of photography, performance, printmaking and writing.   She joined Quartermaster Press in 2004 and created two series, which were exhibited at Gallery 070, "Ghosts in Love" (2004) and "A Fury Tale" (2006).  She printed the images first as fine art black and white photos in a traditional darkroom and then used a photo-etching process to mimic 19th century photogravures. She transferred the photographic image onto a copperplate and printed them by hand at Quartermaster Press. "She placed her ghosts in the bath in an effort to clean up her past." Photo Etching by Jenn Reidel  

This wonderful viscosity monotype, "Sunday is Wash Day" by Laura Davidheiser will be on display during the Quartermaster Press 25 Retrospective Exhibition at Vashon Center for the Arts, April 6 - May 25, 2018.   Laura was an accomplished artist. Her prints, containing a common theme of flight, were selected to show in numerous international, regional and juried exhibitions throughout the United States in her lifetime. Laura was a master of viscosity monotype.  She used stiff dry ink (high viscosity) and oily loose ink (low viscosity) to resist and blend with each other.  If I remember correctly she typically painted with low viscosity {the bright and various colors in the print below) onto her Plexiglas plate and then rolled the high viscosity ( dark red) ink on top of one another. This beautiful monotype print took planning, hours of painting and like every print process...thinking backwards! Thank you Don and Betty Olson for sharing this print with the QMP 25 show