May 8, 2020No Comments

Always a B-boy

In the fall of 2016, I decided to pay my hometown Portland, OR a visit for a b-boy battle. My close friend Ryan Bush reached out to see if I would be interested in doing some filming. He wanted to peek behind the curtain of breaking culture for he hadn’t experienced it before. Of course, I was honored and invited him along for the weekend. He shadowed me around town, filming every little detail of the experience. We also conducted a short interview where I nervously stumbled over my words to tell my story about how I became a b-boy and what it has done for me as a person. After this trip, I returned home and didn’t hear back about the project. 

In February of this year, I was deep into my thesis work at MICA where I’ve been creating a body of work around breaking culture. It was at this time that I received an email from Ryan saying he had something to share with me. To my surprise, he sent me this long-lost footage I nearly forgot about. What Ryan came up with was beautiful. He claimed it wasn’t his idea of perfect and that he had made countless iterations but never felt right about its release.

That was until he saw what I was doing with my design practice and the work I've been making for my thesis. What didn’t serve an immediate purpose at the time became a very meaningful story about how I ended up where I’m at. We decided that we would share the video at my thesis art opening which was sadly canceled due to the COVID-19. Although it never found its way to my show, I'm proud to finally release what I've titled “Always a B-boy”, a film by Ryan J. Bush. Ryan said it best, “this video is a time capsule for both of us; a marker of our developing skills as creative people and a reminder of our humble beginnings.”

February 20, 2020No Comments

The Butterfly Struggle

Hand painted butterfly illustrations by Bat Favitsou. Shoot him an email if you would like to purchase  bat.favitsou@gmail.com

If you aren’t struggling, you aren’t living. In May of 2020, I’ll be graduating from Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) with an MFA in Graphic Design. By all means, this experience has been a true test for me. Going back to school after working for a decade was no easy transition. Prior to grad school, my career was flourishing, I just got married, and I was in general pretty comfortable. A lot of opportunities were happening around me, and at times, it felt like going back to school was going to take me away from that.  My entrepreneurial spirit was telling me to keep rolling with my studio, but my mind was telling me I needed more. I had to push myself in the way that only school can push you—out of your comfort zone, into experimentation, books, and free from client objectives. Grad school was a risk, a struggle, and a financial burden. You’ve read in the news the stories of college debt, why would I put myself through that? 

The answer to me is simple—through difficulty comes ease. If you want to become the person you aim to be, you have to sacrifice. This sacrifice can be measured differently for every person. I recognize that grad school is a privilege not accessible to all so I feel very blessed to have had this experience. It’s something I never imagined myself capable of doing—it felt intangible. Without my wife, family, mentorship, and friends pushing me along the way, I would have never made the leap. All this to say, remember the value in the struggle. In the end, I'm better because I did this.

My mother-in-law sent me a story the other day that hit home. She’s always dropping these gems of wisdom on me—in fact she is one of the major reasons I decided to pursue an MFA. The story is called The Butterfly Struggle.

Here’s how it goes—

There was a little boy who loved caterpillars. One day he found one, took him home, and made a home for him. He watched this caterpillar every day making sure he had plenty of food and water.

One day the caterpillar started creating a cocoon… here he would go through a metamorphosis and become a butterfly. This was so exciting, the little boy couldn’t wait to see the butterfly!

One day it happened, a small hole appeared in the cocoon and the butterfly started to struggle to come out. The little boy was so excited! But then he noticed the butterfly was struggling so hard to get out and it looked like the butterfly wasn’t going to be able to break free!

The little boy was so worried for the butterfly that he decided he had to help. He quickly got a pair of scissors and snipped the cocoon to make the hole bigger and the butterfly quickly emerged!

But the butterfly had a swollen body and small shriveled wings. The little boy sat and watched the butterfly expecting that, at any moment, the wings would dry out, get bigger and expand to support the swollen body. 

But it never happened! 

The butterfly spent the rest of its life crawling around with a swollen body and shriveled wings.

It never was able to fly…

He then learned that the butterfly was supposed to struggle. In fact, the butterfly’s struggle to push its way through the tiny opening of the cocoon pushes the fluid out of its body and into its wings. Without the struggle, the butterfly would never, ever fly. The boy’s good intentions actually hurt the butterfly.

November 7, 2017Comments are off for this post.

A Day in the Clouds—Yosemite

This weekend, I went to Fresno for my friend’s wedding. Not knowing much about the place I started looking up Airbnb's quick to realize it’s best known as a destination for people looking to hit up Yosemite. Yosemite was instrumental to the development of the national park concept and has been on my bucket list of places to visit since I developed an appreciation for conservation and nature.

My trip only allowed for one day of hiking so I did my best to take full advantage of it. I woke up just before sunrise, packed my bag with some snickers, water, bananas and hopped into my rental car. It was about a two-hour drive to the heart of the Yosemite Valley. The drive was beautiful with plenty of places to pull over and snap photos.

The best spot I found to pull over was at Tunnel View. From here you can see El Capitan and Bridalveil Fall rising from Yosemite Valley, with Half Dome in the background. This viewpoint is at the east end of the Wawona Tunnel along the Wawona Road (Highway 41). As you can see in the photos below, precipitation was in the forecast which didn’t bother me. In fact, it made me even more excited. Growing up trekking around the woods in Oregon, I have an appreciation for the rain. To me, it adds to the overall experience. If only I could bottle the scent of a rainy day in the woods and sell it. I’d call it Natural Elements™ by Fisk.

I’ve seen a million pictures of half dome and El Cap and most of them are on clear sunny days. With that in mind, I was very excited to arrive at this situation. Clouds were interacting with the iconic features of the park providing depth and bringing areas of visual interest forward that I imagine wouldn’t be noticeable on a bright sunny day. It was like every second I was looking at something new and exciting. After about an hour of staring at clouds (this guy), I decided I’d better get going, I did have some hiking to do after all.

The trail I decided to take is one of the most frequented trails in the park called Mist Trail. It was rated Medium, but bordering strenuous. I vote more on the side of strenuous considering it’s basically walking up stairs cut into the Cliffside for a few hours straight—felt great though! In total, I spent about 10 hours hiking, documenting, eating bananas and losing my mind!

Nature provides the best symmetry and balance and even though I only had one day to hike, I managed to leave feeling refreshed and inspired. I am already eager to get back, however, maybe next time I can trad climb some mountains rather than look at them from a distance.

September 12, 2017No Comments

Morocco

I've been floating on a cloud the past couple weeks and I'm feeling like it will never precipitate. On August 26th, I got married to the greatest person I've ever met on this planet. The wedding was way more than I could have ever dreamed of and I can't wait to share more about that later. For now, I wanted to post some photos that I took on our honeymoon in Morocco. The trip was inspiring, humbling, spiritual, and something I'll have in the back of my mind for the rest of my life. My favorite part about traveling is the space it opens in your mind. I always come back inspired and ready to keep creating.


If you're ever in Marrakech and need an excellent tour guide or personal shopper, be sure to contact my new self-proclaimed, aunt Khadija. She is an amazing person! Grateful to have been hosted by someone so helpful, connected, and knowledgeable about the culture and way of life in Marrakech.


Something I've never seen before—a lamb on a motorbike. Locals preparing for Eid al-Adha (Feast of the Sacrifice).


Khadija invited us to her home for Eid. Hands down, the best meal I've ever had!


Shout out to our driver for taking us to his home way up in the High Atlas Mountain range.

July 13, 2017Comments are off for this post.

Behind the Scenes

Had a photoshoot with my favorite client the other day (my fiancée). Managed to sneak in some behind the scenes photos of Kevin and Naimah in action! The highlight of the photoshoot—in my opinion—was when I decided to rent a u-haul that could act as a mobile changing room. I equipped it with a mirror, clothing rack, and of course a nice rug to make it feel homey. Doing street photography is always a bit tricky when it comes to showing multiple outfits and changes. This solved that problem completely!

October 27, 2016No Comments

The Environmentalist Poster

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Product Description

I'm so proud to present to you my first screen print for sale on my website.

I originally came up with this illustration back when I was designing for the DC Environmental Film Festival. The original poster was such a hit, I decided to make a T-shirt out of it. A few months later, it's back in poster form! This three color print was hand-pulled by myself at Workhorse Design Collective. You can either purchase this below or at the DC Design Week pop-up shop.

Product Details

- Printed on Sno Cone Pop-Tone 100lb French Pap- Limited print of 25
- Dimensions 12-1/2" X 19"
- 3-colors
- Minor imperfections due to process (I call them perfections)

Ordering Details

$30.00 - Shipping Included (U.S.A.)




F—S

For inquiries and information

© 2024 Fisk Studio

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