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Archive for October, 2013

The Future and Imagination

Posted in Motivation, Opinion, tagged , , , , , , on October 19, 2013| 2 Comments »

Book LoveThis past week in The Guardian, there was a wonderful article that contains a lecture that author Neil Gaiman recently gave to The Reading Agency, a British organization devoted to promoting literacy.  Gaiman is an incredibly prolific author whose much celebrated work spans many genres.  He is best known for his comic book series, The Sandman, as well as the novels Coraline and Stardust, both of which were made into films.  This lecture is a wonderful argument for encouraging our children to read, to use their imagination and daydream.  I really suggest that anyone who has  kids or is interested in seeing the imagination flourish take a look at this article.

There are too many things to point out from this lecture, including the ability of reading to nurture empathy, but the one  that really struck home was his accounting of his trip to China.  This is what he said:

I was in China in 2007, at the first party-approved science fiction and fantasy convention in Chinese history. And at one point I took a top official aside and asked him Why? SF had been disapproved of for a long time. What had changed? 

It’s simple, he told me. The Chinese were brilliant at making things if other people brought them the plans. But they did not innovate and they did not invent. They did not imagine. So they sent a delegation to the US, to Apple, to Microsoft, to Google, and they asked the people there who were inventing the future about themselves. And they found that all of them had read science fiction when they were boys or girls.

Seriously, this article is good reading for anyone interested in bettering our humanity.  Click here to go to it now..

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The Upward Gaze

Posted in Painting, Quote, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , , on October 17, 2013| Leave a Comment »

GC Myers- The Upward Gaze smAstronomy compels the soul to look upwards and leads us from this world to another.
–Plato

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I have painted a couple of paintings this past year that have featured an observatory propped upon a hill.   I like the idea that this building has a shape and a location that instantly defines it, making it almost symbolic of the desire to transcend this world that it contains.  This desire to transcend, to know more, is built within us and we  seek these existential answers in many ways, sometimes in the stars and sometimes in the spiritual.  Others seek these answers in other worldly ways, either through love , pleasure or labor, among many other things.

These different ways of searching  are what I think is the central theme of this new new painting, The Upward Gaze, a 20″by 24″ canvas that is part of my November show, Alchemy, at the Kada Gallery.  The observatory is there resting high above the other buildings as it looks for the celestial answer: where have we come from?  Then there is the a church with a steeple that is pointing upward seeking an response from above to its question: where are we going?  On the lower left there is a barn among the fields which for me symbolizes the question: what is our purpose here?  The Red Roofs of all of the buildings here act as indicators, each pointing upward.

The road heads outward from this group of building, moving  toward and disappearing before  the horizon, over which an all-knowing  sun/moon hovers among a mosaic sky.  The soft,broken colors of the sky feel like light particles to me, the energy that propels this whole thing.

It’s a seemingly simple painting but I think there is much more to it…

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Shadowsong

Posted in Biographical, Favorite Things, Music, Video, tagged , , , , , on October 15, 2013| 2 Comments »

GC Myers- Shadowsong smWe are shaped by our thoughts; we become what we think. When the mind is pure, joy follows like a shadow that never leaves.

–Buddha

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It’s an idea that we all too often forget,  that our thoughts can form who we are.  I know for myself, the thought  that I was an artist was the most crucial step I made in becoming one.  Once I had made that decision that, yes, I was an artist, every decision  after that that contributed to me being an artist came much easier.  This was the road I was going to follow and any action that occurred would take place based on that fact.

But it took a long time to reach that point where I determined that I was indeed an artist.  In fact, for quite some time i was embarrassed to say it  when someone would ask what I did.  It just sounded too presumptuous to state it aloud even though in my mind it had become fact.  So I would say I was painter.  It sounded safer.

But inevitably, the person asking the question would determine that what I meant by painter was that I was a house painter and ask what it would cost to get their living room painted.  I guess I looked more  Sherwin Williams than Salvador Dali.  So I decided that I better just say that I was an artist.  Just less confusion and besides, that is what my mind  had already patterned itself in the shape of that word.

And, like Buddha said, joy followed.  Hopefully, it will stay with me like that shadow.

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The painting at the top is titled Shadowsong.  It’s a new piece, 6″ by 8″ on paper,  that is headed to Erie for my November show, Alchemy,  at the Kada Gallery.  Usually when I have an image of a musician, I will follow on the blog with a video.  So, in keeping with habit, here is The Train From Kansas City by Neko Case, a favorite of mine.  Plus , it has lots of film of trains.  have a great day.

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Berenice Abbott’s NY

Posted in Photography, tagged , , , , on October 13, 2013| 2 Comments »

Berenice Abbott Seventh Avenue Looking South from 35th Street 1935New York City has long been a boon for photographers, with its constantly changing landscape of dramatic architecture and melting pot of cultures.  There is always an interesting juxtaposition of the old and the new which makes for fascinating viewing.  I am often drawn to photos which play on this contrast and some of the best are the photos of the late photographer Berenice Abbott.

Abbott was born in Ohio in 1898  and made her way via NYC to the post-war Paris of 1920.  She studied sculpture there but came to photography when she was hired as a studio assistant to avant-garde artist/photography Man Ray.  He chose Abbott because she had no experience at all with photography so would therefore do just as said.  That decision changed her life as she took immediately to photography and never looked back.

Berenice Abbott -Exchange PlaceWhile visiting NY in the late 20’s, Abbott became  enchanted with the photographic possibilities of the fast evolution of the city and began work on a project of shooting the landscape of the city that lasted for several years.  The result was a book, Changing New York, published in 1939.  The images of the city shown  here are from this time.

Abbott had a long and productive career as a photographer, dying in Maine in 1991 at the age of 93.

I was really taken with her photos of NY, particularly the image at the top right, Seventh Avenue Looking South from 35th Street.  She captures the beautiful contrast of light and shadow that takes place among the tall buildings and long avenues in the late afternoon.  There is a hardness in the edges and angularity of the buildings that plays off the softness of the light.  Just a wonderful shot, as is this shot here on the left of Exchange Place.  Its unusual proportions with the the walls of the buildings closing in give it a claustrophobic feel while the ant-like people on the streets below accentuate the vast space.  It’s a great contrast that really makes the image sing.

If you like images of the changing urban landscape, especially in those fast evolving years of the early 20th century, do yourself a favor and Google Image the work/photos of Berenice Abbott.  Just plain good stuff from a name that you probably do not know.

Berenice Abbott- Nightview_ New York 1934Berenice-Abbott-Flatiron-Building,-Manhattan

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Hub

Posted in Painting, Technique/History, tagged , on October 11, 2013| 6 Comments »

GC Myers- Hub sm

This is a new painting, a 24″ by 36″ canvas, that is going to the Kada Gallery as part of my upcoming show, Alchemy.  Actually, it’s not a new painting.  Most of it was painted in 2009 and was shown for a short time before coming back to the studio, where it has been for the last three years.  It has been an enigma to me hanging on the wall there.  It has a real oomph to it, a visual wallop in the color and form,  but there was always something lacking.  I finally determined that it was just too dark through the center.  I had decided when I originally painted it that the darkness was where the piece was going and was integral to the painting.  So I stopped at a point when I should have been forging onward.

It was one of those cases where I misread the painting and what it was telling me.

So this week I finally took it down and went back in, bringing light to the central swath of the painting.  It created a huge change in the mood and impact of the painting, the Red Tree stepping forward from the shadow in which it was trapped for these years.  It finally became the painting I was thinking it was when I cut short its creation back in 2009.  It still has the darkness, mainly in the foreground, that I felt was integral to the painting’s impact but now, through the added light, it had greater depth into the scene.  Everything just stands out so much better.  The dynamism that I felt was there is now fully visible.

I’ve been fortunate that this doesn’t happen all too often, this misreading of one of my pieces.  But if it has to happen, it is so gratifying to be able to revisit the painting to rectify the situation and reveal the truth of the painting that I had overlooked.

Here is the “before” image:

GC Myers- Huboriginal

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So What

Posted in Music, Opinion, Video, tagged , , , , , , on October 10, 2013| Leave a Comment »

empathyAfter reading a recent Op-Ed piece in the NY Times from psychologist Daniel Goleman provocatively titled Rich People Just Care Less, which puts forward a theory that some of the problems caused by the growing inequality between the upper and lower classes may be the result of a lack of empathy by those in power, I was going to write once again about the the apparent empathy deficit in this world.  But this as far as I can go with it today.  It seems obvious to me that no amount of logic or evidence or words of shame can sway the actions of those lacking in empathy.  Need we  look any further for evidence than the current stalemate in Washington or the case now before the Supreme Court that will effectively take off all limits on campaign donations, further squelching the voice of the least powerful and most vulnerable?

No, I am not in the mood to go on with this today.  I throw up my hands and say “So what!”

Let’s listen to some music that fits the title.  Here’s one of my favorites, the great Chet Baker from 1964 with his version of the Miles Davis classic, So What.  Good music to chill to.

 

 

 

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Alchemy

Posted in Painting, Quote, tagged , , , , on October 8, 2013| 2 Comments »

GC Myers--Alchemy

“This is why alchemy exists,” the boy said. “So that everyone will search for his treasure, find it, and then want to be better than he was in his former life. Lead will play its role until the world has no further need for lead; and then lead will have to turn itself into gold.

That’s what alchemists do. They show that, when we strive to become better than we are, everything around us becomes better, too.”

— Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist

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I am currently getting ready for my final solo show of the year, this one at the Kada Gallery in Erie, PA, opening November 16th.  I am calling this show Alchemy, from the ancient and mysterious practice ( I use the word practice to describe it because I am not sure how to categorize it as it is not really a science as we know it) that is defined by its stated goals of turning base metals into gold or silver and creating an elixir that would give man’s life great longevity, possibly immortality.  Most of  us  likely think of it in terms of some wild-eyed scientist trying to find a way to transform lead into gold.

But at the heart of alchemy is the simple concept of the transformation of something ordinary into something more than it initially appears to be.  That really strikes home for me.  I have often written of  sometimes feeling surprised when I finish a piece, as though the end result, the sum of my painting, is often far more than what I have to personally offer in terms of talent or knowledge.  Like there is a force beyond me that is arranging these simple elements of this work into something that transcends the ordinariness of the subject or materials or the creator.  This feeling has remained a mystery to me for almost twenty years, driving me to write here in hopes of stumbling across words that would adequately describe this transformation of simple paint and paper into something that I sometimes barely recognize as being my own creation, so marked is the difference between the truth of the resulting work and my own truth.

Even as I write this, I can see that my words are inadequate to describe this vaporous process.  So I will stop here but will  attempt to better capture the mystery of this in the next several weeks in this blog.

The painting at the top is the title piece, Alchemy,  for the upcoming show.  It is 18″ by 48″ on canvas.  I wanted the painting that carried this title to have the things that I think make up this curious transformation– simplicity and symmetry and depth.  I think this painting captures these elements and even as I painted it, it started a transformation that continually surprised me.  I sit now  writing this and this painting sits on an easel in my studio and I am still surprised, even after all of these years, at what has emerged.

It must be alchemy…

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Stones

Posted in Favorite Things, tagged , on October 6, 2013| Leave a Comment »

StonesThere is a run-off creek that runs through our property, between our home  and my studio.  In the dryness of the summer and early fall,  it stops flowing or does so at a trickle which is how it it is at this time.  But  during rainy periods it flows steadily, pulling soil and stones down the hillside as it gouges the creek bed deeper and deeper.  This erosion constantly reveals new stones that are pulled from their ages old home beneath the ground and  deposited at the bottom of the hill where the terrain levels.

I like to walk up the creek bed and look at these new gifts, taking in the small bits of color that emerge from the overwhelming drabness of the gray of most of the stones.  A bit of red here, a little blue there and pinks and pale yellows thrown in.  Occasionally I will stop over a nondescript stone that just has a quality that makes me want to pick it up, feeling its weight in my hand.  These stones often have a wonderful balance that has been achieved from ages of rolling along creeks as they made their way here.  Sometimes there is the worn imprint of a fossil, evidence of some prehistoric life form.  Some have a very smooth and cool surface and some are rough and sandy.

There is a meditative quality in looking down at these stones, wondering at the eons old journeys that have taken place in order to bring these to this place and time.  Wondering what great force brought this strange mix of stones together.  In this area it was most likely the glaciers that formed our landscape, depositing scree as it moved along.

It makes me  wonder where their journey will end but it also makes me ponder the shortness of our own time here.  These stones are of the ages, having witnessed all manner of life on this planet.  To stroll over them is to see through time, something that cuts through our hubris, our sense of self-importance in our small moment in the continuum of time.  We may be ephemera here but these stones might be eternity.

It’s just one of those things that go through the mind as I wander over the creek bed.  So much to see if I only choose to look.

 

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Lumqua

Posted in Photography, tagged , , , , on October 5, 2013| 1 Comment »

Lumqua, Hong Kong painter- John Thomson

I have come across this photo a number of times and have always lingered over it.  Maybe it’s just  professional curiosity, wondering how painters in other times and places worked in their studios.  But while I had seen this photo I had never really examined who the artist was.  It turns out he was named Lumqua and he was active in Hong Kong in the middle part of the 19th century.

This photo was taken in the early 1870’s by John Thomson and published in an 1873 book of photos and descriptions of the Chinese people.  Below is an excerpt that describes Lumqua.  The part that I find interesting is Thomson’s description of the groups of painters that would scour the Hong Kong docks trying to sell the sailors a finished painting that reproduced a photo they might possess so that they might have a larger, color image of their loved one to take home as a souvenir.  They offered a 24 hour tunaround.  Thomson’s description of how they divided the work on these pieces so that they could quickly and ably finish this task foreshadows the current businesses that turn out cheap paintings in the thousands to be sold around the country in  local Holiday Inns at so-called  Starving Artist sales.

This is the description that Thomson attached to this photo:

Lumqua was a Chinese pupil of Chinnery, a noted foreign artist, who died at Macao in 1852. Lumqua produced a number of excellent works in oil, which are still copied by the painters in Hong-Kong and Canton. Had he lived in any other country he would have been the founder of a school of painting. In China his followers have failed to grasp the spirit of his art. They drudge with imitative servile toil, copying Lumqua’s or Chinnery’s pieces, or anything, no matter what, just because it has been finished and paid for within a given time, and at so much a square foot. There are a number of painters established in Hong-Kong, but they all do the same class of work, and have about the same tariff of prices, regulated according to the dimensions of the canvas. The occupation of these limners consists mainly of making enlarged copies of photographs. Each house employs a touter, who scours the shipping in the harbour with samples of the work, and finds many ready customers among the foreign sailors. These bargain to have Mary or Susan painted on as large a scale and at as small a price as possible, the work to be delivered framed and ready for sea probably within twenty-four hours. The painters divide their labour on the following plan. The apprentice confines himself to bodies and hands, while the master executes the physiognomy, and thus the work is got through with wonderful speed. Attractive colours are freely used; so that Jack’s fair ideal appears at times in a sky-blue dress, over which a massive gold chain and other articles of jewellery are liberally hung. These pictures would be fair works of art were the drawing good, and the brilliant colours properly arranged; but all the distortions of the badly taken photographs are faithfully reproduced on an enlarged scale. The best works these painters do are pictures of native and foreign ships, which are wonderfully drawn. To enlarge a picture they draw squares over their canvas corresponding to the smaller squares into which they divide the picture to be copied. The miniature painters in Hong-Kong and Canton do some work on ivory that is as fine as the best ivory painting to be found among the natives of India, and fit to bear comparison with the old miniature painting of our own country, which photography has, now-a-days, in great measure superseded.

So I know a little more about this photo.  I still have questions about he worked, wondering if his studio was really as organized as this photo.  My studio is never so tidy.  Oh, well…

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Tomorrow Never Knows

Posted in Early Paintings, Favorite Things, Television, Video, tagged , , , , , on October 3, 2013| 3 Comments »

GC Myers--Fausts Guitar Popular music has played a huge part in storytelling in films and television in recent years.  For example, this past weekend saw the end of the television series Breaking Bad with the final scene of the series having the song Baby Blue from Badfinger playing as it panned up from Walt’s body.  It was an effective use of the song, neatly tying up the series’ theme of the obsession that overwhelmed Walt’s life.  Some have felt that it was even too spot on but I’m not here to debate that.   It just reminded me of some other songs that have been used  to great effect in this  ( Crystal Blue Persuasion will  be  forever linked in my mind to a montage of meth production from  this show) and  other series.

In the Sopranos, which almost always was brilliant in its choice of accompanying music, one of my favorite endings came when Tony Soprano was particularly cruel to his sister, leaving her home and walking down the street as I’m Not Like Everybody Else from the Kinks played.  It just perfectly summed up the scene and Tony’s self-justification for his often horrible behavior.  Just a great scene.

But I think my favorite came in Mad Men, when ad man Don Draper could not understand why his clients, in 1967, so wanted the music of the Beatles for their ads.  It was all just music to him and he felt that any musician could easily put together something similar to the Beatles sound.  The episode ended with Don settling in at home with a drink after putting on the Beatles’ Revolver album on his hi-fi.  The song Tomorrow Never Knows comes up and the  eras suddenly converge for Don, a revelation that the world he knew is changing, moving beyond his control.  It is a beautiful summation of generational change.

Here’s the song with a film that Neil Aspinall put together in developing a third Beatles movie in 1967, which never came about.  The film would have made a wonderful juxtaposition to Don in the show.  The painting at the top is an older piece of mine, Faust’s Guitar.  I did a few versions of this image years ago and it remains a favorite of mine.

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