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VIVA Garden Totems, Vashon Strawberry Festival 2019

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VIVA, Vashon Island's Visual Artists organization, will be selling Garden Totems during  Vashon's Strawberry Festival this Saturday, Sunday July 20-2i1, 2019! Each one is unique and hand-crafted by Vashon Island artists. Proceeds go towards funding organizational projects, functions and VIVA Scholarships.  The Totems will sell for $175. each. Below is my contribution, Byzantium in Red! Come looks us over and check out our raffle too, booth A-19!  

Night Out at "In and Out, Being LGBTQ on Vashon Island"

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I am posting a few images from the Vashon Heritage Museum's opening of "In and Out, Being LGBTQ on Vashon Island", June 7, 2019!  The exhibit will run though March of 2020. Deb Phillimore, Ellen Kritsman. Stephen Sila, Jesica De Wire, Bruce Haulman and the inspired advisory board they assembled have created a very special and colorful exhibit. Here are some photos from the opening night - wall to wall people having fun, celebrating Vashon Island and the many worlds that collide to make this island truly unique! Thank you Stephen Sila for inviting me to create the print and sculpture window installations for this Vashon Heritage Museum exhibition and to be a part of this celebration!  

Ninmah, "The Mother"

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June, 2019, VIVA presents an all member show at the Hardware Store Restaurant , Vashon, WA.  Opening night- June 7th from 6-9 pm.  My mixed media rust print image in this venue is Ninmah, “The Mother” from my series about Babylonian sky maps.  Ninmah had many names, as old gods and goddesses often do.  Some of her names are Ninmah, (Great Queen), Nintu, (Lady of Birth), Mamma or Mami, (Mother) and Aruru (Lady of the Gods).  

VIVA 2019 Spring Art Tour

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Vashon artists participating in the 2019 Spring VIVA Studio Tour are prepping their art studios and finishing work to sell Sat-Sun, May 4-5 & 11-12, 2019 from 10am-5pm.  If you live on Vashon this event is free!  If not, for the price of a ferryboat ticket, you will find 33 studios and galleries displaying inspiring work from over 100 Vashon Island artists.  This year Brian Fisher Studio is #16. Link to the VIVA art map and preview all the studios you will want to see. Above is Notre Dame, 1/12, an original digital print from my growing series exploring sacred place and circle.

In and Out "Anthem"

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On June 7, 2019 the Vashon Island Heritage Museum will open IN AND OUT: Being LGBTQ 🏳️‍🌈 on Vashon Island.   The exhibit is interactive and collaborative with a series of programs that examine and celebrate the long, quiet history of LGBTQ+ people of Vashon-Maury Island.  Stephen Sila and Ellen Kritzman are co-curators of this wonderful show and I'm honored to have been asked to be part of it. You might like to participate as a patron of this historic exhibition here- GoFundMe. I have been working this past week at the studio of my generous and talented friends Ilse and Hartmut Reimnitz.  They are both busy finishing artwork for the all island VIVA Studio Tour, May 4-5 & 11-12. I thank them for making room for me to work on the 10+, 25 x 37 in. images that are my contribution to "In and Out".    Above are details from Anthem , two large collagraph/monotype prints.  Anthem is my take on songs of pride, self discovery and empowerment that gay friends
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Klew, Brian Fisher, monotype print, 9 x 22 in. “Klew” my monotype print (1/1) will be on display, #16 on the VIVA Studio Tour , May 4-5 & 11-12.  Please stop by to say hi and see what I’ve been up to.  A clue is a way of finding our path out of a perplexing matter or metaphorical labyrinth.  The word and its meaning began as Klew, a ball of thread.   If you have ever said, “I don’t have a clue” you were referencing the myth of Ariadne, Theseus, the Minotaur and the Labyrinth. Ariadne was a princess of Minoan Crete and half sister to the Minotaur.  When Theseus, prince and hero of Athens arrived on the island of Crete as sacrificial tribute to King Minos and his step son the Minotaur, Ariadne fell in love with him.  She gave Theseus a ball of thread that he unwound behind him as he searched the labyrinth to find and destroy the Minotaur.  Deed done he rewound the thread and retraced his steps.

IN AND OUT: Being LBGTQ on Vashon Island

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Collagraph lacquer print plate detail from "Anthem" in Let's All Dance series On June 7, 2019 the Vashon Island Heritage Museum will open IN AND OUT: Being LGBTQ 🏳️‍🌈 on Vashon Island.  IN And Out will be an interactive, collaborative exhibit and series of programs that examine and celebrate the long, quiet history of LGBTQ+ people of Vashon-Maury Island. According to the last US census, Vashon-Maury Island reported the greatest per capita population of Gays and Lesbians in Washington State. You might like to participate as a patron of this historic exhibition here- GoFundMe. My contribution to IN AND OUT will be 5 double panel collagraphs printed over monotype backgrounds.  Each set of prints will also have a unique sculptural, dance as subject element.  I call this series of song sourced images "Let's All Dance".
  
A song is a personal experience.  It may evoke the emotional poignancy or elation of a defining moment.  The same song might also b

The Temple of the Winds

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The Temple of the Winds, monotype print 1/1, Brian Fisher Not so very long ago humans anthropomorphized and deified elements of nature.  Would that we still respected and recognized our symbiotic relationship to nature instead of attempting to monetize our very existence.  The “answer my friend” to climate change depends on you and me.  Elect representatives to government that will affect responsible climate policy. Please. My monotype print “Temple of the Winds” has its inspiration in the myths of the Anemia, the four winds and their children associated with Earth's cycle of seasons and once worshiped as: Boreas the North-Wind, Zephyrus the West-Wind, Notus the South-Wind, and Eurus the East-wind. You can check out my monotype print, “The Temple of the Winds”, Studio #21, during the VIVA, Holiday Studio Tour.  This Vashon art studio tour is self guided with 38 studios & galleries, featuring 115 local artists.  December 1-2 & 8-9, 10

The Bull of Heaven

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The Bull of Heaven,  monotype print, Brian Fisher Taurus is perhaps the most prominent constellation in the northern hemisphere’s winter sky. One of the oldest described constellations, dating at least from the early Bronze Age when it marked the location of the Sun during the spring equinox, Taurus is symbol for the bull in the oldest mythologies of Sumer/Babylon, Egypt, India, Minoan Crete and Greece. Wild bulls of Europe and Asia were huge, possibly as large as 6 feet at the shoulder, Whether referenced in visual art or described in writing the bull was venerated as the embodiment of supernatural strength and virility. In the Epic of Gilgamesh, the hero Gilgamesh angered Innana, (Sumerian Goddess of love, sex war, and… justice) with his refusal to be her mate.  So spurned, she called down “The Bull of Heaven” to destroy Gilgamesh, Uruk his city, drink up all the water, devour the pasture and strip the land bare. The hero Gilgamesh and his best bro, the wild

The River of Forgetting

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The River of Forgetting, Monotype print with 24k gold leaf by Brian Fisher  (22 1/2 x 29 in. ) 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.    My original print, "The River of Forgetting" will be on display during the VIVA Holiday Art Studio Tour, the first two weekends in December 1-2 & 8-9, Saturday & Sunday from 10am-4pm.  Maps are available at Vashon Island businesses and online at VIVArtists .

Enkidu

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Enkidu, mixed media monotype print on vintage linen over panel, Brian Fisher “Dat ain't a mythic memory of pre-civilized humanity, dat's a song!” Jimmy Durante sings Inkydo! When Enkidu was a living myth, he and his best bro Gilgamesh were described and inscribed as cuneiform writing in clay.  Their story, The Epic of Gilgamesh, first written c. 2100 BCE recounts a king’s struggle with his fear of death, and his foolish quest for immortality. Enkidu was created by the gods as match, equal, companion and (thank the gods) solution to the extreme passions Gilgamesh exhibited as ruler of the Sumerian city-state, Uruk. Enkidu, a child of nature, roamed the plains of Mesopotamia (land between the rivers, modern Iraq).  His friends were beasts and he protected them by thwarting hunters and destroying their traps.  Gilgamesh eventually sends a priestess of Innana (goddes of love, sexual desire, fertility, war and justice), to tame him, resultin

Gilgamesh

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"Gilgamesh," mixed media rust print on vintage linen, Brian Fisher The Epic of Gilgamesh, regarded as the earliest surviving great work of literature,  is an ancient Sumerian poem describing the life and ambitions of Gilgamesh the demigod, hero and king of the Sumerian city-state of Uruk. The story first describes Gilgamesh as larger than life, beautiful to behold, with an expansive imagination and passions.  He’s the epitome of the civilized man.  He’s a builder, a dreamer but as it turns out, he’s also a despot. His abused and oppressed subjects pray to the gods for deliverance.  The gods respond by creating an opposite, a match, for Gilgamesh.  His name is Enkidu. He’s a natural, a wild man who's friends are the beasts of the wild.  They brawl when they meet but learn quickly to respect each other. It’s a twenty-seventh century B.C.E. bromance. With Enkidu’s tempering influence the great city of Uruk is finally ruled by a just and wise King.  Gilgamesh however is