Left of Center- GC Myers 2010
This is a piece from the show, New Days, at the West End Gallery. Its one of the pieces that are being called gray paintings, a series of pieces I have been recently doing in shades of black, white and gray with small touches of color. As I’m starting to prepare for my show in October at the Kada Gallery in Erie, I’ve began to ponder if and how I will incorporate this series into that show.
As with anyhting new that clicks with me, I want to run it out to see if I can expand it beyond what it starts as. For instance, I am really excited about the prospect of using this gray format in a much larger work comprised of a grid of many small individual cells each containing a simple landscape with perhaps one cell having a red tree. It would have a great graphic quality and the size and austerity would make the small slash of red pop out of the gray.
I’m thinking something like a 30″ by 30″ image. It would work on canvas or paper although I lean toward paper because with the graphic feel of the gray work I like having a mat forming a field of white around the image, something that makes the image stand out even more. It would be have either 25 or 30 individual cells, 5 or 6 cells across and 5 or 6 down. I’ve done a few, many years ago, that had 45 and 49 cells. I haven’t done anything like that in the past several years.
World Shifts-- GC Myers 2003
The other consideration is whether the cells will be very uniform with straight lines, each very much like the next. Or will it be more organic, with each cell very individual in shape and size. Here on the right is an example from several years back that has that naturally grown look, with barely anything in it that resembles a straight line. I like the look and feel of this but looking at it now, I think it is better suited to color.
But one never knows. Maybe I will try a small organic piece in the gray to get a better feel. Sometimes that first impression I form in my head is off a bit and when further examined, something that I didn’t foresee reveals itself. Sometimes for the better. Sometimes not.
This is as close to planning ahead as I often get with my work. I have a somewhat well-formed idea of what I want to see on the canvas or paper, know how I plan on painting it, know the subject matter– pretty know everything I need to jump in. The interesting thing is that something invariably happens that changes one of these factors and the piece transforms into something quite different that the one I have in my head now. Usually, it changes for the better, provided I let these changes emerge in an organic fashion, not forced. Occasionally the transformation doesn’t work and that is usually the result of a flaw in how I was seeing the painting in my head in the first place or if I try to resist obvious changes that are dictated by shifitng factors.
Hey, the worst thing I can do is think too much about this. Said too much already. Just give it a direction and let it go. That said, gotta run…
Redtree Times 