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Archive for August, 2016

Hallelujah with ChoirChoirChoir

Posted in Favorite Things, Music, Video, tagged , , , , , , , , on August 9, 2016| 4 Comments »

ChoirChoir Choir Hallelujah 2016 with Rufus WainwrightJust came across a really nice video that was filmed in late June.  It was part of the Luminato Festival in Toronto, which has become one of the largest arts festivals in North America since beginning 10 years ago.

The film shows an event organized by Choir!Choir!Choir! which is a Toronto based open choir.  It requires no commitment and meets twice a week in the back of a local pub.  Over the years it has performed publicly in many venues with an expanded choirs made up of folks who just want to get out and sing in a communal kind of way.

The song shown here is Hallelujah from Leonard Cohen, a magnificent song that has been interpreted by many artists–I think that the late Tim Buckley’s version is extraordinary.  This particular version is filmed in a decommisoned power plant with an assembled choir of 1500 people with Rufus Wainwright singing the lead.

Just a lovely version of the song and not a bad way to kick off a Tuesday morning.

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A New Mantra/ Redux

Posted in Biographical, Early Paintings, Technique/History, tagged , , on August 8, 2016| 2 Comments »

GC Myers- A New Mantra 2001

One of the galleries representing my work contacted me this weekend asking for some info about some paintings that had been sold there many years ago.  In doing the research for the info, I had to scan through some old slides and early digital images of work from that time.  The painting above just stopped me in my tracks, as it has several times in the past.  All I could think is that I would love to see where this painting is now.   It’s a very large piece and it would be interesting to see how it feels in its environment.  

I had forgot that I had written about this painting five years ago and found that the post spoke about a question that oddly didn’t arise at Saturday’s Gallery Talk.  I thought it would be interesting to share that earlier post:

I came across this painting from 2001 just this morning, one that had slipped off my radar some time ago.  It wasn’t in the studio for long and sold very quickly so I didn’t get to ponder over it for an extended period.  It is titled A New Mantra and  is 31″ high by 51″ oil painting wide on mounted paper.

I do remember painting this piece and how it hit every goal I had for it from the first moment I started on it.  It came so  easily that it felt as though it truly fell out of me, with not  a bit of struggle at any point.  I also remember just being extremely pleased with how this showed in its final state.  It was large and airy yet it had a real up close presence.  To me, it was how it must feel to have the secrets of the universe whispered mysteriously in your ear.

It just felt powerful, whiich is probably why I was so surprised at seeing it again this morning.  How had it slipped out of my mind when it immediately rekindled such strong feelings upon seeing it again?

I don’t know that there is any real explanation.  I know there are other pieces out there that will do the same for me, including many paintings from the earlier years when my photo-documentation wasn’t as thorough.

I can think of one painting that I have often used in Gallery Talks as an example in an account of how some work flows easily while others are a struggle from the first brushstroke.  This particular painting was done after a month of working on a series of paintings that resulted in a commissioned piece.  After delivering that commission,  I went into the studio one morning about 5 AM and a pretty large painting just fell out of me.  I mean that in an almost literal sense.

It was about 40″ square and it was painted without any contemplation or hesitation and with incredible speed. I remember how the paintings of the past month had served as practices or rehearsals for that very moment in time.  Every movement was really from muscle memory, moving without prompting.  The conscious thought process was hushed and in the background.

Two hours later and it was practically done.

I  tell people who asked how long it took to paint a piece that this painting didn’t take 2 hours to paint.  It took over a month and those prior paintings were dress rehearsals of a sort.  It couldn’t have happened without those other pieces building up to it.

To my dismay, that is a piece for which I can’t find an image.  But I will keep looking and hopefully, if I find one, I will feel as I did about once again finding A New Mantra.

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Blue Fires

Posted in Music, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , , , , , on August 7, 2016| 5 Comments »

GC Myers- Blue Flame smFirst, too many thanks to send out to everyone who made yesterday’s talk at the West End Gallery such a fun event.  That may well be one of the most enjoyable talks I’ve participated out of the many that I’ve done.  What a wonderful and engaged group of folks!  They were so welcoming and warm that it made me feel very comfortable and free to tell my little stories.  I had a good time and I hope they did as well.

Thank you a hundred times over to those of you who took time on a warm August day to come sit for a bit with me.  I was so honored by your presence and will feed off the memory of yesterday for a long time to come.

I have to add that after the talk ended I found myself completely exhausted–wiped out completely.  More so than I remember from the aftermath of past talks.  I think it’s a combination the built-up anxiety of having to talk in front of a group of people, the actual mental effort expended and the release from having it all go off in a very good way that left me sapped.  But it was a satisfied exhaustion.

For today’s Sunday Morning music I thought I’d couple one of the paintings from the West End Gallery show with a song.  My painting shown here is titled Blue Flame, a thin 2″ by 14″ on paper.  The song I’ve chosen is titled Blue Fires from case/lang/veirs which is a one time grouping for this year of singers Neko Case, k.d. lang and Laura Veirs.  I’ve been a fan of k.d.lang for over 30 years now and am a huge fan of Neko Case so this was no-brainer for me.  Just a lovely song that I think meshes well with the image here.

So, enjoy and have yourself a pleasant Sunday.

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West End Gallery Talk Today

Posted in Uncategorized on August 6, 2016| 2 Comments »

GC Myers- Private Glow 2016

THIS PAINTING TO BE GIVEN AWAY TODAY!!

A last reminder that I will be giving a Gallery Talk at the West End Gallery in Corning today beginning at 1 PM.  There will be a drawing at the end of the talk where one of the attendees will be awarded the painting shown here on the right, Private Glow.  Plus, there are some other surprises in store so try to make it into the gallery on Market Street in the Gaffer District of historic Corning.

GC Myers- Icon-Martin

Icon: Martin / GC Myers

One thing I will be talking a bit about is my Icon series from earlier this year.  They are, as you may remember, idealized pieces based on ancestral details that I have dug up through the years.  I will be bringing some of them in their raw state and will give a few details about this group which has never been shown in public.

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Talk Reminder

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on August 5, 2016| 3 Comments »

Bearable Vastness -- GC Myers

Bearable Vastness — GC Myers

Just a reminder that if you’re in the Corning area tomorrow, Saturday, that there is a Gallery Talk at the West End Gallery beginning at 1 PM.  I will be talking a bit and taking questions about almost anything you want to ask.  Hopefully, most will focus on my current show, Contact, that hangs in the gallery until September 2.  But, as in most of these talks we cover a wide range of subjects.

GC Myers- Private Glow 2016

WIN THIS PAINTING!

If you have never been to one of my talks, you should know that one of the more popular parts comes at the end (I finally shut up!) when I have a drawing for one of my paintings.  I always look forward to these moments and get a real charge from this.  Private Glow shown here is the piece I have selected for this talk.

I hope you’ll be there for the talk– maybe you’ll take home this painting!

Starwatcher

Starwatcher

 

 

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Sprites at the West End

Posted in Current Events, Neat Stuff, tagged , , , , , , , on August 4, 2016| 4 Comments »

SPEAROW at the West End

SPEAROW at the West End

I am totally out of the loop about the current Pokemon Go craze as well as Pokemon in its original form.  I don’t know what the characters are or what they are called.  Nothing.  I only know about it from the stories I have heard of people so engrossed in playing the game on their phones that they walk into traffic and so on.

But it turns out that the sprites, as I learned they are called, have been spending time in the West End Gallery lately.  The gallery is a PokeStop in Corning and there has been an increase of people coming in with smartphones in hand to the point that owner Jesse Gardner began to worry about their safety on the stairway leading to the upper gallery.  The idea of someone stumbling down the steps in pursuit of an invisible sprite isn’t in her business plan.

Jesse took a few pictures of some that she found hanging around the work.  So if you come to the Gallery Talk this Saturday you might be able to catch sight of NIDORAN, SPEAROW or CATERPIE or whoever else might be there that day.  Hopefully, they won’t cause any problems during the talk.

And don’t worry, they are not eligible to win the painting that will be given away at the end of the talk.  So whether you see the sprites or not, I hope you can make it to the West End Gallery for the Gallery Talk that runs from 1-2 PM.  There will be refreshments, a prize or two, some art and maybe a few laughs.

CATERPIEwithGCMyers

CATERPIE using the Bridge

EEVEEwithGCMyers3

EEVEE Taking in the show.

NIDORANwithGCMyers

NIDORAN at the West End

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Rooted

Posted in Quote, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , on August 3, 2016| Leave a Comment »

GC Myers- Rooted smOnly when man succeeds in developing his reason and love further than he has done so far, only when he can build a world based on human solidarity and justice, only when he can feel rooted in the experience of universal brotherliness, will he have transformed his world into a truly human home.

–Erich Fromm, Sane Society, 1955

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This painting  hangs in my current show at the West End Gallery.  It is a 30″ by 10″ canvas that I call Rooted.

I often see the Red Chairs hanging in a tree as a symbol of human solidarity, of being part of a continuum that started long before its own origins, descended from a common beginning born in the very elements of this earth.

It’s this common beginning that we often forget in our journey through life. We find that we are separating and dividing ourselves, isolating ourselves further from the common root that bore us all.   In this isolation we fail to see our own humanity in others, seeing only our differences and not our common bonds.

And it is these common bonds that will no doubt determine our future on this earth.

Is the ideal of human solidarity a possibility or a pipe-dream?  I do not know.  It certainly seems improbable, given where we are at this point in time.  But I do know that if we dismiss it as a possibility then we don’t have much of a future ahead of us.  Our strength is carried in our roots, our oneness.

And that’s how I am seeing this painting…

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GC Myers- Private Glow 2016REMINDER;

GALLERY TALK at the WEST END GALLERY

SATURDAY, AUGUST 6, 1-2 PM

Join me for what I hope will be a lively conversation along with a free drawing for the painting, “Private Glow”, shown here on the left, as well as a few other surprises!

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Sacrifice

Posted in Current Events, Opinion, tagged , , , on August 2, 2016| 6 Comments »

Arlington National Cemetery

Arlington National Cemetery

What is sacrifice?

There has been a lot of talk about this word over the past several days as Donald Trump tried to somehow equate the service of a fallen Muslim soldier and the loss felt by his family to those things in his life he views as “sacrifices”—working hard, hiring people and building buildings.

I wasn’t going to comment but yesterday morning I heard one of the many Trump surrogates [ for a man who so readily proclaims his own brilliance he requires an army of people to explain and interpret his often incomprehensible words] saying that opening a business is a sacrifice, similar in many ways to serving one’s country in the military or public service.

It is not similar.  It is so different that it is offensive to even try to defend his statement in that way.

Yes, opening and operating a business is a risk and a gamble.  True, there is a choice made to do this rather something else and devote time to this.  But it is not done for altruism but with the desire and goal of creating personal gain and wealth for the person taking the risk.

When a businessperson hires an employee (or thousands of employees) it is because they are necessary to create and maintain profit.  I doubt that Trump has ever hired a person who did not serve his personal goals or could not serve his needs or help enrich him in some way.  This is an expense and an investment.  This is not sacrifice in any form.

Erecting buildings is much the same.  It is done with the desire for wealth creation and sometimes, as in Trump’s case, self-aggrandizement.  It is not done to serve the public good unless that somehow coincides with increasing one’s wealth and brand.  This, too, is an investment, not sacrifice.

And as to working hard, I consider myself a hard worker.  I consider it a positive personal trait but would never consider it a sacrifice.  Working hard is a privilege, a right and, to many, a pleasure.  It is the opposite of sacrifice.

Sacrifice is the giving of that which is precious to you for something greater than yourself.  It can be, as in Captain Khan’s case, the giving of one’s life to save his fellow soldiers or it can be in giving up personal gain and rewards to serve the greater good.

I didn’t want to write this.  I want to stay a million miles away from this whole thing.  I would much rather focus on painting and almost anything else.

But it must be addressed.  We have someone who is so close to attaining so much real power in this world yet does not understand the meaning of personal sacrifice and displays so little empathy for those less privileged than himself.  This is a man who has had advantages and privilege in every aspect of his life from the day he was born yet doesn’t even recognize that simple fact.

His goals are his goals alone and not ours.

The only things he has sacrificed in his vain and cynical grasp for power are dignity, honor and truth.  But realistically, even that has not been a sacrifice for Trump—those were never of any value to him in the first place.

And still there are people who ignore these most basic character flaws and his almost endless ( and proven) lying, still believing that he has their best interest at heart when there is absolutely no evidence beyond his empty boasts.

It is beyond my comprehension.

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Gallery Talk Saturday

Posted in Favorite Things, Painting, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , on August 1, 2016| Leave a Comment »

GC Myers- Private Glow 2016Saturday, August 6, I will be giving a Gallery Talk at the West End Gallery in conjunction with my show, Contact,  that is currently hanging there.  The talk runs from 1 to 2 PM.

If you’ve never been to one of my talks, they are usually pretty free flowing affairs with a lot of back and forth between the participants and me.  I try to make it as interesting and fast moving as I can to make everybody feel engaged and involved in some way.  The really good talks usually have me talking at the audience less and just responding off the cuff to all sorts of questions in a conversational manner.

I never know exactly what’s going to come out of my mouth during these conversational talks.  I try to be absolutely honest in my responses sometimes surprise myself with what I say so, for good or bad, there is that wild card at play as well.

Of course, if you’re aware of my Gallery Talks, you know that I normally have a drawing for an original painting at the end of the talk.  Unsurprisingly, it has become a very popular part of the talks, both for the audience and myself.  For me, I see it as an expression of gratitude for all that they and others have given me in this life as an artist with their enthusiastic support over these many years.  I get a tremendous amount of joy and satisfaction from this part of the talks.

The painting that I have selected to give away at this Gallery Talk is the painting shown at the top, Private Glow.  It is a 12″ by 12″ painting on canvas that has a little story about how it came to this point that I will share at the talk.  It has my favorite Red Tree on an island which very much fits with a current theme in my work.  I think it’s a strong piece in many ways and am pleased to choose it for this talk.

And, of course, there are usually other surprises at the talks.  So if you can take time from a summer Saturday, I invite you to the West End Gallery for this year’s Gallery Talk.

I will do everything I can to make it a good time.  Promise.

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