Redtree Times

Maestro— Show Ends Thursday, August 24

To be rooted is perhaps the most important and least recognized need of the human soul.

—Simone Weil, The Need for Roots (1949)

My current exhibit, Eye in the Sky, is in its last days. The show comes down from the walls of the West End Gallery at the end of the day this coming Thursday, August 24.

It’s been a satisfying show on many levels, including the Gallery Talk this past Saturday. We spoke at the Talk about the difference between online interactions and those that take place face to face in the gallery. I said that being able to see the other person in front of me, to read their faces and reactions, to hear their voice speaking their feelings about the work, is an invaluable thing for me. It often can even change how I see aspects of my work.

To demonstrate this point, I related a conversation that I had during the show’s opening. I shared it here the day after that opening but felt that it was worth sharing again today as the show winds down. It speaks volumes about how important these interactions are, as well what the work means to me and how it relates to my own need for rootedness.

This is from the blogpost of July 22, titled The Root:

One of the things that I have missed during the pandemic years was the interaction with viewers of my work and the feedback they give. Their views on the work often provide new perspectives which, in turn, can sometime change how I see a piece. It’s as though they, with their own stores of experience and circumstance different from my own, can sometimes see the work clearer than I.

And that is exciting for me.

I had such a moment last night. I was approached by a lovely woman named Angelique who told me she was visiting Corning with her sister. They had spent the day going up and down Market Street, in and out of the museums and shops. She told me she had been drawn into the gallery by my work in the window during one of her trips on the street and found herself entranced by the Red Tree. She told herself she had to come back during the opening to ask more about the Red Tree, even though she came without her sister who was worn out from their busy day.

She approached and asked me what the meaning was behind the Red Tree. I explained how it had come about and the several things it had come to symbolize for myself and others who shared their views on it.

She asked if I wanted to hear her thoughts on it. I said that I would love that.

She said simply, “It’s the Root.”

It stunned me a bit because the word set off all sorts of connections in my mind, as though it was catalyst for organizing frayed bits and pieces into a coherent concept. It made sense instantly.

I told her I liked that very much then she asked if wanted to know why she thought it was the Root. I said that nothing could please me more.

She explained that the Red Tree was almost always on a mound (she’s correct in this) which to her was like a root mound where you see only the plant above ground but below the earth its roots run deep and wide, creating and feeding everything– the houses, fields, etc.– that surrounds it.

It was the Root of all our connections to this world.

As I said, I was stunned. Angelique (don’t know if the spelling is right) had never saw my work nor read my blog but in a short time had cut through everything to see what was at the core– or root– of the work. I had never thought of the Red Tree’s roots being the unifying agent in this work and it made me look at every piece a bit differently. Maybe with even a bit more appreciation, if that is possible.

Read Full Post »

Eye to the Future— Shows Ends This Thursday, Aug 24, at West End Gallery

Gratitude changes the pangs of memory into a tranquil joy.

–Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison

Many, many Thank You’s to all who came out to the Gallery Talk yesterday at the West End Gallery. Outside of an online Zoom talk during the pandemic year of 2020, this was the first in-person Talk since 2019. 

There was a full house with many familiar faces and almost as many that were new to me. They came from near and far. One family, a longtime friend and collector, came from Toronto, which was a most pleasant surprise. 

I was rusty, as was to be expected, especially at the beginning when I stumbled through the story of how I came to be a painter. I was surprised at how nervous I was in telling that story as it is one that I have told hundreds of times in the past. I figured it would be a good jumping off point for a crowd with so many new faces, but nerves got the better of me and I didn’t tell it as fully as it should have been told.

It was that kind of talk. In fact, I didn’t get around to talking about much of what I had hoped to discuss. But that was of little matter thanks to the friendly and forgiving embrace this audience provided. Once we got into some Q & A, the talk became more fluid and graceful. So many good questions that it made time fly by. We could have easily went another hour but Gallery owner Jesse, serving as the official timekeeper for the event, gave me the high sign when we were near an hour and we proceeded to the drawing for the original painting. 

I am not going to go into details of what took place or what was given away. We keep that a secret among those who were there and myself. There may or may not have been a secret ceremony but I can’t divulge any more at this time.

I may have said too much already.

I have written here before about the gratitude I have for the collectors and those folks who make their way to the openings and Gallery Talks. These Talks give me a chance to air thoughts about what I do and get feedback in real time. I do get feedback online– and that is very important– but seeing and hearing the other person in front of you is invaluable. You might be surprised how little I talk about my work with friends and family so to get to air some of these thoughts is most welcome.

It felt good to be that warm and welcoming place again. And for that, I am most grateful. Thank you to all who were in attendance yesterday and a big and loving Thank You to Jesse and Lin for giving me this and so many other opportunities over the years. I could not be more grateful.

In that spirit, here’s song of thanks from the late 60’s, though I think this performance is mid 70’s. It’s the classic Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin) from the great Sly and the Family Stone. A little funk to kick off your Sunday morning.

Read Full Post »

Jubilee- West End Gallery Show Ends Thursday, August 24

Only by learning to live in harmony with your contradictions can you keep it all afloat.

–Audre Lorde, Conversations with Audre Lorde

I often describe paintings such as the painting above, Jubilee, as my Baucis & Philemon pieces, work that is based on and inspired the Greek myth of the poor, elderly couple visited in their home by a disguised Zeus.

And these paintings are primarily just that. But I also see another reading in them. I often see them as representing the two sides of our individual wholeness. You might call it the individual’s yin and yang.

Two sides of the coin.

Dark and light. Good and bad. Male and female. Wise and foolish.

We are never one thing alone. We are comprised of opposing forces. Maybe it is the tension between these forces that creates whatever it is that animates us as living creatures.

I surely don’t know the answer to that. Beyond my paygrade, as they say.

But it has me thinking this morning. Maybe that is something we will talk about at the Gallery Talk at the West End Gallery later this morning.

Maybe. I won’t know until I start talking and something falls out to get the whole thing rolling. Where it goes is anyone’s guess.

Normally I would be urging folks to come out and join in the festivities but we have a very full house. Sorry for those of you who had wanted to come but weren’t able to reserve a spot.

I am hoping this won’t be the last so maybe next year?

PS: For those of you coming today, there is a clue in here somewhere to some part of the talk. It will alll soon be revealed…

Read Full Post »

Student and Master— Now at West End Gallery

It seems to be very hard for people to live with riddles or to let them live, although one would think that life is so full of riddles as it is that a few more things we cannot answer would make no difference. But perhaps it is just this that is so unendurable, that there are irrational things in our own psyche which upset the conscious mind in its illusory certainties by confronting it with the riddle of its existence.

–Carl Jung

I was looking at an image of this painting, Student and Master, this morning. It’s in my Eye in the Sky exhibit at the West End Gallery show that is in its final week before coming down next Thursday, August 24.

This is a painting that pleases me on several levels. I am drawn to it aesthetically by its colors, forms, and composition. And I am also drawn to it on an intellectual level where I see in it a series of questions or riddles with what seems to be few, if any, answers.

It has an enigmatic feel. Very Sphinx-like in that I can look upon it, seeing and appreciating it as it is, yet walk away wondering why it is as it is.

I can only describe the feeling I get from it as one of uneasy comfort. I feel both soothed by it yet am made fully aware of the unanswerable riddles that surround us. Maybe Jung was on the mark with the thought that life often feels unendurable because of our mind’s desire for certitude in an uncertain world. A desire for rationality in an irrational world.

Or maybe we should take another view into consideration, that of Mark Twain in his 1899 fictionalized essay, Christian Science:

Let us consider that we are all partially insane. It will explain us to each other; it will unriddle many riddles; it will make clear and simple many things which are involved in haunting and harassing difficulties and obscurities now.

If we admit that we are all somewhat insane then nothing is really a riddle because then rationality and logic don’t really carry much weight. Sounds like we are about to that point, doesn’t it?

The fact that this little painting spawns so much thought makes it a memorable piece for me, the image of which I am sure I will be revisiting many times in the future.

Well, as many times as there will be in this uncertain and irrational world.

Speaking of uncertain and irrational things, I now have to get to work on the interpretative dance piece I have planned for tomorrow’s Gallery Talk, which is now at FULL CAPACITY.

Now, get outta of here.

Read Full Post »

“All right,” said the Cheshire Cat; and this time it vanished quite slowly, beginning with the end of the tail, and ending with the grin, which remained some time after the rest of it had gone.

–Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

Like the Cheshire Cat’s smile, time to see the Eye in the Sky show at the West End Gallery is fading!

The show comes down at the end of the day next Thursday, August 24.

Read Full Post »

The Heartening Light– At the West End Gallery

When people can see a vision and simultaneously recognize what can be done step by step in a concrete way to achieve it, they will begin to feel encouragement and enthusiasm instead of fright.

–Erich Fromm, To Have Or To Be?

I am a fan of psychoanalyst and humanistic philosopher Erich Fromm. He was bornin Germany in 1900, fled the Nazis in the early 1930’s, and settled in America where he lived until his death in 1980. His 1941 book Escape From Freedom is a classic that postulates that though we claim to desire freedom and personal independence, the vast majority of us run from responsibility, preferring to be ruled over. This is often cited as a leading factor in the rise of authoritarianism, then and now.

But in the passage above from his 1976 book, To Have Or To Be?, writes of how progress can be achieved in the face of our fear of freedom. It’s an incremental process that takes place with clarity and transparency. And if you think about it, that is how most positive progress and change comes about. When we form and accept a distant positive goal and see the benefit as well as a path toward achieving it, we often put aside our fears and doubts to willingly sacrifice and work towards that goal.

Well, ideally that is the case. We live in a world of misinformation and disinformation now with powerful entities that foster doubt and fear in the guise of an openness and transparency that is often clouded in the anonymity of the cyberworld. Consensus is a rare thing as is the patience required for incremental progress in a time that demands instant gratification.

But even in this environment, the way of progress often follows this path. And it starts with a vision of hope or, as this painting puts it, The Heartening Light.

Here, the hope and distant goal appears as the rising sun. The fields in the foreground symbolize the work, nurturing, and patience required to let progress fully germinate and grow.  The Red Tree appears as a symbol of the awareness and desire of that goal. The Red Roofs represent the community required to bond together to achieve that goal. The body of water is a symbol of the passing of time it will take to get to the desired goal.

It is a hopeful piece in my eyes, representing the best of our potential as humans. Hopefully, its optimism is not yet naive.

The Heartening Light is at the West End Gallery as part of my current solo show, Eye in the Sky, which closes next Thursday, August 24.

Below is an update from the West End Gallery on the upcoming Gallery Talk, at which the painting shown below will be given away in a drawing for those in attendance:

Hope Rises– Win This Painting at the Gallery Talk on Saturday!!

All seats are filled for the GC Myers Gallery Talk on Saturday, August 19th from 11am-Noon. Any remaining availability will be STANDING ROOM ONLY, up to the point of maximum building occupancy.

WAITING LIST: Please use our Contact Form, if you have not already done so, if you would like to be added to the WAITING LIST for a chair in the event another attendee cancels. Link provided below. On the form, please provide your full name, contact information (where we can reach you on the day of the event), and the names of any guests that may accompany you. You should receive a Confirmation Email to be added to the WAITING LIST within 24-48 hours after you have filled out the form: https://westendgallery.net/contact/

Read Full Post »

Absorbed– Now at West End Gallery

When you paint, you forget everything except your object. When you are too much engrossed in it, you are lost in it. And when you are lost in it, your ego diminishes. And when the ego diminishes, love infinite appears.

–Meher Baba, The Answer: Conversations with Meher Baba

Meher Baba was an Indian spiritual master who died in 1969 at the age of 74. He claimed to be the Avatar– the human representation– of God for the age in which he lived and maintained silence for the last 44 years of his life, only communicating with an alphabet board and gestures.

I don’t know a lot about him but when I came across the passage above, I totally understood what he was saying. It’s something I have attempted to describe many times here. As I am working, most of my thoughts– my worries and concerns included– seem to fade into a distant point. They are there still but every other facility is involved in trying to create something on the surface before me that takes on a life of its own.

As he points out, with such immersion there isn’t room then for the ego. The painting is its own entity, free of my ego, free of my conscious thoughts.

It becomes a matter of instinct and intuition rather than intellect.

Too much thought muddies the surface and the message.

I think the painting shown here is good example of this idea. In fact, its title, Absorbed, came from that feeling of being engrossed and lost in the process. The painting itself feels like a perfect representation of the concept for me.

Absorbed is currently at the West End Gallery as part of Eye in the Sky, my annual solo exhibit there. The show is hanging in the gallery until next Thursday, August 24.

Below is an update from the West End Gallery on the upcoming Gallery Talk, at which the painting shown below will be given away in a drawing for those in attendance:

Hope Rises– Win This Painting at the Gallery Talk!!

All seats are filled for the GC Myers Gallery Talk on Saturday, August 19th from 11am-Noon. Any remaining availability will be STANDING ROOM ONLY, up to the point of maximum building occupancy.

WAITING LIST: Please use our Contact Form, if you have not already done so, if you would like to be added to the WAITING LIST for a chair in the event another attendee cancels. Link provided below. On the form, please provide your full name, contact information (where we can reach you on the day of the event), and the names of any guests that may accompany you. You should receive a Confirmation Email to be added to the WAITING LIST within 24-48 hours after you have filled out the form: https://westendgallery.net/contact/

Read Full Post »

In the Eye– Now at West End Gallery

The infinite wonders of the universe are revealed to us in exact measure as we are capable of receiving them. The keenness of our vision depends not on how much we can see, but on how much we feel.

–Helen Keller, Inward Visions, 1908

How often do we see something yet not have any feeling for it nor any understanding of it? Is it a rare thing or a common thing?

I tend to think it’s a common thing. Perhaps seeing without feeling is the most common part of our vision.

I certainly fall prey to this quite often. I can’t tell you how often I find myself stopping and remarking on something I have passed innumerable times as though it were the first time I had seen it. I can’t recall exactly what it was but this happened just the other day. I glimpsed a tree that I could not recall seeing before.

That doesn’t sound too bad but it was within a hundred feet or so of my studio and I had literally walked by it thousands of times over the years.

It made me wonder how many other things and people I had overlooked in this same way in my life. Or how many times I was the one being overlooked. I know that the idea of having my work overlooked was a motivating force in its development. Seeing folks walk by my paintings in early group shows without giving it a first let alone a second glance made me want to yell out for them to stop and see the work. Feel it.

Of course, I would find out that the connection between the viewer and the painting is a private matter, a private conversation to which I am only tangentially connected in a small way.

I am not saying here that our lack of sight and feeling for all things is a bad thing altogether. It would be impossible to see and feel all things. Not sure we could bear it. But we need to see and feel and understand many things if we are to maintain our humanity.

Phew. Wasn’t planning on writing anything this morning so I can’t vouch for the reasoning or presentation this morning.

Below is the classic Who song, See Me, Feel Me from Tommy. Seems right this morning.

Here’s an update from the West End Gallery on the upcoming Gallery Talk:

All seats are filled for the GC Myers Gallery Talk on Saturday, August 19th from 11am-Noon. Any remaining availability will be STANDING ROOM ONLY, up to the point of maximum building occupancy.

WAITING LIST: Please use our Contact Form, if you have not already done so, if you would like to be added to the WAITING LIST for a chair in the event another attendee cancels. Link provided below. On the form, please provide your full name, contact information (where we can reach you on the day of the event), and the names of any guests that may accompany you. You should receive a Confirmation Email to be added to the WAITING LIST within 24-48 hours after you have filled out the form: https://westendgallery.net/contact/

Read Full Post »

The Elevating Eye– Now at West End Gallery

Though my life is low, if my spirit looks upward habitually at an elevated angle, it is as if it were redeemed. When the desire to be better than we are is really sincere we are instantly elevated, and so far better already.

–Henry David Thoreau, Journal

The mind will follow where the eye takes it.

Trash in, trash out, as they say.

Hmm.

This idea of aspiration through visualization is a concept that appears in a lot of my work. It might even be the most prominent of the ideas that I see in it. Maybe I use it as a reminder to not fall into the trash in, trash out mode of thinking. To keep my spirit habitually at an elevated angle as Thoreau put it.

This idea is definitely the engine that drives the painting above, The Elevating Eye. It is included in the Eye in the Sky exhibit of my new work that hangs at the West End Gallery until August 24. The Red Tree certainly rises above its surroundings and declares its newly found elevation plainly and boldly. 

It reminds me of a few lines from Walt Whitman and his Song of Myself: 

I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable,
I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world.

These lines have been echoing in my mind for much of my adult life, since long before I ever considered being an artist. They were a constant rejoinder to myself that I wanted something more from life, wanted to be better than I was. That I wanted to sound my own barbaric yawp.

Remember that. It may come into play later.

This week’s Sunday Morning Music is a perfect fit for today’s theme. It’s Lift Me Up from Moby, the Dance music artist who took his stage name from his familial relationship (he’s a 3rd great nephew) to Herman Melville. The song was written as a protest to the rise of the worldwide intolerance and fundamentalism that he saw taking place in 2004 and which has only grown in the years since. I am playing two versions of the song here. The first is the original version with the normal Dance music instruments– drum machine and synthesizers– while the second is performed with orchestral and choral arrangements. I find it always interesting to see artist’s interpretations and variations on their own work. Both are the same here yet very different.

I invite you to hear for yourself.

IMPORTANT UPDATE FROM WEST END GALLERY:

All seats are filled for the GC Myers Gallery Talk on Saturday, August 19th from 11am-Noon. Any remaining availability will be STANDING ROOM ONLY, up to the point of maximum building occupancy.

WAITING LIST: Please use our Contact Form, if you have not already done so, if you would like to be added to the WAITING LIST for a chair in the event another attendee cancels. Link provided below. On the form, please provide your full name, contact information (where we can reach you on the day of the event), and the names of any guests that may accompany you. You should receive a Confirmation Email to be added to the WAITING LIST within 24-48 hours after you have filled out the form: https://westendgallery.net/contact/

Read Full Post »

Hope Rises– Win This Painting at the Gallery Talk!!

The manner of giving is worth more than the gift.

–Pierre Corneille, Le Menteur (The Liar) (1643)

My annual Gallery Talk at the West End Gallery is one week from today. It takes place next Saturday, August 19, beginning at 11 AM. It’s an hour of conversation about art and often much more that comes to an end with what has become a tradition before the four-year hiatus caused by the pandemic – the drawing for an original painting to awarded to someone in attendance.

I have written in the past about how I sweat over the selection of the paintings for these drawings. I really want these paintings to be meaningful for myself so that it feels like I am actually making a sacrifice in letting go of the piece. I think that an element of self-sacrifice makes for a true and meaningful gift.

I know that by giving those paintings away that I cherish, they most likely will have more meaning to those who receive them. And that is important to me even though I sometimes experience regret at letting go of certain paintings. Looking back, I have given away paintings with so much personal meaning in the past that I sometimes wish that I had held on to them. 

Take for example the choice I have made to give away next Saturday, shown at the top. It is a painting called Hope Rises, a 12″ by 24″ painting on canvas from back in 2018. I have watched this piece make the rounds of the galleries with great interest over the past several years because I felt from the beginning that there was something special about it. It has, for me, a deep sense of pondering that comes through in the deep blues of the fractured sky. There is just something in it that speaks to me.

Seeing a piece with which I had such a strong connection constantly back to me was frustrating. After a bit I determined that it should stay with me and for the past several months it has hung where I see it all the time. It was sort of a test to see if there was something in it that I wasn’t seeing that made it less appealing to others. I haven’t seen it yet and, if anything, I have become even more convinced of its strength and durability.

Actually, its underappreciation made it appeal to me even more. I can relate to that. Feelings of being underestimated, overlooked, and unheard may well have been the primary driving force in pursuing my art.

Don’t we all want to be seen and heard and appreciated?

That’s what I see in this piece and part of what makes it special for me.

It deserves to be seen, deserves to be part of someone’s life.

Maybe part of your life.

Next Saturday I will part with this painting and it will begin a new life somewhere outside my studio. I am excited by the thought that this painting might take on new meaning for someone else who will give it the appreciation it deserves. Hopefully, it will make them appreciate better those who give them such things in their own lives.

I make my living and get great gratification in selling my work but the simple act of transferring a meaningful painting in these events is a special moment for me. There’s a surge of emotion in this act that comes from expressing my gratitude to the folks who have both given their time and supported me over the years. The fact that they have made me feel heard, seen, and appreciated is as much a gift for me as the painting might be to whoever receives it.

Please come on out to the West End Gallery next Saturday, August 19 for the Gallery Talk and a chance to make Hope Rises part of your life. Plus, there are some other little surprises so definitely try to make it. Take note that the Gallery Talk begins at 11 AM and, since seating is limited, we are asking thatyou contact the West End Gallery to reserve your seat as soon as possible.If you get there early, maybe we can have a pre-Talk chat!

Read Full Post »