Brian Fisher Print, Paint and Sculpture Blog

The Vashon Heritage Museum has hosted the award winning exhibit "In and Out, Being LGBTQ on Vashon Island" since June of 2019.  Originally slated to run until March of 2020 it's been on exhibit until this week, September 6, 2021.   I'm honored to have been asked to create five window panels for the exhibit and be a part of the creative process envisioned by Deb Phillimore, Ellen Kritzman. Stephen Silha, Jesica De Wire, Bruce Haulman and the inspired advisory board they assembled. We all identify with the music of our time.  I asked friends to share the music they identified as significant in their lives, relationships and coming out story.  Their music inspired the monotype/collagraph prints with cut and printed wood sculpture that became the Let's All Dance window panels for the exhibit.  The panels were each 68 x 36 in. and titled (in the order above) Small Town Boy, The Band Played On, Let's All Dance, Anthem and Break Free. Here's a wonderful video and

  Mystras, an oil on canvas painting is my contribution to the 2021 Vashon Center for the Arts Gala Art Auction  at Vashon Center for the Arts Gallery. The auction begins First Friday, September 3, with hundreds of works generously donated by island artists, as well as dozens of unique one-of-a-kind experiences. Bidding will take place for three weeks from September 3 until September 24 and will close at the start of the Gala Livestream event at 7PM on September 24. All items will be featured online and in the VCA gallery. If you'd like to see the art in person, gallery hours are Wed thru Sun from 12-5PM. Mystras is named for the archaeological site and Byzantine city in the Peloponnese of modern Greece, where ruins of churches and palaces, houses, and bridges, were built on a steep mountain slope. Its ruins tell the story of a beautiful city that once flourished as the provincial capital of the Byzantine Despotate of Morea. Founded in 1248 by William II of Villehardouin, Frankish

My spin on Aesop's fable,  The Fox & Hare, (m onotype print, with 24k gold leaf), is one of my many fable based prints on exhibit in "On Being Human" at Roby King Gallery, 176 Winslow Way E. Bainbridge Island WA, September 3-26. So the story goes-   One warm afternoon Fox napped and woke on a sun soaked slope to find Hare watching her intently. “Why do you stare little friend?” Fox asked. "Are you really as cunning, as smart, as others say?” Hare asked.  Fox rolled on her back and thought for awhile before replying, “Perhaps I could show you just how cunning I am little friend? You are cordially invited for early dinner, where we shall continue this conversation. Come as you are, come now if you like?” So Hare, filled with curiosity, followed Fox home. Fox though, had nothing at home to eat except? Now Hare exclaimed, “I have learned too late that your cunning is not about intelligence but unjust trickery that would sacrifice the innocent to fill you own belly.”

My Monotype Print, A Decampment of Djinn will be in the Printmakers' Hand V Exhibit at Northwind Art Best Gallery in Port Townsend, WA September 2 - October 31.  Sponsored by Corvidae Press print collective of Port Townsend.  Artist, Marit Berg is the 2021 juror for this much-loved biennial show.  Here's a YouTube link to this wonderful exhibit.  

  Friends or Foes, my monotype print (1/1) with 24K gold, will exhibit in ”On Being Human”,  at   Roby King Gallery on Bainbridge Island, Sept. 3-26, 2021.   Although several of my prints in the "On Being Human" exhibit are my take on teaching fables attributed to Aesop, this monotype is more personal.  It's about those relationships that shape us because they are... challenging.  It also pays homage to truth as a bottom line we can agree or should agree to. Sometimes that challenging relationship is a close one and your friend is a friend because they tell the truth out of love for you.  Things you need to hear can still be difficult to hear, even from a friend!    Sometimes the relationship is less defined but you respect the other person's comments or actions because they act from integrity or... maybe they are relatives and believe wholeheartedly in what they share?  It would often seem that the more "stuck" we are, the more we are confused by other ways

Aletheia and the Bedtime Story, my monotype print (1/1), will exhibit in ”On Being Human”,  At Roby King Gallery on Bainbridge Island, Sept. 3-26, 2021.  Link here to the gallery and more of my work on display at Roby King. Myths and Fables are often read and told as entertainment, but as we know, the truth is in the telling and the power of truth, we hope, wins out.   My print is a bit of a visual pun on the name Aletheia, who was the Greek Goddess of truth, truth revealed, the naked truth… she is more familiar in Latin as Veritas.   Aesop, who’s teaching stories inspired my latest “fable” print series, tells two fables about the Goddess of Truth, Aletheia. In one, a man traveling in the wild discovers Aletheia living alone, far from civilization and asks her why she dwells in the wilderness.   She replies, “ Among the people of old, only a few told and repeated lies, but now those who lie exist throughout all of human society! ”   From this fable we learn that truth lives separate fr

Sting Like a Bee, monotype print with 24K gold, for the “On Being Human” exhibit at Roby King Gallery, September 3-26, 2021  Bees have existed for perhaps 130 million years. An estimated 65 million years ago some of them survived the meteor that struck earth, caused global temperatures to drop and brought the extinction of larger mammals. Some of those bees had already evolved a social lifestyle, like Apis mellifera Linnaeus, the western Honeybee. Along with hive mentality they also evolved a way to defend themselves, a sting. We, the descendants of smaller mammals who also survived destruction, are dependent for sustenance on pollinating bees.  My monotype print “Sting Like a Bee” depicts one of Aesop’s teaching fables that present flora and fauna as characters with human fallibilities. The Queen of the Bees could bear it no longer. Humans were forever plundering her hives of honey, so she decided to petition Zeus for justice and a means of defense. She gathered the sweetest of