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Archive for the ‘Early Paintings’ Category

Outlaw’s Vigil

Posted in Biographical, Early Paintings, Favorite Things, Motivation, tagged , , , , , on August 10, 2015| Leave a Comment »

GC Myers- Outlaw's VigilAt 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.

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Kabuki TV /Redux

Posted in Early Paintings, Painting, Technique/History, tagged , , on February 11, 2015| 1 Comment »

GC Myers Kabuki TV 1994Whenever I come across this little experiment from back in 1994, I linger over it for a few minutes and smile a little.  There’s a lot going on with plenty of bright colors and sharp angles but with a narrative element within it where I saw a person watching a Kabuki performance on their television.  But more than that I am reminded of the decision to move away from this experiment and continue in the direction that eventually led me here.

You see, I enjoyed doing this work, enjoyed the process and the final product.  I could have easily followed this path and been fairly happy.  But it lacked something that while I can’t really put a finger on it was found later in the work that I eventually produced in later years.

Heart?  Soul?  I can’t say.  But it was fun at the time and makes me smile now.  Plus the lesson in learning what you can and can’t be is beyond value.

I wrote a bit more on this subject, also set off from this little painting, back in 2010:

Just looking through some old things, mostly little pieces that are from the time when I first started painting, and I came across this.  At the time  I was playing around with color and masking, where you put something such as tape on the painting surface and paint over it then peel it away to reveal the unpainted surface underneath.  It can be a big part of traditional watercolor painting and I wanted to see if it fit with the way I thought and wanted to paint.  It didn’t.  But I did come up with this little abstraction that always catches my eye and makes my mind’s gears turn.

It’s always interesting to see these little pieces because it inevitably triggers memories of that time when every day was bringing new discoveries as I tried to learn more and more about color and different mediums.  Sometimes things clicked and it was revelatory to discover my strengths.  Other times, it was a struggle and the end product was muddled, labored.  But there was still something to be learned there.  Like identifying my weaknesses and learning how to strengthen these areas or, at least, downplay them.

I guess that this is the process for development in any area of your life,  playing up your strong suits and trying to cover your weaknesses.  Perhaps that is why I like to see these old experiments, to be reminded of my growth, artistically and personally, through the years. 

At least, what I perceive as growth.

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Looking Back in the New Year

Posted in Biographical, Early Paintings, tagged , on January 2, 2015| 5 Comments »

exiles-blue-guitarI spent the better part of New Year’s Day in the studio going through bins and boxes filled with old papers and old work.  It’s part of a project that I will be going into more detail at a later date but it had me clawing through things that had long left my memory bank.  Some for good reason.

One bin was filled with my very earliest work from the time soon after my accident when I was making my first forays into art.   There was even a drawing made with my left hand ( I am right-handed and you can definitely see it in the drawing) from just a few days after the actual fall, one that I don’t even remember doing in any shape or form.  I hadn’t looked at this bin in many years and was surprised by much of the work.  Most of it was absolutely horrible and I found myself asking what I was seeing in it at that time that made me keep pushing forward.  It was muddy in color and rough in every way.  I could see nothing that linked this to the work that was to come.

But I must have been seeing something or at least sensing movement towards something because the work came in even greater bursts at the time.  I began to see how the work shifted with new discoveries and the color began to clear and brighten.  The lines became more confident and the forms more defined and organic.   I finally came to a point where I began to see my thought process from that time and could see that I was seeing the potential of the work but still didn’t know how to fully pull it out at that point.  I was still flailing in the dark, experimenting with colors and surfaces and materials with the hope that I would stumble on something that would let me express what I was sensing was there.

first-day-gc-myers-1994Eventually, there was a tipping point and everything came together with a singular focus.  This little piece on the right is what I consider that tipping point, the moment when I as a baby spoke my first words in my new voice.  I know it doesn’t seem like much here on the page but this painting at the time changed everything for me and it definitely shows in the work that followed.  I still get a charge of the sensation I felt when I first painted this piece whenever I look at it, knowing in that moment that my life was changing.

But the work before that moment, as I shuffled through it yesterday, left me convinced that the thing I was seeing in my mind at that point was strong enough to let push on through some pretty awful crap.  I was half tempted to put much of it in the burner and set a match to it.  But I couldn’t do it because, awful as it is, it served a great purpose for me.  I wouldn’t want to be judged on it just as I wouldn’t to be judged on my actions as child but it is part of me and led to better things.

Barely a year later I finished the piece at the top, Exile: Blue Guitar, which was part of a group of paintings that was the first series that I completed and was able to show publicly.  This was one of three pieces from that group that I sold and perhaps the piece I most regret letting go.  Looking at the other pieces from that series yesterday only made me wish to see this piece again, just to be able to closely examine it, to see how the years had changed how I might see it now.

So, this morning I sit here with stacks of old, terrible pieces around me– none of which I am willing to share with you– reminding me of a time when I was without voice and how differently I felt about everything as a result.   It made me all the more grateful for the life I now have.

And that made for a pretty good way to start the new year.

 

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Transformational Power

Posted in Biographical, Early Paintings, tagged , , on October 14, 2014| Leave a Comment »

GC Myers- Early LandscapeThis is a painting from about 17 or 18 years back.  I chose it for today’s post because last night I was the guest speaker at the Annual Dinner for the Arts Center of Yates County and  used the transformational power of art as as a theme for my remarks.  I look at this painting and I can see how my work has changed over the years.  But more importantly, the transformation I see in this painting reminds me of the changes that have taken place in my life as a result of my involvement with the arts.

In addition to sharing the story of how I came  to painting, I spoke of  being empowered by discovering a voice in the images that speak for me of my deepest emotions where words fail me.  About how the purpose and responsibility that art has provided for me has enriched my life and connected me with the outer world.  About how art has allowed me to clearly see what I am and am not.

Art has provided so much for me and I urged those in attendance, all involved locally in some way with the arts, to take note of the gifts that art has given them and to encourage others to become involved in the arts so that they, too, might experience similar gifts.

I want to thank the members of Arts Center of Yates County for inviting me to speak and for being such a warm and receptive audience.  Your interest and friendly attitude made me made me feel very welcome and for that I am truly grateful.  All the best to you in the coming year.

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Change

Posted in Biographical, Early Paintings, Quote, Technique/History, tagged , , , on October 3, 2014| 2 Comments »

To exist is to change, to change is to mature, to mature is to go on creating oneself endlessly.

~Henri Bergson

***************

GC Myers 1994 Early Work Illustrative Styling

If you have read this blog for some time, you probably have noticed that I periodically like to revisit old work, especially those early pieces from when I was still in the process of finding voice.  It’s an interesting period for me to look at because the changes were coming fast, sometimes on what seemed to be a daily basis, as new things were tried, some sparking new directions and some being quickly set aside.

It was a much different set of circumstances than the way I currently work.  It was a period of fast and furious fireworks, little pops and crackles with every step forward where today it is quieter for periods of time followed by louder booms.  I don’t know if I can explain that any better and am pretty sure it means nothing to anyone but that is the nature of this whole endeavor– trying to make sense of something inexplicable.

I was looking at some early pieces and stopped on this one at the top for a bit, looking at it closely for the first time in many years.  It’s from around 1994 and was at a point where I was still trying to figure out things.  It was very illustrative– I could see it being used in a kid’s book– but there were things I took from it.  The treatment of the sky, for instance, presaged the way my process evolved. It’s a pleasant little piece but it is far from where I wanted to be and even back then I knew it when I finished it then set it aside.  It was not an emotional carrier for me at the time and that was what I was seeking.

The piece  below , Into the Valley, was from around six or seven months later, in early 1995,  and shows the changes that were taking hold in my work.  It is simpler in construction yet seems to say more for me, seems to have some more fundamental thought in it.  GC Myers Into the Valley 1995

I usually take something from these little visits back in time.  The changes become more evident as the style matures then levels off, becoming a bit more subtle, less drastic but more confident.  But always changing, always recreating itself as it matures.

Or so I hope…

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Red Chair 2002

Posted in Early Paintings, Painting, Technique/History, tagged , , , , on September 17, 2014| 3 Comments »

GC Myers- A Journey Begins

GC Myers- A Journey Begins

One of the interesting things about doing Gallery Talks, especially when there are a number of people who have followed your work for a while, is the feedback I get about the direction of my work or what has come or gone in it in recent times.  I hadn’t even noticed until someone asked that my Red Chair was lacking from the walls of the Principle Gallery and upon thinking about it I realized  that it had not appeared often in recent times.  I wasn’t surprised.  After doing this for a while, I’ve come to understand that themes and imagery cycle in and out of my work, attaching for a while to my psyche then falling to the back, only to resurface at a later time.

GC Myers- Night Watch

GC Myers- Night Watch

But having someone raise that point prodded me a bit and that Red Chair is in my mind again.  I have a few images swirling that will soon be out, I am sure.  But it also made me go back through my files looking for that Red Chair.  2002 was the high water mark for its appearance, especially in interior scenes painted in that style I refer to as my Dark Work— dark blues and greens over a black base.  Several of them remain with me and are among that work with which I will not part.

But I thought it would be interesting to show how a series of specific imagery, in this case the Red Chair,  goes through a specific time period, how certain elements are added or highlighted or fall away.  The one constant is the weight that the Red Chair brings to each image.  There is a tangible sense of  presence in each, as though the Red Chair alive and contemplating in the moment.  I think that is the appeal for me in these pieces– they don’t feel like still lifes but more like portraits.

Anyway, here is how the Red Chair moved through 2002:

GC Myers- Galvanic Memory

GC Myers- Galvanic Memory

GC Myers- Little Red Riding Chair

GC Myers- Little Red Riding Chair

GC Myers- Inner Sanctum

GC Myers- Inner Sanctum

GC Myers- An Inward Look

GC Myers- An Inward Look

GC Myers- Small Piece pf the World

GC Myers- Small Piece pf the World

GC Myers- Reason to Believe

GC Myers- Reason to Believe

GC Myers- Introspection

GC Myers- Introspection

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Re-Presenting

Posted in Early Paintings, Painting, Technique/History, tagged , , , , on September 11, 2014| 2 Comments »

GC Myers- Blue Night Discovery

GC Myers- Blue Night Discovery

I have a small group of new work accompanying me to the Principle Gallery this Saturday for my 1 PM Gallery Talk there.  There are also two older paintings, one a piece that I wrote about here a couple of weeks ago, The Elusive Path.  It is from 1990 and is one of the first Red Tree paintings but was trapped in a bad frame that sapped away much of its potency.  A new and more fitting frame has allowed its true self to shine through.

Another older painting that will be coming with me is shown above, Blue Night Discovery.  Unlike The Elusive Path which had a horrible dull green-blue frame, this painting had a decent looking frame.  The problem was that the mat surrounding this painting on paper was extra wide and the frame was massive.  It was huge and cumbersome, much too weighty for this work.  The framed piece felt like a slab of rock when I would pick it up and I seldom looked at it because it was such a chore to drag it out.

It was buried in the very thing that was supposed to set it forward and present it in its best light.

GC Myers- The Elusive Path

GC Myers- The Elusive Path

I had went through a period of these large, heavy frames and extra wide mats and over the years I have changed most of these paintings back to smaller, more reasonable frames that don’t overwhelm the painting.  So many so that I have a huge stack of these massive frames in a basement room.  There’s enough wood there to build an addition on my studio. Looking at these frames,  I can now safely say that the idea of these wide mats and heavy frames was a misjudgement on my part.

But there is a bright side to this realization.  For all of these frames, the  paintings that had been held captive have almost all found new homes soon after being re-presented in a manner that allows them to show what they really are, to let them exhibit their own qualities.  Seeing Blue Night Discovery out of that huge frame let me see it with cleared eyes not distracted by a setting that had little to do with the piece itself.  I had discounted this painting in my mind for years because of this distraction but now saw the strong forms and saturated colors, the contrasts of the dark of the  blues against the light light of the moon.  It made me remember the time when I had painted it and those positive feelings to which it had given rise.

It seemed new again in my eyes.  All because it was in a new position, a gem in its proper setting.

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The Elusive Path

Posted in Early Paintings, Painting, tagged , , , , , on August 19, 2014| 5 Comments »

GC Myers- The Elusive Path 2000 smWhile going through the group of older work that I have here in the studio last week I came  across this painting from back in 2000 called The Elusive Path.  It’s one of a small handful of pieces from that time that are still in my possession which means,  since my pre-2000 documentation was pretty spotty, that it is one of the few pieces from that period that I can closely examine.  Oh, there are a few others but they are pretty much misses, paintings that are lacking  in some way.  Some are just too worked over– I was trying to make something out of nothing and didn’t have the tools yet to  do so– and some  are just blah.

But then I pulled out this painting, one that I hadn’t really looked at with intent for years.  This was probably due to a bile green frame that put a taint on the whole thing, making me want to not look for too long in its direction.  I looked at it for a moment then decided I needed to unframe it before casting any judgements on it.  I just couldn’t get past that frame’s influence over the whole.   So I did and was truly pleased with what emerged.

Without the hulking presence of that green frame, this piece felt new again, as though it had a grasp of where I was wanting the work to go at that point and was moving in that direction.  Oh, there have been changes, evolutions of elements and color-handling but the forms and lines are in the continuum.  Plus it held one of the earliest incarnations of the Red Tree which had more or less premiered at my first solo show, fittingly titled RedTree, at the Principle Gallery in 2000.

I’m sitting here this morning looking at this piece now and it seems so different than the painting I had thought of  for all these years as simply being the unfortunate picture trapped in a horrible frame.  It feels alive and new now and I feel a sense of pride in it that I never expected.  I’m looking at it next to a new painting in progress and even though the new one is being painted in a different process with some elements that were not in my vocabulary back in 2000, there is no denying the line that runs from one to the other.

They are one and the same in being true expressions of what I am or desire to be.

And maybe that is the lesson here.  We might be obscured by our trappings, as this painting was by that frame, but if we remain patient and true to what we believe to be our best self we will eventually find a way forward, find our way to our desired destination.  We can find that elusive path.

 

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Filling In the Gaps

Posted in Early Paintings, Painting, tagged , , , , on August 16, 2014| 2 Comments »

GC Myers- Peaceful Tidings sm

Peaceful Tidings- GC Myers

My show, Layers, at the West End Gallery hangs for another two weeks, until August 29th.  It has been a very good show thus far with many of the paintings having found new homes, many of them in distant locales.  In fact, more than half of those sold have left the state, including two leaving yesterday for Utah. This has created a lot of gaps in the exhibit, enough so that Jesse Gardner, the assistant director there, asked if I had some larger pieces available to fill in the gaps. 

This struck me as a nice opportunity to show a few paintings that have not been seen in a while, pieces that have been biding their time with me in the studio. Included is the piece shown to the right, Peaceful Tidings, a piece measuring about 18″ by 36″ on paper.  It is a painting that inexplicably only showed in one gallery for a short time before coming to the studio.  Why I have kept it under wraps is a question that I can’t answer.  It has always seemed to be here, always drawing my attention when I am near it.  So this seems like a nice chance to let it out once more.

A few are from the group of work that I call the Dark Work, from around 2002.  Includes in this group are two pieces shown below, Night Karma and Night Vibrations, which is a larger piece, coming in at 30″ by 34″ on paper.  This series was a departure in style and tone from the much lighter and transparent work I was doing at the time and was very reflective of the tone of the time just after 9/11. Darker and with more weight, more ponderous.

But over the years as this work has become less associated with that time and people take it in with a different perspective, viewing it for what it is expressing in the now.  As a result, there are only a handful of these pieces from that time floating around, including this small group.  This work has great meaning for me and served a great purpose in my development, allowing me to better follow the inner voice that is most true to who I am as a person.  It’s good to show these pieces, even if only for a short time.

So, if you’ve already seen the show at the West End Gallery or if you have not, there is something new for you to see before it comes down in a couple of weeks.  Hopefully, you will find it interesting.

GC Myers- Night Vibrations sm

Night Vibrations- GC Myers

GC Myers- Night Karma sm

Night Karma- GC Myers

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Win This Painting Today!

Posted in Early Paintings, tagged , , , , on August 9, 2014| Leave a Comment »

GC Myers- Silent Passage

GC Myers- Silent Passage

Well, I give a Gallery Talk this afternoon, starting at 1 PM  at the West End Gallery in Corning in support of my show, Layers, which hangs there for another few weeks.  One of the attractions for this talk is a drawing that will be held among the attendees for a painting of mine. The process of deciding what that painting will be resembles a dance, going back and forth between selections.

I have been spending the last few days looking at some of the pieces that I have here in the studio, trying to find one that is right for this event.  I have given away paintings before at these talks and it has always been important to me that the pieces have some significance for me.  I don’t want to simply pick out an old piece that I now recognize as having weaknesses.  I have a few of those from many  years ago that still take up space here.  It would be easy to grab one of those and be done with the whole selection process.

But that would be like handing out discards and that doesn’t seem like the right thing to do when the whole concept  behind the drawing is to display the appreciation I have for those who have followed and supported my work through the years.  If the folks take time on a summer weekend  afternoon to come to the gallery to participate in a Gallery Talk then they deserve a piece that is real and alive, something meaningful and of value to me.

So, after going back and forth, I settled on this painting from a number of years ago.  It is titled Silent Passage and has long been a favorite of mine.  It is a real painting  with an image of  9″ wide by 29″ high on paper.  Its framed dimensions come in at 18″ by 38″, so it has presence in its size and its value.  But more important to than the size or monetary value of  this painting is the meaning of this work for myself.  It encapsulates much of what I have tried to put across for these years.

A study in quiet and movement.  Color and texture.  Light and dark.  Now and eternity.

I hope whoever takes this home this afternoon will understand the meaning it holds for me and will see it for themselves.

The Gallery Talk starts at 1 PM.  Hope you can make it there.

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