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Archive for April, 2016

Schedule for 2016

Posted in Current Events, tagged , , on April 15, 2016| Leave a Comment »

DSCN1667 sm 2Here are the dates for my scheduled events for the upcoming year:

JUNE 3–   Opening reception for Part of the Pattern at the Principle Gallery in Alexandria, VA .  This is my 17th solo show here and there will be a preview in the June issue of American Art Collector.

JULY 22–  Opening reception for Contact at the West End Gallery in Corning, NY.  This is my 14th solo show at the gallery wher I began my career.

AUGUST 6–  Gallery Talk at the West End Gallery in Corning.

SEPTEMBER 17–  Gallery Talk at the Principle Gallery in Alexandria.  This marks the 14th consecutive year I have been doing gallery talks for both the Principle Gallery and the West End Gallery.  Always a good time with a few surprises thrown into the mix.

SEPTEMBER 23 & 23–  Two day Workshop, Puddle Splashing, at the in Penn Yan, NY, at the Arts Center of Yates County. This year’s workshop will take place at their Sunny Point studio, located on the shore of beautiful Keuka Lake.

OCTOBER 22–  Solo Show, not yet titled, at the Kada Gallery in Erie , PA. I’ve been showing at the Kada for 20 years and this is my 8th solo show there.

We are also still trying to put together an event at the Just Looking Gallery in San Luis Obispo, CA for late in the year. Stay tuned.  Hope to see you at one of these events this year!!

 

 

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Evolution

Posted in Painting, Quote, tagged , , , , , on April 13, 2016| Leave a Comment »

GC Myers- EvolutionProgress has not followed a straight ascending line, but a spiral
with rhythms of progress and retrogression, of evolution and dissolution.

– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

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I was going through some older posts and came across this quote from Goethe.  I immediately looked over at this new painting, a 12″ by 12″ canvas, that I had been working on yesterday.  Something in it spoke to me from this quote, something that made me look at this piece differently.

It’s one of those pieces that don’t emerge smoothly from the hand or head.  Everything about bringing some of these pieces to life seems tortured and messy.  Pure struggle with nothing coming easy.  The paint doesn’t seem right and the message seems unclear.  Every move is tentative and probing, hoping that one stroke will send it down an easier path to completion.

Sometimes that happens.  A touch here and there and suddenly it takes to flight like a young bird discovering what its wings can do for the first time. Pure joy in the newly found grace and rhythm.

But sometimes it doesn’t happen and that same bird that you think should fly flutters to the ground, unsteady and unsure.  Not ready yet to take off.

At the end of the day, I felt as though this bird was somewhere in between.

But seeing these words changed my view of it.  To me, its struggle was its narrative, its story.  It is a representation of its own evolution, its own struggle to find its own form.  The sky has that rhythm of progress and retrogression and the relationship between the chair and the bare tree is a representation of an evolution of a kind.

I am still taking it in, still looking at it but am no longer focusing on the struggle of its creation.  It now has a meaning that moved past that.

I think I will call it Evolution.

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Door to Bliss

Posted in Painting, Quote, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , on April 11, 2016| 2 Comments »

GC Myers- Door to BlissFollow your bliss and the universe will open doors where there were only walls.
–Joseph Campbell

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I call this new painting, which is 24″high  by 8″ wide on canvas, Door to Bliss.  The title refers to the well worn quote from the late mythologist Joseph Campbell, shown above, that advises us that if we work at that thing that we truly love, it will find a way to provide for us.

It will find the door that moves you forward and will open it once you have fully worked your way to it.

And from personal experience, I can attest to the truth behind the words.

I was going to write a whole spiel about setting goals and allowing and trusting your subconscious mind to make the decisions that will ultimately lead you to those doors.  But I think that simple quote and the painting itself say enough without me muddying the waters.

I often use tree trunks in the foreground of either side of my paintings to act as a sort of stage curtain which further highlights the central figure.  These trees also can be viewed as door frame through which the viewer is invited to pass.  That’s how I saw these two trunks in this piece– as points that must be worked to and passed by before entering that desired location, that place of bliss.

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Loneliness Remembers What Happiness Forgets

Posted in Favorite Things, Music, Video, tagged , , , , , , on April 10, 2016| 1 Comment »

Henry Matisse Blue Nudes I-II-III-IV 1952I wanted to feature some music this morning that kind of jibed with the Henri Matisse Blue Nude cut-outs above that the artist  produced in the early 1950’s.  I wasn’t sure what I wanted but I settled on something  from composer Burt Bacharach.  

Bacharach, along with lyricist Hal David, collaborated with singer Dionne Warwick a number of times back in the 1960’s when they had an amazing string of hits that didn’t really sound like anything else on the radio at the time.  It’s an unmistakable sound, light and breezy but complex and full.

When I was looking I came across this video that shows how beautifully Bacharach and Warwick worked together.  It’s interesting to see how he communicates his vision for the song to Warwick and how she responds.  It goes a long ways towards explaining why she was such a perfect vessel for his music.  The clip ends with the full recording of the song.

So, have a great Sunday and here’s Burt Bacharach and Dionne Warwick with Loneliness Remembers What Happiness Forgets.  I may steal that title at some point…

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No Mail Revisited

Posted in Biographical, Painting, tagged , , , , on April 8, 2016| 2 Comments »

GC Myers- No MailI was looking at this painting in the studio yesterday.  It’s another orphan, one of those pieces that went out into the world and came back without being able to find a home.  I normally try to figure out if there is an apparent flaw in these orphans  and often there is something that is just not right.  But sometimes I notice that these pieces are often pieces that I see as being more personal, more connected with my own life’s narrative.  This painting, called No Mail, falls into this category.  It evokes a certain time and feeling so vivid in my memory that it immediately emerges for me when I look at this painting.

I went back in the archives for the blog and found what I had written about this piece several years back.  I’d like to share it just to show the connections that some paintings make even though they may not reach out to everyone.

This is a piece that’s been bouncing around my studio for a month or so, one that I call No Mail. It’s a smallish painting on paper, measuring about 8″ by 14″. I haven’t decided whether I will show this one or simply hold on to it. It’s a matter of whether I believe others will see anything in it rather than me wanting to keep it for myself. Maybe it’s that I see a very personal meaning in the piece that is reflected in the title and I can’t decide if it will translate to others.

For me, this painting reminds me of my childhood and the house I consider my childhood home, an old farmhouse that sat by itself with no neighbors in sight. Specifically, this painting reminds me of exact memories I have of trudging to the mailbox as an 8 or 9 year-old in the hot summer sun. There’s a certain dry dustiness from the driveway and the heat is just building in the late morning. It was a lazy time for a child in the country. Late July and many weeks to go before school resumes. The excitement of school ending has faded and the child finds himself spending his days trying to find ways to not be bored into submission.

The trip to the mail box is always a highlight of the day, filled with the possibility that there might be something in it for me. Something that is addressed only to and for me, a validation that I exist in the outside world and am not stranded on this dry summer island. Usually, the tinge of excitement fades quickly as I open the old metal mailbox and find nothing there for me. But occasionally there is something different, so much so that I recognize it without even seeing the name on the label or envelope.

It’s mine, for me, directed to me. Perhaps it’s my Boy’s Life or the Summer Weekly Reader. I would spend the day then reading them from front to back , reading the stories and checking out the ads in Boy’s Life for new Schwinn bikes. Oh, those days were so good. The smell of the newly printed pages mingling with the heat and dust of the day to create a cocktail whose aroma I can still recall.

But most days, it was nothing. Just the normal family things– bills, advertisements and magazines. Or nothing at all. The short walk back to the house seemed duller and hotter on those days.

That’s what I see in this piece, even though it doesn’t depict everything I’ve described in any detail. There’s a mood in it that vividly recalls those feelings from an 8 or 9 year-old, one of eager anticipation and one of disappointment.

Childhood days with no mail.

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Wyeth on Inspiration

Posted in Influences, Motivation, Quote, Video, tagged , , , , on April 7, 2016| 3 Comments »

Andrew Wyeth- Night Sleeper 1979

Andrew Wyeth- Night Sleeper 1979

I dream a lot. I do more painting when I’m not painting. It’s in the subconscious.

–Andrew Wyeth

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Andrew Wyeth- Trodden Weed

I love this short quote from the great Andrew Wyeth.  That second sentence speaks to how I view my own  relationship with what I do– I do more painting when I’m not painting.  The mind is always clicked on, seemingly always seeking that something, that one inside thing that is crying out to be expressed.

It’s a built-in thing, one that can hardly ever be turned off.  You would think it would be a maddening quality but it has become a normal way of functioning and I would probably panic if I found my mind not churning in some way.

Sometimes it is in the form of day-dreaming, just letting the imagination run free.  Other times it takes place in the words or sounds or images of others. Like pulling a new thread from an existing fabric.

Inspiration comes in many different forms and the mind is always looking for them.

Here’s a neat short film from artist/filmmaker Andrew Zuckerman that shows Wyeth describing how he sometimes find inspiration.

Andrew Wyeth from Andrew Zuckerman Studio on Vimeo.

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Light Emanation

Posted in Painting, Quote, tagged , , , , on April 5, 2016| 2 Comments »

GC Myers- EmanationWe are not separated from spirit, we are in it.

—Plotinus

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I call this new painting, a 20″ by 16″ canvas,  Light Emanation.   Emanation is a word that is defined in one sense as an abstract but perceptible thing that issues or originates from a source.  It’s a term that the 3rd century philosopher Plotinus used to describe the manner in which all matter is descended from the One, the transcendent and formless force that has always been and will always be.  We see its emanation– its reflection– in things we associate with terms such as Good and Beauty.

I can’t fully explain the concept of Plotinus’ philosophy here.  I honestly don’t fully understand it myself.

But  the idea that we are all somehow comprised and descended from light has long been an idea that has lived within me.  We react to light and the colors that come from it in ways that go beyond this world, in ways that somehow link us to something we feel is greater than ourselves.  Perhaps the One to which Plotinus alludes.

As it is with so many things, I don’t know for sure.  I only know that those rare moments in my life that have felt transcendent have always been associated with a mysterious quality of light, one that  satisfies and comforts me in a way in which I didn’t even realize I was in need.

I see that feeling of oneness with the light  in this painting.  It has a mysterious comfort in it that reminds me of my own moments.

And that is all I ask of it…

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Opening Day!

Posted in Favorite Things, Folk Art, Music, Television, Video, tagged , , , , , , , , , on April 3, 2016| 2 Comments »

Ralph Fasanella - Night Game/ 'Tis a Bunt 1981

Ralph Fasanella – Night Game/ ‘Tis a Bunt 1981

GC Myers -Foundation smAh, the dark days of winter are receding.  The trees are budding out and the green of the grass (under the newly fallen four inches of snow!) is pushing aside the dead growth of a long gone last year.  The robins have returned and once again the world makes sense–  the daily metronome that is major league baseball returns today.

It’s opening day.

I am not going to wax poetic today about the game, its history or the place that it holds in the hearts of so many.  It just feels like the real New Year’s Day for me and many other fans, that day on which the year truly begins.

The painting at the top, Night Game/ ‘Tis a Bunt,  is one of my favorite baseball paintings from the great folk painter Ralph Fasanella.  I love this particular piece and the way the baseball diamond feels more like a real diamond in an ornate and wondrous setting.  Great piece.  And this piece on the right is from my own baseball series from a few years back.  I loved doing that series and these pieces remain among my personal favorites.  I haven’t painted one in a while but sometimes think about revisiting that old ballfield.

For this Sunday Morning Music, in honor of the game, I’m going to make it a double-header.  First, there’s Take Me out to Ballpark, as played by Harpo Marx on I Love Lucy in 1955 , which is Cheri’s all-time favorite.  I’ve shown it several times but it’s so darn good, it never gets old.  And after that there’s  bluesy 1976 homage to late great pitcher Jim “Catfish” Hunter which is called, of course, Catfish.

Have a great Sunday and hopefully you’ll get to hear the umpire call out “Play ball!”

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The Enigma

Posted in Painting, Recent Paintings, Technique/History, tagged , , on April 1, 2016| 2 Comments »

GC Myers- The EnigmaThis is another new painting, an 18″ by 18″ canvas piece that was an immediate enigma to me even as it was barely half-finished on the easel.  I was drawn strongly to it but couldn’t put my finger on what it was that I was seeing.

It has a different feel from the other work in this semi-series of paintings that I’ve been working on as of late.  The sky has a paler, almost desaturated, feel than most of the other pieces which pops against the darker  silhouette-like forms of the landscape.  This combination of color and the twists of the swirling rays create, for me, a mesmerizing effect and I find myself mentally clawing towards the whiteness of the sun/moon.

This newer work lends itself to thoughts of great mysteries, of greater forces that move beyond our comprehension, and this piece is perhaps one of the most telling examples so far.  That sky seems oblivious to the life that exists in the pale light it casts to it.  The tree– I chose to go with a darker green instead of my normal red to maintain the silhouette effect– seems desirous of joining itself to those forces, of unlocking those mysteries held above it.    But despite climbing to the highest points it remains anchored to its terrestrial existence.

But it feels the pale light and still reaches for it without knowing why.  There’s something there, something that both calms and excites action, but the character of the tree just can’t quite touch upon what that thing is.

Just like the appeal I feel for this painting…

The title for this piece is, of course, The Enigma.

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