It is Art, and Art only, that reveals us to ourselves.–Oscar Wilde
Archive for August, 2015
Quote of the Week: Oscar Wilde
Posted in Quote, tagged GC Myers, Oscar Wilde, Quote, Quote of the, Red Tree on August 18, 2015| 2 Comments »
Encouragement
Posted in Motivation, tagged Inspriation, Ira Glass, This American Life on August 17, 2015| 6 Comments »
I came across this bit of encouragement from Ira Glass, host and producer of NPR’s This American Life. It’s abridged a bit from a video of his about storytelling and is primarily for writers/broadcasters but certain bits of advice and inspiration, such as this, cross over easily to most of the creative fields. And whether you write, draw, sculpt, sing, dance or play the accordion, one thing is true: You must do a lot of work to get better.
This seems almost too simple and I think that’s why its the kind of thing that is sometimes overlooked by people as they start working in a new field or medium. We all want immediate results, want to have the tangible result of our efforts match that version of it that resides in our mind. But it is never that simple and there’s a wide gap between our desired outcome and reality. As Ira points out, you must do a lot of work to close that gap.
A lot of work.
And that is where most people draw the line. Sometimes it’s just a lack of will and they move on to the next thing, hoping that new thing will meet their need for quicker results. Sometimes it’s just life and a lack of time that keeps them from continuing ahead.
But if you can stick with it, fight past the stumbling blocks and frustrations, you will improve incrementally, getting better and better with more and more effort.
And the better you get the better you will want to be, the more you will push your own personal goalposts out in front of you. In my time working alone in my studio I have spent well over 50,000 hours trying to close that gap and there have been times when I have thought I had reached that point where the reality before me matched the vision in my mind. But I soon realized it wasn’t quite there and I needed to keep at it.
Just keep working and fighting through.
I’ve got to go do just that right now.
Crawl Up and Die
Posted in Early Paintings, Favorite Things, Music, tagged Early Work, GC Myers, Music, Rockabilly, Stray Cats, Sunday Morning Music on August 16, 2015| Leave a Comment »
It’s Sunday morning which means I usually play a little bit of music. This morning I didn’t have anything in particular in mind so I went to YouTube and just punched in something general then let myself be led by randomly choosing from the selections that come up on the right side of every video. It’s amazing where this will sometimes take you, sometimes to music that you know really well and other times opening new horizons. Today it led me to a song that I have always liked by the Stray Cats from back when they were leading a little rockabilly resurgence in the 1980’s.
It wasn’t one of their hits from the time and I’m not even sure it is on any of their widely released albums. But it is one of my favorites from their songs. It’s called Crawl Up and Die and has a nice build up and finish, the perfect thing to kick off a sleepy Sunday morning despite the somewhat gloomy title.
While trying to find an image to accompany this post and song I came across the old piece above from back when I was still forming a voice and working on processes. This is among my earliest attempts at my reductive process where I put on a lot of very wet paint and pull off what doesn’t belong. Kind of like carving in paint.
I wasn’t sure at this point where I was going with my work and was still considering straight representation. While I don’t think this is a bad piece, especially from where I was in my evolution, it didn’t have enough to make me want to move further in this direction. So I moved down a different path and, fortunately, it was the right choice. I do like the mood of this piece however and feel it fits the title here.
Have a great Sunday!
In Heaven Now…
Posted in Favorite Things, Motivation, Music, tagged Heaven, Jack Kerouac, John Prine, Music, Quote on August 15, 2015| 2 Comments »
Practice kindness all day to everybody and you will realize you’re already in heaven now.
—Jack Kerouac
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I am not sure what to do with these words from Jack Kerouac but I do like them and think they deserve to be passed along. I am a firm believer of kindness in all forms and believe that it is a pathway to a better life here in this world.
When I was waiting tables I found that my own attitude and demeanor often dictated how others responded to me. If I smiled and acted congenially, more often than not the person I was dealing with responded in the same manner. We are reactionary creatures and we instinctively respond according to the tone we encounter– rudeness with rudeness and anger with anger.
And kindness with kindness.
It’s our choice. If we can fight against our reactionary nature and choose to act and react with kindness, we can shape our world and then perhaps realize that a form of heaven might be within our grasp.
I have never had the faith or certainty of those who believe that there is an actual heaven waiting beyond this world. I would like to but I just don’t have it within me. So, for me, if there is to be a heaven it is something to be sought in the here and now. By that, I mean creating an environment that is honest, kind and gentle. A life that is peaceful and quiet–that would be heaven to me.
So, when you’re out there today and face rudeness and anger, make the choice to react in a gentler manner and be kind. Your world might be one small step closer to heaven.
This quote reminded me of a song from one of my favorites, John Prine. The title pretty much sums it up: He Was In Heaven Before He Died.
Nature Boy/ A Replay
Posted in Favorite Things, Music, Video, tagged eden ahbez, Hippie, Music, Nat King Cole, Nature Boy, Video on August 14, 2015| 1 Comment »
I was looking for something else and came across this post from back in 2009 about one of my favorite songs and the unusual man who wrote it. I thought it deserved a replay. Plus I just felt like hearing “Nature Boy”this morning. Here’s how it goes:
Sometimes when you look a little more behind something that’s been in front of you for years you find out things you might have never imagined otherwise. Such is the case with the song, Nature Boy.
Nature Boy, as recorded by the great Nat King Cole, has long been one of my favorite songs. It has a wonderful haunting melody and tells the story of a “strange enchanted boy” and his search to find love. It always has had a sort of mystical feel to me, a real oddity in the world of popular music in 1948 when Nat King Cole recorded and had a huge hit with it, staying at #1 on the charts for eight weeks.
I was going to just have a short post and put up a YouTube video of Cole’s version but in doing so I saw the name of the songwriter, eden ahbez, and was intrigued. Doing a little research I came across some photos of him such as the one above, from the late 40’s sitting with Cowboy Jack Patton ( who wrote Ghost Riders in the Sky) and a spaniel. I’ll let you figure out who is who in the photo. ahbez’s long hair and attire seemed really out of place for me in thinking of 1948 so I read on.
eden ahbez was a real one of a kind character in the world of music and in general. You could probably guess that from the name which he adopted and wrote only in lower case letters. Born in 1908, he is regarded as the first hippie by many, a long-haired and bearded wanderer who crisscrossed the country on foot, wearing robes and sandals, maintained a vegetarian lifestyle and slept out under the stars. In fact, when Nature Boy hit the charts he and his wife were living under the first L on the Hollywood sign, which stoked a bit of a media frenzy around ahbez. He worked in and frequented a vegetarian restaurant (that’s where he met Cowboy Jack Patton, another interesting character) in 1940’s Los Angeles whose German owners preached the gospel of natural and raw foods. Their followers became known as the Nature Boys.
He was not really what I was expecting from a pop songwriter in 1940’s LA. ahbez died in 1995 from injuries sustained in an auto accident. He was 87. His was a truly unique life, just waiting for a biographer to tell the story, and reading the little I discovered makes me find the song even more interesting. Hope you’ll do the same now that you know a bit more about eden ahbez…
Cruel August
Posted in Biographical, Motivation, Quote, tagged August, August Wilson, Biographical, Pablo Picasso, Print on August 12, 2015| 8 Comments »
Your willingness to wrestle with your demons will cause your angels to sing.
—August Wilson
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As the post below from back in August of 2010 points out, most years I struggle with the month of August and this particular one is no different. The doldrums set in and I am filled with an anxiety and a stifling restlessness that combine to create a sense of desperation within me. If I hadn’t experienced this before, this feeling would seem unbearable.
But it’s not something new so I realize that it’s just a matter of hanging on and letting it pass, all the while trying to pull something from it that will show itself in my work. I have found that such keen desperation is often the source of great work, much as playwright August Wilson —a fitting first name!— points out so eloquently in the quote above. So, while I find myself fighting through the cruel days and demons of August, I do so as I listen for the song of angels to begin.
And from experience, I know they will begin soon enough. Sing, angels, sing!
From August 18, 2010:
This print from Picasso [ Above] very much sums up my feelings for the month of August.
I have never been a fan of August. Memories of the so-called dog days of summer spent as a child. Hot from a relentless sun. Bored. Burnt grass crunching underfoot. The coming school year hanging overhead like the sword of Damocles.
August has always had a faint aura of death around it for me. I remember the death of my grandfather in ’68. My beloved dog Maggie years later. Several friends over the years, from a variety of causes. Elvis. The bright glare of the August sun seeming to taunt the grief of the moment.
August.
We were watching something on television the other night, perhaps Mad Men– I can’t really remember. Anyway, the character in the scene that was on said , “I hate August.”
It made my ears prick up and I couldn’t help but mutter, “I’m with you there, brother.”
August.
Well, I’ve got a lot to do this August morning. It takes a lot of work to keep busy to ward off the cruelty of August…
1906 San Francisco
Posted in Favorite Things, Video, tagged Early Film, Earthquake, Kanaweola Club, San Francisco, Video, Wrestlling on August 11, 2015| 2 Comments »
Market Street, San Francisco, April 14, 1906
I am sort of fascinated with the time around the turn of the 20th century, those years when the country was being transformed by new technologies. The first airplanes were flown, instant long distance communication was now the norm, electricity was becoming more and more common in homes and cars were showing up in the most remote of locations, more and more replacing horses as our primary mode of transportation. . Movies were being made and distributed around the country and recordings of music were heard playing in homes. It was a vibrant,quick moving time filled with seemingly infinite possibilities for those willing to take advantage of the opportunity.
Around that time, my grandfather was a young professional wrestler here in my home town. Matches often took place at one of the many vaudeville theaters in the city, the match ending the night’s bill of dog acts, acrobats, singers, dancers, jugglers and maybe even a movie thrown into the mix. Like the time, it was a fast paced mix.
I read an account of one of his matches that took place at a local Athletic Club which were basically Men’s Clubs that had a number of teams in different sports that competed with other clubs throughout the area and also provided a place for guys to congregate and drink. This particular night his match was a Smoker ( which was just a night of entertainment) at the Kanaweola Club. There was a singer then a short boxing match followed by a traveling family of acrobats. Then came a gentleman who danced, putting on a “demonstration of Ragtime.” The wrestling match was the final event, probably because the matches were untimed meaning they could last for quite some time. This night’s match didn’t go too long but my grandfather once had a match that ran for several hours one night and was suspended until the following evening where the match finally ended after over two more hours of grappling.
It was just a wide open time. A young nation feeling its oats.
Of course, this wasn’t true for everyone. Women were still limited in their opportunities. They could not vote and for the most part were subjugated to minor roles in the work force. The nation was only three or four decades removed from the Civil War and while slavery was eradicated , black Americans were still fighting prejudice and suppression, struggling to find their own opportunity in a time when the Ku Klux Klan was taking root around the country. There was widespread poverty and disease and alcoholism. Work conditions were often appalling which led to the rise of the unions which brought about labor laws which removed the children from the mills and mines which were so common at the time.
In short, it was a tough but exciting time. Which brings me to the film below and the two images at the top of the page. This is a nearly 12 minute film of a streetcar jaunt up Market Street in San Francisco on April 14, 1906. Only four days later the fabled Earthquake of 1906 would destroy the city and leave over 3000 people dead. The two photos at the top show the before and after, the tower at the end of Market Street still standing in both. This film was a mystery for many years, the date lost in the fog of history. But careful research uncovered the date which made an already interesting film even more so.
Even though the journey is slow by today’s standards, it’s a dizzying ride with cars and people and horse-drawn vehicles all weaving and swerving in a chaos that is a little unnerving. I think it represents the time very well– fast-paced and a little dangerous. I watched and wondered how many of those people perished in the next week and what the survivors ended up doing in later days. Take a look and wonder for yourself.
Outlaw’s Vigil
Posted in Biographical, Early Paintings, Favorite Things, Motivation, tagged Exiles, Fear, gallery talk, GC Myers, Outlaws, West End Gallery on August 10, 2015| Leave a Comment »
At last weekend’s Gallery Talk at the West End Gallery I was asked if there was work that I do for myself alone and I replied that there is, that I sometimes do small pieces in moments of frustration or anger that I won’t share with the outside world. I feel that even a person living the most transparent of lives should not share every waking thought. And I probably share more than I should as it is.
This question led to a short description of the work from my earlier Exiles and Outlaws series, both of which I have written here a number of times in the past. The Outlaws series probably was closer as an answer to the question posed to me that day, consisting of images that examined the darker aspects that make up the prism of our personality. The central characters in these pieces were often armed with handguns and were definitely haunted by their past actions, existing in a state of fear.
At least, that is how I saw them. Some others saw them as predatory stalkers who might be lurking outside their own windows. It was an interpretation that I wasn’t initially expecting when I painted this work. But it might make sense, given the fear and sometimes paranoia that feeds our obsession with guns.
The piece above, Outlaw’s Vigil, is from that series and hangs in my studio now. It is a prime example of the differing perceptions of the work. Many have seen him as a potential danger, a symbol of imminent evil, while I see him as a person filled with absolute fear, always looking over his shoulder to see what is coming upon him from behind, from his past. He is forever frozen in this instance of terror. There is no looking ahead, no future.
Odd as it might seem, this small painting is inspirational to me. It serves as an object lesson, an example of how I do not want to exist in this world. I do not want to live in fear of the past or so fearful of others that I cling to a gun in my own home, peeking out my windows. This piece lets me know that I want to live a fearless life. It may ultimately be a fool’s mission but it makes this odd little painting priceless to me.
Everything Stops For Tea
Posted in Favorite Things, Music, tagged Elton John, Everything Stops For Tea, Long John Baldry, Music, Rod Stewart, Sunday Morning Music, Tea on August 9, 2015| 3 Comments »
Sunday morning and I just finished my coffee/protein get-me-started drink and now am working on my first cup of tea for the day. Something soothing in the whole idea of tea. Maybe it’s the slowness of it, the steeping and sipping associated with it that attracts me. One of my favorite moments of the day is finishing my cup of tea after breakfast and holding the china cup, feeling the warmth radiate through its thin walls. There’s something meditative in that.
That brings me neatly to this week’s Sunday morning musical choice which features tea as its central theme. It’s a song called Everything Stops For Tea from the 1972 album of the same title from the late British blues/rocker Long John Baldry, who in the early 1960’s put into motion the careers of a number of what were to be large stars such as Elton John and Rod Stewart. I liked this album from the moment I first saw it– must have been the colorful cover that is at the top of the page here.
But I loved the music as well, especially the title track which is Baldry’s cover of a song made popular in Britain in the 1930’s by Jack Buchanan, a Scottish actor/singer known for his debonair man-about-town roles in the theatre and on film. Oddly enough for a song concerning one of the most British of things, the song was written three Americans– Maurice Sigler, Al Goodheart and Al Hoffman.
Regardless, it’s a fun song that I often find myself humming at odd times. Give a listen and maybe have a cuppa while you’re at it. Most of all, have a great Sunday.
Lucid Dreaming
Posted in Painting, Recent Paintings, Technique/History, tagged Dream, Dreaming, GC Myers, New Painting, Painting, Plutarch, Quote, Red Tree, technique on August 7, 2015| Leave a Comment »
All men whilst they are awake are in one common world: but each of them, when he is asleep, is in a world of his own.
~Plutarch
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The other night I fell asleep early then awoke and after a bit tried to go back to sleep. I flopped around trying to be comfortable but the wheels of my mind started turning and for a while I just lay there. But there came a time when I slipped briefly into dreams even though I still felt awake.
It’s a strange feeling but it felt good at the same time because in those moments of lucid dreaming I saw a color and a surface that was new to me, one that I saw being used in my work. It was multi-colored with blues and greens within it and a certain level of depth within the color that gave it a gorgeous glow. Plus it was arranged in transparent plates that overlapped so that the combined colors deepened even more.
It’s hard to describe now because even in the time soon after waking I struggled to fully recall it in my memory. It was there completely but in a vague sort of way. It was not a color that I had worked with or had even seen though I can’t be sure of that.
I wanted to see it and tried to recreate it within my own range of color and technique. I stumbled a bit at it for most of the day yesterday and finally realized that it would require something new, something different either in media or process to get the color and surface and depth that was still in there somewhere.
But the piece at the top did pop out during the day’s attempts and while it disappointed me because it didn’t fulfill my dream, it has an interesting feel that pleases me on another level. Maybe this will take me a step closer to what I am seeing in my dream or maybe it will evolve into something different on its own, something I can’t yet envision.
It has shown itself in my dream so maybe it can come forward now if I keep looking for it with my waking mind. Who knows? You can never tell how things will turn out when you’re trying to take something from that inner world and move it out into the waking world.
We shall see…
Redtree Times 