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Archive for August, 2009

Lightning Bolt

Posted in Favorite Things, Neat Stuff, tagged , on August 21, 2009| Leave a Comment »

Usain Bolt I have never ran fast, never had real speed at my beck and call.  In fact, I am downright slow.  But I can really appreciate seeing the true magnificence and beauty of  pure and simple raw speed.

This past week, at the World Championships for track and field in Berlin, Usain Bolt of Jamaica ran faster than anyone ever has before, shattering his own records in the 100 and 200 meter sprints.

Bolt is a marvel to see run.  He is very large, something in the range of 6′ 5″ tall, and when he unwinds those long, powerful legs, it is a thing of beauty.  It is all power and rhythm, channeled perfectly with little wasted effort to the track surface.  In fact, there is so little waste that he seems to move effortlessly, an incredible feat for someone running over 30 MPH.  His competitors seem to be expending twice as much energy yet are left far behind, 5 or 7 meters in his wake.

There is an artistic sense of perfection in his races.  Like looking at a painted masterpiece where there are no extraneous brushstrokes, each stroke having it’s necessary place.  Like watching a great film where there is no word of dialogue or movement that doesn’t move the story forward, doesn’t add something to the whole.  Like listening to a great piece of music, where one note more would destroy the entire structure of the composition.

It seems also that there is more to come from Bolt, that he still has more in reserve and that is, in itself, incredible.  I will be watching…

Here’s yesterday’s 200 meter race.  19.19 seconds…

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The New Labyrinth

Posted in Favorite Things, Recent Paintings, Technique/History, tagged on August 20, 2009| 7 Comments »

The New LabyrinthThis is a piece from early last year, titled The New Labyrinth.  I do several pieces of this nature every year and always count them among my favorites to perform.  They are done in a very free-form fashion, usually starting in one corner and allowed to build into the picture frame on its own accord, until I get the sense that I should stop.  As each new building is painted it creates new parameters for the next, new prompts for my eye.  As a result, the piece has a very organic feel for me. as though there has been a natural growth in the painting.

I particularly like this painting for this feel but maybe more so because of the use of similar, muted colors in the buildings.  There is almost a monochromatic feel to the piece that I find appealing especially in the context of the subject.  It harkens back to the days when I first started painting and would do exercises where I would paint scenes using only one color, only varying the shades of it to create depth and texture.  It was probably one of the most important lessons I learned and one that I urge all novice painters to try at least a few times.  Knowing how to create harmony within the confines of a single color is necessary if you ever hope to control a larger palette.

There is also a really nice natural rhythm that runs through this piece, giving me a sense of my normal landscapes.  This probably occurs because of the way I described how the painting is allowed to grow in an organic way.

It’s a piece that has visual interest in every bit of it which is something I strive for in all my work.  I would like to think that you could take a random fragment of any of my paintings and find something that catches your eye in it.

I keep a photo of The New Labyrinth on a bulletin board I keep in my studio and I look at it quite often, thinking that I really should paint in that way again soon.

Maybe I will…

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Love Power

Posted in Favorite Things, Video, tagged , , , , , on August 19, 2009| 4 Comments »

The Producers 1968There are different scenes in different movies that I’ve come to know when they fall in the film’s timeline, so much so that I will tune in at just the moment the scene I enjoy most appears.

One of my favorites is a scene from Mel Brooks’ The Producers, the 1968 original, not the newer and far inferior remake.  The original is a great piece of comedy with great performances from Zero Mostel, Gene Wilder, Kenneth Mars (all shown in the photo above) as well as the rest of the cast.

dick shawn as LSDBut the scene I tune in for, even if I don’t have time to watch the whole film, is the one where they are auditioning actors for the cast of their ill-fated Springtime For Hitler and Dick Shawn appears onstage as Lorenzo St. DuBois – LSD.

In his audition he does a great song, a very period piece, called Love Power backed by a female band reminiscent of Robert Palmer’s Addicted to Love.  Shawn’s delivery, costume and dance make me laugh every time I see it.

See if it does the same for you…

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Into the Vortex

Posted in Biographical, Recent Paintings, tagged , on August 18, 2009| Leave a Comment »

Vortex GC MyersThis is a new piece that I just finished.  I really don’t have a title for it as of yet and am still in the process of deciphering it for myself.

In the studio, this is a very striking painting but is probably a piece that won’t show up as well on the screen as it does in person, which is often the case with a lot of my work.  My photography of the work often doesn’t capture the sense of depth into the piece that I think is an important aspect of my paintings.  There is sometimes a flattening of the surface that just doesn’t translate the real feel of every piece.

One comment I hear quite often at openings is that the work is so much more impressive in person than in print or on a computer screen.  I don’t know if that is the result of of my capabilities as a photographer or if it has anything to do with the appearance of the work itself but it something I try to improve on an ongoing basis.

As for this painting, I am very much reminded by it of a dream I had about twelve years back that was both disturbing and exhilarating at once, one that is still vivid in memory.  It took place in a darkened space in what appeared to be a museum of some sort.  At a certain point I came to a  doorway at the center of the space.  I was warned not to enter it.  The person who warned me, who I couldn’t make out, called it the Van Gogh Spiral. As I entered, there were these bursts of rich colors that all came together in the form of a downward spiral, and I descended the spiral as one might go down a large spiral staircase.   As I came around the bend in each new layer, imagery would flash before my eyes becoming stranger and stranger the further I went, a sort of symbolic descent into some sort of madness, some nether region.   Without disclosing every detail of it, I can only say that it was a powerful dream which still lingers with me and I see parts of it in the  sky of  this painting.

That said, it makes my objectivity on this piece somewhat suspect.  I’ll probably spend a lot of time over the next few weeks with it visible to me in the studio, trying to determine if it works on its own for me or if it works only because of the personal information I see in it.  Maybe it doesn’t matter.

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Seeing August

Posted in Influences on August 17, 2009| Leave a Comment »

I shut my eyes in order to see.

-Paul Gauguin

Gauguin-Where

It’s August and I am beginning to feel the effects of this month as I do every year.  I often feel it as a turning point in my psychological year, as though it is the end of one cycle and the beginning of another.

I always find this a time of questioning, of doubt.  Usually a temporary withdrawal from the world.

It’s a hard thing to describe, especially with words.  Difficult enough with the implication of imagery.

Maybe that’s why I’m using Gauguin’s painting today, Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?,  an epic piece that deals with the very question of existence.  Maybe.  I don’t know.

The beauty of age is knowing that these August days are fleeting and simply a part of the deal, days to be endured and  days to simply close one’s eyes and see…

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Goin’ Home

Posted in Current Events, Favorite Things, Neat Stuff, tagged , , on August 16, 2009| 1 Comment »

Alvin LeeSunday morning and I’m up late.  Tired.  Not much working upstairs yet.

Since it is the 40th anniversary weekend for Woodstock I’m going to simply cruise today and show yet another clip of one of my favorite performances from that weekend back in 1969.  There were so many performances that stand out in thecollective memory that it’s hard to choose.  But this was my favorite when I was ten and I still snap to when I hear it.  It’s Goin’ Home from Alvin Lee of Ten Years After fame.  They were famous for I’d Love to Change the World, a great song that I’m still surprised to not hear as a remake, but never had the huge fame of many of the other acts from that show.

But on that August night they played this they really lit up the night…

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3 Days of Peace and Music

Posted in Current Events, Influences, tagged , , on August 15, 2009| 3 Comments »

woodstock  It’s been forty years.

Woodstock.

Saying the word Woodstock only means one thing to most people.  Three days in August that came to be a symbol of an era.

I can only imagine what an 18 year old kid today thinks when he hears the word Woodstock.  For today’s youth hearing someone talk about being at Woodstock would be like a kid in 1969 hearing their grandparents talk about something that happened in 1929.  It would seem like ancient history.

But Woodstock still has mythic appeal.  The musicians and performances were legendary, many like Jimi Hendrix’s Star Spangled Banner becoming cultural touchstones.  The sensation it caused in the media and throughout the country was huge and subsequent festivals to this day aspire for the effect that Woodstock produced, always coming up short.

I was too young for Woodstock, being only ten at the time.  But I remember the weekend and the news reports of the thruway being closed.  It really struck later when the film came out and for Christmas my brother got a new 8-track player (cutting edge at the time!) with the Woodstock soundtrack.  Christmas day was filled with Country Joe screaming  Give me an F! and my mother yelling at my brother to turn it off.  I must’ve listened to those big, clunky tapes a thousand times.

I don’t think they’ll ever replicate the way everything seemed to come together at Woodstock.  It’s almost like a piece of art in its entirety.  It could only be produced by that perfect blend of participants and the perfect moment.  A synchronicity of time and events.

It’s easy to make too much of something like Woodstock but for today I’ll just think about how the music from those three days still reverberate today.

It was hard to pick out something, one performance, that could singularly define this event .  There were so many.  So I went with this because every time I hear it vivid memories of those times pop up for me.  Here the aforementioned Country Joe McDonald singing his I Feel Like I’m Fixing to Die Rag.

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America’s Rome- Artists in the Eternal City 1800-1900

Posted in Favorite Things, tagged , , , on August 14, 2009| 4 Comments »

John Gadsby Chapman- Excavations on a Roman CampagnaI mentioned in a my post yesterday about my friend, Paul D’Ambrosio, and his new blog.  I spoke of his curatorship at the Fenimore Art Museum but failed to mention a new exhibit that he has put together, America’s Rome: Artists in the Eternal City 1800-1900.

The New York Times didn’t fail to mention it however, having a fine review in yesterday’s edition.

Many congratulations to Paul on his successful exhibit which will hang until the end of the year.  If you’re ever in the beautiful Cooperstown area, stop in and see a lovely town and a wonderful exhibit.

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The Duplicity of Outrage

Posted in Uncategorized on August 14, 2009| Leave a Comment »

Network - Howard BealeSometimes it feels like we’re all part of a huge movie satire being played out before our eyes.

Kind of like Network, the film from the 1970’s with newsman Howard Beale (played by Peter Finch) having periodic breakdowns on the tube as he stirs the fires of public outrage.

Sound familiar?

Well, our own Howard Beale, Glenn Beck, was featured in a segment last night on The Daily Show where they showed his recent rants on the healthcare crisis in our country.  They show him saying we were in danger of losing the best healthcare system in the world, that we had care second to none.

Okay.  

Now alone, his words and impassioned pleas that we must not move on reform might seem sensible- if that is what he truly believes.

But, as the piece shows, that may not really be the case.

Going back to just last year, 2008, Beck was shown in segments from his show decrying the state of our healthcare system after he had been in the hospital for some procedure.  He calls our healthcare system a “nightmare” and a “horror.”

Interesting.  If you want to watch the segment click on the picture of Howard Beale above.

Then there’s Newt Gingrich showing up everywhere, spouting that we are about to go down a slippery slope that ends with the euthanization of the old and feeble and begins with the inclusion of end-of-life planning in the healthcare proposal.  We’re talking about things like having a Living Will and things of that nature.

The funny thing is that Newt has been pretty adamant in his support of end-of-life planning, stating that it would save Medicare an incredible sum of money if all recipients simply took measures to prepare for end-of-life decisions. Blogger  Matt Taiibi outlines Newt’s duplicity in a recent blog. Check it out here.

So what causes these pushers of public outrage to suddenly reverse their thinking?  Has our healthcare system suddenly improved over the past several months?  Has making important decisions for the end of one’s life suddenly become too dangerous for us to consider?  Why this change?

I can bet it’s not for the good of the public they so feverishly incite.  It’s for their own selfish motives.  They are willing to do or say anything to further their own agendas and those who take their words and actions at face value without looking at what they have said or done in the past will probably get what they deserve.  

Which is more of the same.

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Russell’s Relics

Posted in Favorite Things, Neat Stuff, tagged , , , , , on August 13, 2009| 2 Comments »

Russell Schermer 55 MercedesI wrote in an earlier post about how I might proceed if I lost my ability to see which is the primary sense I use in my work.  I felt I would somehow move on in some form creatively.  I saw this fellow’s work yesterday and knew that  my assertions could be correct.

Above is a 1955 Mercedes made by Russell Schermer out in California.  Russell has been blind since birth and has been a fan of cars since he was a youth.  He has a collection of model cars that he replicates by feeling each detail then transferring it to clay.  The result is recognizable but it’s the wavering from exactitude that I find appealing.  It’s like seeing the car in a parallel universe, where lines and shapes are just not quite right but close enough to allow your mind to translate them fully.

RussellSchermerThere is an interesting sense of rightness in his work.  I get the feeling that I could be a claymation figure and could jump in any of these cars and go down the road as the dimensions of the car and everything around it were constantly shifting just a little bit.  

I think the imperfections in them are perfect expressions.  My hat is off to Russell for his work and for jumping over his obstacles.  Good work.  To see his website, Russell’s Relics, click on any of the cars shown here.  

Russell scherrmer 64 impalaI don’t know if Russell’s work qualifies as folk art but I have a longtime friend, Paul D’Ambrosio, that would know.  Paul has started a new blog, American Folk Art @ CGP, as a vehicle for discussion of folk art.  Paul is vice-president and curator of the New York State Historical Association (NYSHA), heading the Fenimore House Museum in Cooperstown.  He also teaches at the Cooperstown Graduate Program for museum studies.  So he knows a little bit about his field which is American folk art.  Anyway, if you’re interested in folk art please check out his blog.  I think you’ll find lots of info.

Russell Schermer

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