Redtree Times

Last week, a friend forwarded me a link to an online article from the December 21st edition of a  Greensboro, NC newspaper,The Rhinoceros Times.  It was from a column called Uncle Orson Reviews Everything and in this particular column, Uncle Orson took on a variety of subjects including flash mobs, Andy Serkis ( the actor who portrayed Gollum in the Lord of the Rings films) and a book from Stephen Greenblatt,  The Swerve: How the World Became Modern.  He then went into a description of the shopping district of Alexandria, VA from a recent visit that included a visit to the Principle Gallery.  He writes:

I’ll confess that I spend my longest visit in Principle Gallery, which specializes in one of my favorite genres of art – hyper-realism and abstracted realism. My wife and I visited once before and fell in love with the art of GC Myers, a painter of symbolic landscapes with a bold earthtone palette.

A piece of his has stood now for years above the fireplace in our family room, where it is the focal point as you walk down the hall. It’s a place of honor – and we can’t bear to rotate any other piece in to replace it, even temporarily.

Myers makes it a point to keep his originals low-priced enough that regular people can afford them, though this means he must paint many of them! He’s a hard-working artist – but with a powerful vision, and art that rewards long contemplation.

He goes on to write about his admiration for the gallery and its many other extremely talented artist.  Needless to say, I was surprised and pleased at being the subject of his words, even the fact that he took notice of my desire to keep my work accessible to people of most income levels, a subject  I will talk in greater depth about in a later post.  I wondered who this Uncle Orson was and going back to the top of the page located a photo that I had missed earlier with the words By Orson Scott Card underneath. 

Orson Scott Card, it turns out, is an extraordinarily famous writer who has written over 60 books in several genres but is best known for his landmark science-fiction series that begins with Ender’s Game, a book that  won both the Hugo and Nebula Awards and came in third in a poll from NPR for the Top 100 Science-Fiction and Fantasy Books, with only Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings snd Douglas Adam’s The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy finishing above it.  Ender’s Game is currently in production for a long awaited film version,  to be released in 2013.

Now I must confess, I had no idea who Orson Scott Card was beforehand or the extent of his notoriety.  While I was an avid sci-fi and fantasy reader in my younger days, it was about the time that Ender’s Game came out that I lost track of the genres.  It wasn’t until I was at a family get-together a few days after Christmas that I realized how well known he was.  When I mentioned this Rhino Times article and said it was by the man who wrote Ender’s Game, my two nephews, both intheir 30’s now, were pretty excited as it had been a pretty big book in their lives.

 Even my sister, coming from the kitchen, asked, ” Orson Scott Card has one of your paintings? Well, my estimation of your work has just went up!”  It seems she had read it as well. 

As I have said here before, I am unaware of many things in this world.  So, Uncle Orson, excuse me for not knowing your work before this and thank you for your kind words in your article.  They are most appreciated and I am honored to have a painting in a place of honor in your home and hope it continues to give you enjoyment for many years to come.

And I will be reading Ender’s Game soon.