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Archive for the ‘Favorite Things’ Category

Vuillard

Posted in Favorite Things, Influences, Painting, tagged , , on February 19, 2020| 2 Comments »

Édouard Vuillard – Landscape at Saint-Jacut

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To say that a thing is beautiful is simply an act of faith, not a measurement on some kind of scale.

–Édouard Vuillard

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If you asked me about my favorite painters, Édouard Vuillard (1868-1940) is not a name that would come to mind. In fact, I never even gave much thought to his work and didn’t have much of an opinion on it. I knew a little bit about the interior scenes for which he is well known but if you asked me to name or even describe his best known work, I would be at a loss.

But the more I look and the more I see of his work, the more of a fan I become of Édouard Vuillard. There is such a wide array of style in the body of his work that shows his exploration and growth.

The interior scenes I once shrugged over now seem to be wonderfully dense explorations into abstraction, pattern and color. There is so much to latch onto in each piece that a cursory glimpse doesn’t often suffice. I now see his work with a bit of a sense of awe and can honestly take that leap of faith and say that I see them as beautiful.

I even like a few of the things from him I have read, like the words at the top. Beauty is indeed subjective, not measurable with any set scale. My sense of beauty may well differ from yours. You may be moved by things that do nothing for me and vice versa. I don’t know that there is any one things, any one piece of art, that is absolutely beautiful to everyone.

Maybe there is. Who knows? Certainly not me.

He also wrote: I do not belong to any school, I simply want to do something that is personal to my self. 

These words depict that need to create something that is only mine, not something instantly attributable to a school or movement or any other artist, that has always been the driving force behind my own work. I don’t know that I have always been successful but I can say that Vuillard definitively did create a distinct body of art, beautiful work that is all his own.

Just good stuff. Here are a few examples from a sea of choices.

 

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Miro Blues

Posted in Favorite Things, Music, Painting, Quote, tagged , , , on February 17, 2020| 2 Comments »

Blue II- Joan Miro

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The picture should be fecund. It must bring a world to birth.

-Joan Miro

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This is a thought that I often keep in mind. Art succeeds when it creates its own reality, when it brings a world to birth in the mind of those who behold it. The artist’s own belief in the reality of that new world is a large determinant in whether this birth takes place.

For myself, I almost always feel like I am taken to a different world, one as real as the world I inhabit in my human skin, by whatever is on the surface before me.

That is, when it works. Sometimes it is difficult to climb into that new world and that new reality that wants to be born on the surface is nothing more than a lifeless mishmash of paint blotches and lines. That is frustrating, to say the least.

But when it works, it is an easy glide into that new world with its own atmosphere and landscape, so familiar yet new and fresh in the nose and to the eye. It’s a thrill just to be in there for that time when taking on its lifeform.

Joan Miro (1893-1983) did such a thing with such ease. I am showing his Blue triptych today. I find it interesting how intimate and alive they feel as single images on a screen where their scale fades away. These could easily be small paintings. But when you see them as they are in the two photos below, you can see their size and how it magnifies their lifeforce.

They are a world unto themselves.

Take a look for yourself. I have also included a video of Dave Brubeck’s Bluette below that is played over a slideshow of Miro’s work.

Just good stuff.

 

 

Joan Miro Blue I

Joan Miro Blue III


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Crossroads

Posted in Favorite Things, Motivation, Music, Quote, tagged , , , , , , on February 16, 2020| 1 Comment »

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The writer operates at a peculiar crossroads where time and place and eternity somehow meet. His problem is to find that location.

–Flannery O’Connor

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I think you could probably substitute artist in for writer in the words above from author Flannery O’Connor (1925-1964) without changing the gist of the thought too much. All art, and literature certainly falls into that category, is about transforming the now of the creation– the time and place— into something beyond that moment, into something timeless–the eternity to which O’Connor refers.

Finding that intersection where those two things come together is, as she points out, not such as easy thing to accomplish. And almost every instance the artist will never know if they have come to those crossroads that moves their work into the realm of the eternal.

I guess the finding is immaterial without the seeking. And seeking without any assurance of finding something that will ever reveal itself to you is an act of faith, a belief that there something eternal worth seeking.

I don’t know what else to call it. You keep trying. You think it is near sometimes but when you finally come to it, you’re not sure enough of what you’re experiencing to stop seeking.

Does one ever know when they have come to that crossroads?

That being said, here’s this week’s Sunday morning music from a longtime favorite of mine, Tracy Chapman. I think her body of work sometimes get overlooked in the deluge of the new but every time I come back to her, I wonder how I have let her slip out of mind. Here’s a song that fits the subject here, Crossroads, to accompany the painting at the top, Beyond the Crossroads, from back in 2004.

Have a good Sunday, okay?

 

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Take Me Out to the Ballgame

Posted in Biographical, Favorite Things, tagged , , , , on February 15, 2020| 2 Comments »

The Classic Bob Gibson Followthrough

This is an edited version of a blog entry from way back in 2009:

It’s that time of the year.

Catchers and pitchers are reporting to spring training. Baseball is in the air. Is there any better time of the year?

Baseball has always held a special place for me. Oh, I was no more than an average player– decent bat, lousy arm and a so-so glove– but there was pure magic in seeing the heroes of my youth and hearing the stories of the early legends of the game.

I remember my grandmother telling me of going with my grandfather to New York City on their honeymoon in 1921 and seeing Babe Ruth play with the Yankees. Ruth hit a double and a triple as she recalled.

I remember sitting with my grandfather, the mythological Shank, so called for the holds he would apply to his opponent’s legs during his time as a professional wrestler, and watching the World Series in the afternoons of 1968. I had my tonsils out and was still recuperating and we watched the St. Louis Cardinals play the Detroit Tigers, who won the series. It was great watching with my grandfather plus I was introduced a player who became one of the heroes of my youth, Bob Gibson, the Cardinal’s pitching ace.

Gibby was it for me. The toughest guy out there, one whose competitive fire was, and is, legendary. So dominating as a pitcher that baseball changed the mound height because they felt the hitters needed help since he was practically unhittable. I read his early autobiography, From Ghetto to Glory, numerous times as a kid and that made him an even bigger hero to me. He was eloquent and college-educated, a rarity for ballplayers of that era, and his story was compelling, going from abject poverty onto college then a stint with the Harlem Globetrotters then on to baseball stardom.

He remains a hero.

Baseball was always played at our house. My dad was a pretty fair pitcher who had promise as a youth. In subsequent years, I have uncovered numerous news stories in old newspapers about his exploits on the mound and in the field. But later, as a dad, he would occasionally play catch with me and my friends. Eventually, he would break out his knuckleball, a pitch he was known for in his younger days. It was practically uncatchable, having a spectacular drop that would appear to be entering your glove only to end up hitting you in the stomach. Or lower. I was never able to master the pitch but still appreciate the awkward grace and dance of a well thrown knuckler.

Other times, I would pitch to him and he would hit flies to my brother in the outfield. Periodically, he would hit hard liners back at me. They would bang off me or make me dive out of the way and he would cackle. I would then try to drill him with the next pitch, which would make him laugh even more because he had gotten my goat.

I would calm myself and wait until he would pitch to me, waiting for the perfect pitch when I could send a hard line drive back at him, making him duck or dive. At such times, after having to jump out of the way or  defend himself with his glove, he would yell out a Hey! and give me a harsh look. Then he would usually laugh because he knew that I was just paying him back for his earlier actions. Payback was just part of the game.

Even my work has been somewhat affected by my experiences with the game. I remember the first time coming out of tunnel during a night game at Shea Stadium in the late 1960’s and seeing the field spread out before me. I was stunned by the colors that were so rich and lush under the warmth of the lights. It was a feeling that I think I wanted to replicate in some manner which ultimately led me to art.

Over the years baseball has become my calendar for the passing of the year and is a comforting friend on the days when the world seems ready to implode. I am still captive to the numbers and legends of baseball, one of those romantics who see poetry in a game based in tradition.

To that end, here is a wonderful version of Take Me Out to the Ballgame from Harpo Marx, played on I Love Lucy. It is delicate and graceful.  It’s the essence of the memory of baseball for me…

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Embraceable You

Posted in Event, Favorite Things, Music, Quote, tagged , , , on February 14, 2020| Leave a Comment »

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Love, whether newly born, or aroused from a deathlike slumber, must always create sunshine, filling the heart so full of radiance that it overflows upon the outward world.

–Nathaniel Hawthorne

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A few choice words for this Valentine’s Day from Nathaniel Hawthorne, who is not someone who normally comes immediately to mind when one thinks of love and romance. But creating sunshine and filling the heart with radiance,as he put it, is not the province of any one writer.

I have plenty to do so I am going to keep this short today. Here’s a wonderful version from the immortal Nat King Cole performing the classic Embraceable You, written by George Gershwin back in 1928. Enjoy your Valentine’s Day. Or if the holiday doesn’t really move you, enjoy your Friday. Either way, it’s a win.

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Hair Love

Posted in At the Movies, Favorite Things, Video, tagged , , , , , on February 10, 2020| 7 Comments »


Thought I’d share the film that won the Academy Award last night for Best Animated Short Film. It is titled, Hair Love, and was written and directed by Matthew A. Cherry, and co-produced with Karen Rupert Toliver.  I saw it yesterday morning on CBS Sunday Morning and thought it was absolutely charming and sweet.

I think we need both of those two things and the humanity they represent, even if it is only for the 7 minutes of this short film.

I didn’t watch the Oscars last night. Since I don’t see many movies at the theater these days, usually waiting until they move to streaming services, I am usually not in any position to root for any one movie. In fact, of this year’s crop of Best Film candidates, I have only seen one, Jo Jo Rabbit, which I thought was marvelous. Both laugh out loud funny and moving, it is one of my favorite films in many years.

But I look forward to seeing the others, particularly Parasite, the Best Film winner from South Korea and the first to ever win as a foreign language film, and 1917, set in WW I. Seems like quite a good crop of films this year.

But for now, from Sony Pictures Animation, take a look at Hair Love. Hope it gets your week off to a good start.

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In Simple Wonder

Posted in Biographical, Event, Favorite Things, Painting, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , on February 6, 2020| 2 Comments »

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“Look at everything always as though you were seeing it either for the first or last time: Thus is your time on earth filled with glory.”

― Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

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In times like these, it is even more important to consider the words above from the classic book A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. In days that often filled with anger, anxiety and sometimes despair, we must remember to take in the simple wonders that surround us, to pay notice to the beauty and magic of the natural world surrounding us.

As the death of the great actor Kirk Douglas yesterday reminds us, how much time is guaranteed for any of us here? Do we want to leave this world not having paid attention to the simple wonder within our reach?

I’e been in my current studio for over twelve years now and have looked out its windows tens of thousands of times. But even after all that gazing I still am able find new things to see. Trees I have never noticed. The way the sunlight comes through and hits certain limbs at a certain times. The way the wild turkeys gather under the maple trees beside the studio when its raining and face the house, sometimes gobbling at it as though they believe I can come out and shut off the rain.

If I could, I would do that for them.

Small things. Simple things. But wonders nonetheless.

I find myself sometimes stopping in the woods and looking around, taking notice of the small wonders within my sight. I try to take a snapshot in my mind of that place in that moment, thinking that if I were to suddenly pass away, I would have as an image to carry with me from my last day.

You would be surprised how much comfort I take in that little moment, standing still on a woody path.

This is the gist of what this painting at the top of page is saying to me. Titled In Simple Wonder, it’s part of the Little Gems exhibit at the West End Gallery that opens tomorrow evening.

 

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It Ain’t Necessarily So, Again

Posted in Early Paintings, Favorite Things, Music, tagged , , , on February 4, 2020| Leave a Comment »

Coming to the studio this morning and the song, It Ain’t Necessarily So, runs incessantly in my head for some unknown reason, reminding me of a post from a few years back that speaks directly to this. Here it is:

GC Myers- Moses (I Supposes)Sometimes when I am walking over to the studio in the morning I will have a song stuck in my head. Sometimes it is one that I recently heard, something from the radio. But sometimes it’s one that just springs deeply from the past, something I haven’t thought of in some time. That’s how it was this morning. And thinking of that song linked me to a small painting that I did many years ago.

They just fit together in my mind for some reason.

The song was It Ain’t Necessarily So, the song sung by the slick drug dealing Sporting Life in the great George and Ira Gershwin opera, Porgy and Bess, set among the Gullah population living on the sea islands off of Charleston, South Carolina.

Just a fantastic mix of sound and wordplay.

For some unknown reason, when I hear this song this small painting from over 20 years ago always comes to mind. It’s a piece that I did very quickly, not really knowing what I was trying to paint.  It just sort of popped out and I immediately began calling it Moses (I Supposes). There was something about this piece that I have always liked. Maybe it’s the I-don’t-give-a-damn way way everything in it is painted, from the giant hands down to the giant feet.

It’s just a personal favorite that somehow always springs to mind when I think of this song. Maybe because Moses is mentioned in a verse in the song–

Lil’ Moses was found in a stream
Lil’ Moses was found in a stream
He floated on water
‘Til Ole’ Pharaoh’s daughter
She fished him, she says from dat stream.
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I don’t know for sure why the song and painting are connected in my mind but I enjoy the combination. Here is one of my favorite versions of the song, the one from the Simon Rattle directed version with the London Philharmonic from the Glyndbourne Festival with Damon Evans as Sporting Life.
Have a great day and remember– not everything is necessarily as it seems to be. It ain’t necessarily so…
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Riding High

Posted in Event, Favorite Things, Music, Painting, tagged , , , on February 3, 2020| Leave a Comment »

The annual Little Gems exhibit opens this coming Friday, February 7, at the West End Gallery in Corning. This is the 26th year that the West End has hosted this show and I am fortunate to have been along for the ride, going back to that first one in 1995 at their second story old gallery space.

That was my first experience showing my work publicly. I had no idea what to expect when I stood there, anxiously trying to blend into the background as people milled around the gallery, on that night of the first opening. But based on the past 25 years, things seem to have worked out okay.

For me and for the Little Gems show which has turned out to be a perennial favorite for fans of the West End Gallery. It is the most popular show there, year in and year out. It’s fun for most of the artists to make small work and perhaps try out new things. There are plenty of small but mighty paintings created for this show which allows attendees, be they avid or first-time collectors, to attain original and high quality pieces of art at obtainable prices.

This painting above is called Riding High. I haven’t looked back but I think a boat painting is part of my contribution for this show most years. It’s a theme and an image that translates well to a smaller scale, maintaining its full impact. By that, I mean that it seems bigger on the wall than it actually is.

A lot of the work throughout this show have that quality.

So, hope you can make it to the show this Friday, February 7. The opening reception begins at 5 PM and goes to 7:30. The show is hanging if you want to stop in for a preview and to claim a little gem for yourself.

Here’s a song from the late June Carter Cash‘s final album that I think lines up well with this painting. It’s a lovely old Carter Family song called Sinking in the Lonesome Sea.

Have a good day.

 

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Man’s Search For Meaning

Posted in Advice, Favorite Things, Influences, Video, tagged , , , , on January 28, 2020| Leave a Comment »

Yesterday, we observed the 75th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp near the end of World War II. an event which made clear the horrors that the Nazis had perpetrated on the Jews and other groups. One of the survivors of Auschwitz was Viktor Frankl, who went on to become an eminent psychiatrist and author.

His book, Man’s Search For Meaning, is one of my favorite books, one that brought more insight to the world of those who lived through the Holocaust. The lessons from it also helped me through the tough times in my life. The post below from several years back discusses the lesson of that book.

I urge you to read the book. You can even listen to the entire audiobook freely on YouTube. I have included it at the bottom along with a video presentation that gives a brief synopsis of some of the takeaways from the book. It’s short and well done. There is an ad for the Great Courses which takes up the last minute but it’s worth watching.

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GC Myers- The Moment's Mission 2011Everyone has his own specific vocation or mission in life; everyone must carry out a concrete assignment that demands fulfillment. Therein he cannot be replaced, nor can his life be repeated, thus, everyone’s task is unique as his specific opportunity.

——Viktor Frankl

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The words of Viktor Frankl, the WW II concentration camp survivor who went on to greater fame as a psychotherapist and author, seemed to ring true for this square painting after I finished it. I saw the Red Tree here as one that finally saw its uniqueness in the world, sensing in the moment that with this individuality there came a mission that must be carried out.

A reason for being. A purpose.

I think that’s something we have all desired in our lives. I know it was something I have longed for throughout my life and often found lacking at earlier stages. I remember reading Frankl’s book, Man’s Search For Meaning, at a point when I felt adrift in the world. I read how the inmates of the concentration camp who survived often had  a reason that they consciously grasped in order to continue their struggle to live. It could be something as simple as seeing the ones they loved again or finishing a task they had set for themselves. Anything to give them a sense of future. Those who lost their faith in a future lost their will to live and usually perished.

At the time when I read this, I understood the words but didn’t fully comprehend the concept. I felt little meaning in my life and didn’t see one near at hand. It wasn’t until years later when I finally found what I do now that I began to understand Frankl’s words and saw that I had purpose in this world as a husband, an artist and a person of feeling.

We are all unique beings. We all have unique missions. The trick is in recognizing our individuality and trusting that it will carry us forward into a future

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