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The West Wind, Zephyrus

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"The West Wind"  Monotype Print with 24 k gold leaf by Brian Fisher, Image 14x14 in. Zephyrus was one of the four Anemoi, (Wind-Gods) representing the cardinal points of the compass.  A son of Titans Astraeus and Eos, Zephyrus personified the West Wind.  His brothers were Boreas, the North Wind, Notus, the South Wind, and Eurus, the East wind. In ancient Greece the West Wind, Zephyrus, was thought to live in a cave on Mount Haimos, (Balkan Mountains) in Thrace.  He was worshiped as the gentle and fertile harbinger of Spring. My Aunt Fern first told me of Zephyrus when I was 12 as we traveled West aboard the California Zephyr, the scenic and historic passenger train, named for him, that ran between Chicago, Illinois and Oakland, California via Omaha, Denver, Salt Lake City, and Reno Nevada. My monotype print “The West Wind” will be exhibited for sale during the 2018 Vashon Art Studio Holiday Tour, Saturdays & Sundays, December 1-2

Quartermaster Press at Tacoma Art Museum

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Pics from QMP artists Collography demonstration. PRESSING FORWARD – Layered Perspectives in Printmaking, the Quartermaster Press Exhibit at Tacoma Art Museum’s Cheney Classroom that opened July 11 is still on exhibit until September 27, 2018. Eight Quartermaster Press artists accepted the challenge to create new work inspired by the Tacoma Art Museum's print collection.  The resulting exhibit is a spectrum of print process with etchings, linocuts, collagraphs, and monotypes and is as visually complex and compelling as the work that was it's inspirational source. Artists Patricia Churchill, Debi Shandling Crawford, Brian Fisher, Sue Hardy, Suzanne Moore, Christina Nichols, Jayne Quig and Deborah Taylor originally worked from online images to create their prints.  In mid July they were able to see the original artwork that initially inspired them. QMP members have also demonstrated collography and monotype print process during the course of the exhibit.  Above and be

Catch Us While You Can

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Brian Fisher, "Summer of '84, Babylon Beach NY", Oil on panel, 24 x 24 in. “Festival 25, Catch Us While You Can”, a month-long celebration of visual artists and musicians who have shaped Vashon island’s cultural landscape for 25 years or more, opens Friday, Sept. 7 at 6 PM. The festival is hosted by Open Space, sponsored by VIVA, Vashon Events, and 4Culture.   Envisioned and curated by artist and arts advocate Christine Beck, Festival 25 embodies the wealth of creativity that is foundation to the artistic Vashon we know and love. Visual artists each selected a work from their creative past and a piece that is representative of what they are currently making. My oil on panel, “Summer of ’84”,  painted in 1989, is one image from the Dance of Death series I was working on when I moved to Vashon. Kat Eggleston, One More Mile, Portage Fill Big Band and Bob Krinsky perform for the opening. The party continues throughout the month with gallery hours each weekend except Sep

Save the Last Dance for Me, the Red Shoes Show at VCA

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Save the Last Dance for Me Once upon a time “Red Shoes” were linked to status, wealth and power.  The cost of red dyes like cochineal, and madder , used to die cloth and leather, made them affordable only to the rich. Popes, Emperors and Kings wore red shoes to symbolize a divine right to rule.  By the late 18th century red shoes had become a sign of aspirational fashion for men and for women. When author Hans Christen Anderson published “The Red Shoes” in 1845 he linked Christian themes of sin, pride, disobedience and redemption to a Danish folk tale and red shoes took on a darker meaning.  His protagonist Karen and by extension women who wore red shoes, became cultural transgressors of the acceptable feminine norm.  Red shoes were recast as symbols of passion, as uncontrollable urges and in Anderson’s version, red shoes possessed a will of their own…to dance. The only way Karen could stop dancing was by having her feet and shoes removed by axe.   Since Anderson’s characterization,

"The Printmakers Hand IV" & "Pressing Forward"

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My monotype “Gemini” is exhibiting in "The Printmakers Hand IV" at Northwind Arts Center, 701 Water Street, Port Townsend Washington from July 5-29, 2018.  The exhibition is co-sponsored by Corvidae Press of Port Towndsend and juried by Bob Kochs of Augen Gallery in Portland, OR.  The opening reception and awards are on July 7, 5:30-8:00.  A talk by Bob Kochs is at 1:00 pm on July 8 at Northwind Arts Center.   It's a busy summer.  Jayne Quig, a fellow Quartermaster Press printer, and I recently hung QMP's exhibit "Pressing Forward" at the Tacoma Art Museum's Cheney class room, July 11- September 27, 2018.  The official opening is July 19 when I will also demonstrate a monotype/collagraphy process.   Below is my monotype print Gemini exhibiting in "The Printmakers Hand IV" at Northwind Gallery and my monotype King of the May showing with QMP at the Tacoma Art Museum. Brian Fisher Monotype Prints-   Gemini ,  22.5" x 15"  and

VIVA Garden Totems

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VIVA, the Vashon Island Visual Artists organization, will be selling Garden Totems during  Vashon's Strawberry Festival July 21-22.  Each one is unique and hand-crafted by Vashon Island artists. Proceeds go towards funding the new VIVA website.  The Totems will sell for $175. each. Below are my contributions, Byzantium and Susa, to the project.

Leo and Lang - QMP at Tacoma Art Museum

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Below are my new Leo and Lang images inspired by Karen Gantz's print in the Tacoma Art Museum collection.  Here is a link to Karen's "Puppet" . Quartermaster Press  studio will exhibit work in it's latest show- Pressing Forward , at the Tacoma Art Museum's Cheney class room July 11- September 27, 2018.  Each QMP member artist selected work from the permanent collection and created a new generation of prints in response to subject, image and/or print process.  What an exciting challenge! Brian Fisher,  "Love Puppets" and" The Dating Game", intaglio prints from the "Leo and Lang" series. The Intaglio prints I created in response to Karen Gantz's print, “Puppet", (which I read as role play), have become a personal print series exploring relationship and role play within relationship. "Love Puppets” and “The Dating Game” are visual moments in the tale of Leo and Lang, twin sons of different mothers who f

QMP - Pressing Forward - Maypole

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Below are two new images inspired by Doris Lee’s prints in the Tacoma Art Museum collection.  Quartermaster Press  studio will exhibit work in it's latest show Pressing Forward at the Tacoma Art Museum's Cheney class room July 11- September 27, 2018.  Each QMP member artist selected work from the permanent collection and created a new generation of prints in response to subject, image and/or print process.  It has been an exciting challenge! Doris Lee’s “Maypole" image might appear quaint, her pictorial approach intentionally naive, but the subject has as source an ancient fertility rite and I think her take on the subject a little subversive.  Here is a link to her print.  Maypole  I celebrate her vision and explore the mythic spring rite in “Beltane" (the anglicized name for the Gaelic May Day festival) and again in my monotype print version of “Maypole”.    Brian Fisher, "Maypole" Monotype Brian Fisher, "Beltane"  Monotype with

VIVA Studio Tour

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It's almost Mom Day and the second weekend of the VIVA Tour, May 12 &13.  Check out Brian Fisher Studio stop # 2.  Link to map here: http://vivartists.com/StudioTour/Spring2018/index.html

Brian Fisher Studio

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The Tour begins!  Brian Fisher Studio is stop #2 on VIVA Art Studio Tour.  Vashon Island Visual Artists invite you to participate, connect and interact when they throw open their studio doors in a sharing, showing, sales event the first two weekends of May,  5-6 and 12-13, 2018.   Here is a link to the studio tour map. VIVA STUDIO TOUR Brian Fisher Studio, 23520 147 AVE SW, Vashon Island WA, Tour stop #2, Spring 2018  

The River of Forgetting

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My monotype print, The River of Forgetting, like several prints on display in my studio during VIVA's Spring Studio Tour , is about a betwixt and between liminal state of being.  Lethe’s Temple, the Temple of Forgetting, has its foundations in a river.  In early Greek myth, Lethe was one of five rivers that flowed through the subterranean Kingdom of Hades.  Souls who passed into Hades had need to forget the suffering they had endured, or perhaps, the torment they had inflicted.  So, if a soul were ever to achieve peace and reincarnate, that soul would drink from Lethe, the River of Forgetting and be cleansed of memory.     The River of Forgetting, Monotype print with 24k gold leaf by Brian Fisher  (22 1/2 x 29 in. )

Satyr Play

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Check out Satyr Play during the VIVA Studio Tour, May 5-6 & 12-13 at Brian Fisher Studio, no. 2 on the Tour. Satyr Plays, a genre of ancient Greek drama, are named after the mythological satyrs who were half-goat, half-man, highly sexual creatures and often part of Dionysus' entourage. Dionysus, the god of wine and ecstasy (among other things), was considered by the Greeks as the patron of theatre.  A Satyr Play might itself be tragic, but the satyr chorus, with its irreverent outlook on life provided comedic relief and made the play more interesting and less somber than the tragedies that proceeded and followed it.   I designed the satyrs within my "Satyr Play" first as elements of a frieze beneath my studio's eves.  Until I find time to make that happen they will appear as monotype print imagery!  Satyr Play,  Monotype Print  (1/1)  by Brian Fisher,  7 x 29 1/2 in.