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Archive for February, 2014

Sebastiao Salgado

Posted in Photography, tagged , , , on February 11, 2014| 5 Comments »

Sebastiao Salgado Genesis Book CoverI don’t know where to start with the work of Brazilian photographer  Sebastiao Salgado.  He is widely celebrated for the importance of his work but I was unaware of him until I stumbled across this image from the cover of his most recent and most ambitious book, Genesis.  The image of a mountain river valley with a light filled flash of storm filling its upper end  fit so perfectly with the title, the stark black and white giving the whole scene a most biblical feel, as though you were witnessing the primal birth of man.  The image just filled me with awe and I couldn’t get it out of my head.

I began to look a bit more into the work of Salgado, born in 1944.  It is astonishing in many ways.  He has over the years documented some of the great brutalities of our time, photographing the plight of refugees, famine victims, migrant communities and manual laborers throughout the world.  It is work that is not easy to look on at times.  In fact, after one of his books, Exodus, which was about those fleeing genocide, Salgado’s faith was shattered by the horrors which he had witnessed.

Goldmine, Serra Pelada, Brazil 1986-- Sebastiao Salgado

Goldmine, Serra Pelada, Brazil 1986– Sebastiao Salgado

It was this despair that drove him the Genesis project, an eight year odyssey that took him to the furthest corners of the world.  His goal is to have us reconnect with the power and intelligence of the natural world, uniting a world that is divided by crises of greed and need.

Though much of his work in Genesis, where he is seeking to show the magnificence of the natural Earth, is downright beautiful, I struggle to call much of his work that same word– beautiful.  It is more than that.  It is powerful and daunting, not merely pretty pictures.  It pushes at you, tests your willingness to witness the rawness of ourselves.  It raises so many questions about who we are and what we are doing in this world.

Awe inspiring…

There is so much more that can be said about Mr. Salgado’s life work.  I urge you to do some research on your own and suggest you do a Google Images search of his work to get a real sense of the scope of his work.  You can do that by clicking here.

 

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Voices From Another Planet

Posted in Favorite Things, Influences, Quote, tagged , on February 10, 2014| 4 Comments »

de-chirico1

Sometimes the horizon is defined by a wall behind which rises the noise of a disappearing train. The whole nostalgia of the infinite is revealed to us behind the geometrical precision of the square. We experience the most unforgettable movements when certain aspects of the world, whose existence we completely ignore, suddenly confront us with the revelation of mysteries lying all the time within our reach and which we cannot see because we are too short-sighted, and cannot feel because our senses are inadequately developed.  Their dead voices speak to us from nearby, but they sound like voices from another planet.

–Giorgio de Chirico

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de chirico the disquieting muses 1916I like this quote from de Chirico.  We are surrounded by mystery wonder at every turn yet we don’t even notice.  I especially love the last line — Their dead voices speak to us from nearby, but they sound like voices from another planet.  It has such a poetic rhythm and reminds me of stepping out from my studio and looking up into the night sky to see Jupiter shining so brightly above me, so huge and visible to us yet mostly unnoticed.  Voices from another planet.

De Chirico was an interesting  case. His earlier work, from his metaphysical period like the pieces shown here, is the work that defines him. Definitely the work that influenced me and a host of other artists.  It is work with a distinct and powerful voice, wok that you immediately recognize as his alone.  But in mid-career he basically set it aside and began to paint in a more traditional manner.  It was good work but was not distinctive and set apart from other artists.  It was work that could have been painted by any number of professional painters and lacked both the individual voice and the revelation of mystery that seemed ingrained in the early work.  This later work never garnered nearly the attention that his earlier work had, much to  de Chirico’s consternation.

I can’t say that de Chirico was wrong for following his mind in changing his style.  It was his to change.  But there is a lesson here in that your individual voice is the greatest asset that any person can possess– if you dare to stand apart and pay heed to those voices from another planet.

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Fifty Years Ago

Posted in Favorite Things, Influences, Music, Video, tagged , , , on February 9, 2014| 6 Comments »

Beatles with Ed SullivanIt was on a Sunday evening on this date  fifty years ago that a touchstone event took place here in the States, one that dramatically altered pop and rock music as well as popular culture.  If you watch television or read newspapers, it has been hard recently to avoid seeing something about this 50th anniversary of the Beatles’ first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show on this date back in 1964.  For some, especially those later generations, this is probably a puzzlement as they have no context to put this event in any sort of historical context.  They have no idea what a big moment this was or how it dramatically affected music and popular culture.

It’s always hard to describe something to someone who has only known the resulting change.  I used to try to convince those nay-sayers, usually people born in the aftermath of the Beatles’ reign which would be post-1970, of the importance of the Beatles emergence and their music but it became too tiring.  So now I just enjoy the music and marvel at their evolution over their short lifespan as a band.  What an arc of creativity!

Their listeners might have mourned when they disbanded in 1970 but, realistically, they had completed their journey together, had strung together album after album of memorable and constantly evolving and growing sounds.  They were at a peak with nothing more in front of them.  Each went on to highly successful solo careers but none matched the true power of their combined efforts as the Beatles.

The legacy of their music has been so evident in the past few weeks.  I’ve seen a number of lists from critics and other musicians of their favorite Beatles songs and each is so different from another.  There is no consensus of which are their best songs and each list is truly valid as each contains a group, usually ten, of songs that are quite memorable.  Even the list of the top ten underrated Beatles songs would qualify as someone’s best of the Beatles list.   I sat down and tried to make a list of my Top Ten Beatles songs and had such a hard time.  Just when I thought I had it I would remember another and couldn’t imagine it not being on the list.  It is remarkable that they had so many songs that bound themselves so deeply into the fabric of ourselves.

Here’s what I came up with for my Top Ten, in no particular order:

A Day In the Life

Paperback Writer

Day Tripper

In My Life

Hello Goodbye

Norwegian Wood

Taxman

Tomorrow Never Knows

You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away

Baby You’re a Rich Man

Sitting here now, I can think of twenty ( or forty or fifty) other songs that would fit seamlessly into this list, all songs that are my favorites when I am listening to them.  Oh, well, there are no hard and fast rules here and this is not a very terrible problem to consider so I’ll just put lists aside and enjoy.  Here’s one of my faves from the Fab Four.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zicw_dVwhfM

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The Eternal Gaze

Posted in Recent Paintings, tagged , , , on February 6, 2014| 3 Comments »

GC Myers- Eternal GazeThis past week on the blog, I’ve been putting up images from a group of work that is part of the Little Gems show that opens tomorrow at the West End Gallery.  I was going to show yet another snow painting in honor of our recent wintry weather- it’s hovering around zero on the thermometer and everything is covered with a white layer of snow here.  But this painting struck me this morning.  Maybe it was the warmth of the sky.

It’s called The Eternal Gaze and is about 4″ by 6″ on paper.  The large bird who seems to be overseeing the whole scene and the atmospheric glow give this an otherworldly feel.  Large birds, especially crows and ravens, have always had an otherworldly quality for me, their watchful intelligence always coming across as some sort of deeper and timeless wisdom.  As though they are and have been witnesses to our time in this world.

The contrast between the light of the sky and the darkness of the bony tree and the bird creates a nice tension within the picture but it’s the simple silhouette of the bird that changes the whole feeling and focus of it.  Without the gazing black bird this piece felt much different.  Again, the bird carries a certain cache in its symbolism.

Actually, since the snow piece I was going to show had several birds in a tree in a more wintry setting and also alluded to their watchfulness, why not show it as well?  This is Winter Watchers and is a mere 2.5″ by 3″  on paper.  Both are currently at the West End Gallery.

GC Myers- Winter Watchers

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Memory Way

Posted in Influences, Personal Mythology, Quote, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , , on February 4, 2014| 4 Comments »

GC Myers-Memory Way smEvery man’s memory is his private literature.

-Aldous Huxley

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As I have stated in the past here, the Red Chair, an icon that often appears in my work, is a symbol to me of people and places and experiences from the past.  In short, my memory.  In this new piece, Memory Way, that is most certainly the case.  This little painting, 2″ by 5″ on paper, is another of my pieces from the Little Gems exhibit which opens Friday at the West End Gallery.

The road here represents to me the continuum of time.  The landscape is almost idyllic, perhaps representing my tendency to block out the worst parts of memory.  At least, to downplay them and keep them in the background and to put what good there was there in the best possible light.  I like to revisit the past occasionally and I have to make it a place where I am comfortable.  A past filled with nothing but dark and fear-filled memories is no place to venture on a regular basis.

Anyway, this little piece makes me happy and fills my mind with a feeling of good memories.  As Huxley said  above, our memory is our own private literature, filled with the memories of our lives and the lives of our ancestors.  I sometimes edit, embellish and redact my life’s literature, all to make it an interesting read for myself.

That’s what I see in this little guy.

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Serenata Blue

Posted in Favorite Things, Music, Painting, Recent Paintings, Video, tagged , , , on February 2, 2014| 4 Comments »

GC Myers-Serenata Blue This is another of the pieces that are in the upcoming Little Gems exhibit at the West End Gallery in Corning.  This little guy is titled Serenata Blue and is a just a bit larger that 2″ by 4″ on paper.  It’s a continuation of the recent snow paintings as well as another of my solitary guitarist pieces, of which I do a handful each year.

There’s something very appealing to me in the solitary guitarist standing amidst open space as he cradles his guitar.  It usually brings me a wistful, somewhat sad feeling.  Not in a bad way sad.  Just a slight existential melancholy.  You know, the good kind.

I thought that there should be some appropriate musical accompaniment to this painting so I came up with a sad song.  And I mean sad.  This Nancy Griffith’s version of Tecumseh Valley.  It’s an achingly  beautiful and sad  lament that tells the story of a poor mountain girl.  To make this version even sadder, this is from a tribute show from the friends of the song’s writer, the great Townes Van Vandt, right after he passed away in 1997.  But it is a haunting and lovely song so don’t be afraid to listen.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USafrOU3e88

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