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Archive for the ‘Early Paintings’ Category

Intangible

Posted in Early Paintings, Influences, Technique/History, tagged on January 14, 2010| 2 Comments »

I’ve been scanning some slides of old work, putting them into a more accessible digital form.  It’s been interesting, seeing a lot of the older work, much I haven’t seen in many years.  It’s enlightening to see the changes in the work and inspiring when I come across pieces where I remember what I was going for in the painting, the concept behind the work.  Sometimes it’s an idea that I’ve put aside at that time, to be used later but end up completely forgetting.  Seeing them anew brings that idea back to life but years later with a different base of knowledge to work with it.

Other times I come across pieces that I remember so well for the feeling they produced while painting them and the feeling of the final product.  This is one such piece, called Neighbors, that is from about 14 years back.  It’s a painting that I remember painting so well.  It was at a time when I was still forming a lot of the technique that became staples of my work and this piece seemed to come together so well.  There was something very delicate in the way I painted this, a lighter touch with the brush.  I don’t know if it’s visible but I feel it and remember it.

There’s also a certain nostalgic feel to this piece that I remember very well.  The location of this scene is not representative of any place I’ve known but strikes a very reactive chord within me as though it is an icon that is representative of something important within me but is there without my knowledge, laying dormant.

It’s an unusual, more complex reaction to a simple, straightforward painting than I would expect.  It makes me wonder what it is that makes me react this way and if this is the same emotional trigger that makes certain pieces raise similar reactions in other people.  What is this intangible?

I’ll have to think on that for a while…

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Arthur Dove

Posted in Early Paintings, Favorite Things, Influences, Technique/History, tagged , , , on January 8, 2010| 2 Comments »

When I was first starting to paint, one of the painters that I admired when I first ran across his work was the Modernist painter of the early 20th century, Arthur Dove.  As I was beginning to form my own visual vocabulary, I found many similarities in how Dove and I represented certain elements in our paintings. This gave me a feeling that I may be following the right path and gave me a little more certainty and confidence in my own work.  I was also drawn by the duality in his work between the abstract and the representational.  There was always the sense that you were looking at something recognizable and familiar even when there was definite abstraction present.  This was something I have aspired for in my own work.

I didn’t know much about the man but was also pleased when I found that he was from the Finger Lakes region of NY  and had been educated just up the road at Cornell.  No big deal, obviously, but it gave me an insight into the influence of the local landscape in his work and his eye that I could compare to my own.

One of the factors in being self-taught for me, was in finding an artist that I could identify with , who seemed to have a similar feel for how things would translate in different media.  I am surprised, even today, how much of my early work resembles some Dove pieces that I have only seen recently for the first time.

I can’t say I loved all of Dove’s work.  I don’t know if anybody can say that about any other human if their work fully represents them.  But I do admire the spirit and feeling of his work and know my work is better for it.

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Stranger In a Strange Land

Posted in Early Paintings, tagged , , on December 26, 2009| Leave a Comment »

Well, it’s the day after Christmas and today I’m starting a five day stint, filling in for owner Linda Gardner at the West End Gallery.  It’s something I haven’t done for well over a decade and as the day has approached I’ve become more and more nervous at the prospect.  I’m afraid my people skills will have deteriorated a bit during those years spent in the studio when the only contact with people in a gallery was confined to an hour or two a few times a year at my openings.

I’m hoping they return.  Quickly.

Over this time at the gallery, I will be bringing out a few pieces from the studio that haven’t been shown in a number of years.  One such painting is the one shown above, Stranger (In a Strange Land), which has been a favorite of mine for a long time.  This 12″ by 36″ piece is considered one of my “dark” pieces, very densely colored over a black ground.  I never saw many of the pieces that are considered “dark” as being truly dark but this particular painting fits the billing.  It has a deep, dark background and there is a palpable sense of being adrift in an alien landscape throughout the scene.   Everything looks somewhat familiar but there’s a dimension beyond the norm, one that lifts the veil and reveals something unrecognizable, something that can’t be deciphered.  Like hearing the clicking language of African tribes for the first time.

I suppose this sense of alienation is what brought me to the title.  Whether you know the phrase from the popular sci-fi novel of the same name from Robert Heinlein or from the biblical quote of Moses, it is a most evocative group of words.

Anyway, this piece and more will be at the West End Gallery in Corning today and for the next five.  Stop in and take a look.

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The Wexford Carol

Posted in Early Paintings, Favorite Things, Video, tagged , on December 16, 2009| Leave a Comment »

It’s a slow day waking up and I don’t have a lot to say.  I felt like hearing a quiet song this morning and came across The Wexford Carol, an 11th century Irish carol from Yo Yo Ma and Allison Krauss.  It’s a beautiful song that flows slowly and evocatively along.

I chose this older piece from several years back to accompany it.  The title, Night Flow, seems to fit and I could almost hear the distant sound of the pipes and strings when I looked at it.

Enjoy…

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On the Blue Canal

Posted in Early Paintings, Painting, Recent Paintings, Technique/History, tagged , , , , , on October 21, 2009| 1 Comment »

Blue Canal Pieces- GC MyersThese are two new pieces I recently completed, both 12 ” square canvasses.  They are in the same vein as several other paintings I have completed recently and featured here on the blog.

As I’ve stated before, these pieces are for me all about shapes and forms and color, more so than about an actual depiction of place.  I want to clarify that the feeling and sense of place that is created in these pieces is important to me.  But it is something that comes about as a result of the way forms and color fall together, rather than a premeditated plan for the composition.

The canal in these pieces is very important with that bright blue counterpoint to the red of the roofs and the way it bisects the village.  I have tried using a more subtle color in the canal but that blue pop! makes each painting stand out.

I have considered keeping these pieces together as a set, which is something I have done in years past, but I probably will not this time.

I had an interesting experience with a set of 3 very small paintings that were sold 11 or 12 years ago.  They were tiny landscapes, only about an inch and a half square in size.  They were, like the paintings above, not of any specific location but like many of my landscapes, influenced by the area around my home.  There is a spot on the way to Ithaca called Connecticut Hill that has an interesting look and feel that I often think of when I’m painting.

I met the buyer of this particular set one day at the Principle Gallery in Alexandria, VA  as I was delivering some work and we spoke about the paintings.  He told me that he loved the way they reminded him of an area near he went to college.  I asked him where he had went.  He said Cornell, in Ithaca.  I asked him where this place was he had described.

He said Connecticut Hill.

He didn’t know that I was from near there when we spoke and there was little in those tiny pieces that would make me say they were of that place.  Just the feeling…

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Multiples

Posted in Early Paintings, Influences, Technique/History, tagged , , on October 13, 2009| Leave a Comment »

Peers -GC Myers 2003I was looking through some older images on my computer, searching for a painting that I had completed several years back.  As I scanned through the paintings, I noticed several pieces through the years that were different from most of the work I’ve been doing recently.  They were multiples, such as Peers, shown here.  They were  paintings with several windows with a new scene in each, although most of the scene were very similar to the others.

It was a format in which I really enjoyed working and one that I have not revisited in a couple of years.  I really don’t know why. Four Moments GC Myers 2006 They have a very graphic appearance and really stand out on a wall, making them pretty well received as a rule.  I guess in the past few years I’ve been focusing more on working on texture and heightening the color, as well as working in the Archaeology series, so that I haven’t even thought of revisiting this format.

I remember some  of the early ones very well.  One had 48 cells and had a great look, the result of overlaying the paint with layers of chalk and pastel.  Another was the same number of cells with 48 individual small paintings,  each window having a separate opening in the mat.  It was a pretty difficult piece to mat and frame but it also popped off the wall.   I will have to go through my slides from that time (pre-digital) and see if I can wrangle up a few shots.  I would like to see them again to see how they really hold up against my memory.

Fourfront - GC Myers 2003Maybe I will revisit the multiples sometime soon.  I often run across things that have slipped from the front of my painting mind when I go back looking for something else.  It may be a format such as these multiples or may be a small compositional element.  It’s always interesting for me to try to re-insert this older element into the new work, to see how the inevitable evolution of the work will change this older concept.  We’ll have to see what this brings…

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Trance

Posted in Early Paintings, Painting, Technique/History, tagged on September 17, 2009| 2 Comments »

GC Myers Trance 2002

I came across this piece from 2002 yesterday while looking through some old files.  It’s titled Trance and is a 20″ by 24″ canvas.  It sold very quickly back then so as a result didn’t live with me for a long time.  So when I come across it as I did it’s almost like seeing it for the first time.  Eventually the feelings that the piece initially triggered when I was painting it are recalled.

It’s a very simple composition, so the feeling and depth of the painting are dependent on being carried by color and strength of line.  The imagery, though simple, is strong with all detail pared away leaving the viewer to focus deeper into the scene.  Though there is subtlety in the color it’s not delicate which goes back to what I’ve said before about preferring bold lines and colors, that a strong, confident stroke is always preferable to fussy or wishy-washy, of which this piece is neither.

In other words, I like this piece’s strength and simplicity.

No Way HomeI’m currently in the midst of preparing a group of new work for later this autumn for the galleries that represent my work.  It’s a different atmosphere and pace than prepping for a solo show.  There is less direction and more opportunity to examine new avenues, new concepts.  I’ve been primarily working in the obsessionist style I’ve spoken of before, a style that I’ve shown in recent posts.  The painting shown here, Trance, is an early example of the style although the newer work is more dependent on layers of brushstrokes in the sky to achieve the color and depth I’m seeking, giving it a much different look.  You can see the difference in this new painting that I recently posted.

I have some other new ideas that I’ve been rolling around in my head for some time about which I will hopefully have something to post at a later date.  But for now it’s back to the easel…

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Potential

Posted in Early Paintings, Influences, Opinion, Painting, tagged on September 8, 2009| 2 Comments »

Elmira Street 1994This is an old piece from 1994 when I was still just beginning to realize that I might find something in all the time and effort I was putting into painting.  It’s not a great piece but there are things I like about, things that gave me a feeling of potential, at least in my own head.

I bring this up because of a brief conversation I had with a friend this past weekend.  I attended an opening at the West End Gallery and ran into a friend, also a painter, so naturally our conversation turned to baseball.  We were discussing a well known pitcher who had great abilities, great stuff, who, while occasionally displaying his brilliant talents, often performed far below his talent level.  His efforts seemed to betray his potential.

In the conversation, I equated the pitcher to a painter we both knew.  I had followed his work for a number of years ever since he had graduated from a pretty good college program, having seen a group of his collegiate work at a time not too long after I had painted the piece above.   I remember being very impressed at the time.  Actually, envious is a better word for what I felt.  I saw real potential in that work and realized that I was struggling to achieve things that obviously came easily to him.  I remember being a little disheartened at the time at my own talents compared to his.

But his subsequent work has yet to live up to the potential I saw.  It has been okay but hasn’t made any leaps above that early work.  It’s always puzzled me and made me feel he was somehow betraying his obvious talent and potential.  I pointed this out to my friend this past Friday and he had a different take.  He thought I was seeing more potential in that collegiate work than may have been there, that while there was talent most of what I was seeing was the result of a lot of supplied direction from his instructors, not the result of his own natural output.  He also pointed out that the other painter had other avenues that he was following, that his real potential might not even lay in the same field I was seeing it.

At that point in my head I immediately realized that I was so wrong in my appraisal of this painter’s potential.  I was seeing his potential against my own desires, not taking into account his own desires, which might include goals that were a million miles from my own.  I was imagining what I could do with the talent I saw in that early.  I was assuming that he had the need to express himself solely through his art, the same as I did.  His failure to followup on the potential I placed on his work was not his failure, it was mine in not seeing that his potential had merely moved in different directions.

It made me look at my whole attitude on the expectations of other’s potential.  What I might see as important might not seem so important in the lives of others and vice versa.  I see this artist’s life and potential in a whole different light, one not shaded with my own expectations of what he could or should be.

Phew, that feels good to get off my chest…

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Serendipity

Posted in Biographical, Early Paintings, Neat Stuff, tagged , , , on August 3, 2009| Leave a Comment »

InterloperI’m showing an older piece today, one from around 1996 , called Interloper, mainly because I have mentioned the Kada Gallery over the last few days and am reminded of how I came to show with them quite a few years back.  There was a bit of serendipity involved.

It was in  late summer of 1995 and I had been showing at the West End Gallery for several months which was my first experience exhibiting in public.  I was still waiting tables at the local Perkins Family Restaurant full-time, working on building our house and painting every other available minute.  Man, I had a lot more energy then!  I still had no idea that I would or could have a real career as a painter.  My work at that time was very small in size for the most part and was just starting to gain some notice locally but I really didn’t know if it would ever transfer outside our local area.

One Saturday morning, I was at my job waiting tables when a family with a daughter about 10 or 11 years old sat in my station.  They were very nice, smiling and talkative.  Typical chit-chat.  I took their order and that was that.  After a bit, as they were eating I was going through my station checking on each party and I stopped at their table.

The daughter, Hillary,  asked, “Are you a painter?”

I was a little taken aback by the question.  Nothing was said about painting or art, to them or any of my other tables and that was the last thing on my mind at the moment.

“Well, yeah. I am.”

“My mother said you were.  She said that anyone that happy doing their job had to be a painter.”

I just stood there with nothing to say.  How do you respond to that?

It turned out that the mother was a painter as well who lived, for the time being, in our area.  Her name was Suzi Druley and she was on their way out to a gallery that sold a lot of her work in Erie, Pennsylvania.  They had me run out to their vehicle to take a look at her work, which was very interesting, particularly for our area.  It had a sort of Southwestern/Native American feel with with vivid, deep colors and a lot of symbology.  Turns out she was from Texas originally and they had moved here for a job her husband had taken.  She asked what my work was like, saying she would like to see it.

A few weeks passed and I decided to take her up on her offer and went out to their home.  I took photos and some pieces and she really seemed excited by the work.  She said I should show the work to Kathy at the Kada, that she would really like it.

Long story short, she called Kathy and a visit was arranged.  I hauled my bits of paint and paper out there and I’ve been showing with them for going on 14 years.

I’m glad I was in a good mood that Saturday morning at Perkins- I most certainly would not have found made my way to the Kada Gallery without Suzi’s simple observation that I must be a painter.

Serendipity…

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Night Skies

Posted in Biographical, Early Paintings, Neat Stuff, tagged on April 23, 2009| 4 Comments »

Night Skies 1995The other morning I was walking down my driveway to fetch my newspaper.  It was semi-dark and still fairly quiet as the morning commute traffic on the main road hadn’t picked up yet.  My driveway is a long straight affair about an eighth of a mile long that runs due east.  As I came down it I could see the moon sitting directly over the end of the driveway.  It was a crescent but it was extremely bright and just to it’s left and only slightly lower was a glowing Venus.  Both almost glowed in the early morning light.  It was an impressive sight.

This brought to mind how far removed we have become from real interaction with the natural world.  We no longer know the night sky as we once did.  In most cities it’s hard to even see the night sky.  There’s something about this that is a bit sad.  Watching the stars has a calming effect , almost like connecting with the greater universe as it turns in its epic motion.  It gives me a sense of proportion.  On second thought, maybe that’s why many don’t want to see that sky.  They don’t want to be reminded that they are not the center of the universe,  that they are small cogs in a great machine.

A couple of months back, I went outside with my best girl Jemma (she’s our  great little big dog, a Corgi who was rescued from an Amish puppymill a few years back after all the overbreeding had left her with breast cancer -but that’s another story) and we were on the wooden walkway in the cool, dry winter air.  I laid down and looked directly upward.  After a few moments a shooting star broke into my sight from a point above my head.  My eyes caught it immediately.  It traveled straight down the length of my body and kept going to a point where I was looking several feet beyond my own feet, crossing almost the entire visible sky sky above me before suddenly disappearing.  It was a blazer, the kind where as you watch you can distinguish the flames being pushed to either side by whatever is causing this.  It was, by far, the most remarkable shooting star I’ve ever seen.

And I wondered how many people were looking up at that moment, how many saw that brief second or two of brightness and brilliance?  In another time that would have probably been viewed as an omen of things to come or some sign from the heavens but now such a thing is barely noted.  But to those who saw it, it brought back that primal thrill of seeing a grand event firsthand.

The painting shown is a small piece from 1995 that I call Night Sky.  It just kind of fit the post.

 Name This Painting!Reminder!

I’m asking for your help in naming this painting and am offering a prize (it’s better than you think though it doesn’t involve air travel or posh resorts) for the title that I deem fitting for the piece.

So put on your thinking caps and let me know your title for this painting.  Even if it’s not chosen as the final name, your title will be included on the painting’s reverse side for all of eternity.  Well, for an extended period of time.  I’m just not so sure about eternity.

So, submit your title by simply commenting or email me at  info@gcmyers.com

I look forward to your titles.

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