![GC Myers- Niche 2024](https://redtreetimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/9924135-niche-sm.jpg)
Niche– At Principle Gallery, Alexandria
“As he was about to climb yet another dune, his heart whispered, “Be aware of the place where you are brought to tears. That’s where I am, and that’s where your treasure is.”
― Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist
When I am painting, especially in the runup to a solo show, I can often tell how effective I believe the work is by my emotional response to it. I often experience cathartic moments with many pieces where I see the meaning the painting holds for me, how it mirrors my emotional state and how I view myself and the world.
Sometimes tears flow in these moments. They are not sad nor are they happy tears.
They are tears of recognition and acknowledgment of the human condition. Tears of catharsis.
The painting shown here, Niche, had such an effect on me in the studio. I took it off the easel and set it down against a shelf then stepped back to take it in from a distance.
Within moments, my eyes were filled with tears.
I immediately saw the painting as a representation of my life as a painter. Maybe the closest I will ever come to doing a self-portrait. It is a modest painting, clear and colorful. The rolling field rows in the foreground generally represent work and labor for me and here I could only see them as representative the tens of thousands of hours spent alone in the studio working to create work that spoke some sort of truth.
But the part that hit me hardest was the narrowness of the canvas and how the Red Tree found its place to shine between two other trees. I could only see that as representative of my career as a painter. I live and work in a narrow niche, one that is simply stated and far apart from the art world in general. I don’t even know what to call my work or how others classify it. Neither highbrow nor lowbrow, it will never be swept up in movements or schools of art, never cited as part of some -ism in art history. It will never be the subject of big museum retrospectives or serious study from art critics. My life is too small and insular to warrant such things and I don’t have the will or energy to seek them.
It is, as I said, a narrow niche in art and in life. But that was not the part that brought the tears. No, it was the fact that I had this small, limited niche in the first place. It was the recognition that I had carved out such a niche with only my limited talents and mind that made me cry. I guess that I saw myself in this tree in that moment. And, even seeing all its limitations, it pleased me for having created something worthwhile from so little.
My niche might be small and narrow. But, good or bad, it is mine.
I am sure to many that seems like a small and simple thing. Maybe so. But even small and simple things sometimes make up the best part of a life.
Sometimes they make you cry.
Wasn’t planning on writing this this morning. Didn’t really want to share so much, to be honest. Certainly didn’t want to admit to crying. But I thought this painting deserved sharing my full reaction to it. It earned it.
Here’s a Ray LaMontagne song to go along with it. This is Such a Simple Thing. Seems about right.
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