Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Archive for the ‘Motivation’ Category

How To Be Miserable

Posted in Literature/ Books, Motivation, tagged , , , on August 31, 2021| 2 Comments »

How to Be Miserable Steven Pressfield 1

In my younger days dodging the draft, I somehow wound up in the Marine Corps. There’s a myth that Marine training turns baby-faced recruits into bloodthirsty killers. Trust me, the Marine Corps is not that efficient. What it does teach, however, is a lot more useful.

The Marine Corps teaches you how to be miserable.
This is invaluable for an artist.

Marines love to be miserable. Marines derive a perverse satisfaction in having colder chow, crappier equipment, and higher casualty rates than any outfit of dogfaces, swab jockeys, or flyboys, all of whom they despise. Why? Because these candy-asses don’t know how to be miserable.

The artist committing himself to his calling has volunteered for hell, whether he knows it or not. He will be dining for the duration on a diet of isolation, rejection, self-doubt, despair, ridicule, contempt, and humiliation.

The artist must be like that Marine. He has to know how to be miserable. He has to love being miserable. He has to take pride in being more miserable than any soldier or swabbie or jet jockey. Because this is war, baby. And war is hell.

― Steven Pressfield, The War of Art: Winning the Inner Creative Battle

I have been feeling creatively blocked as of late. Nothing is coming easy. Just making that first mark is hard and I find myself spending most days just looking at blank surfaces and not seeing much. 

Oh, and being miserable.

It made me go looking for something that might point me in the right direction to something that could possibly break up this blockage. I’ve been doing this a long so I’ve been blocked before and have obviously overcome it. But I find that there is no one way that works all the time in getting past this. Sometimes it’s a matter of just getting away from the studio for a few days and work on something outside the world of art. Or maybe changing up what I am listening to or watching.

Or reading what others have done in this situation and trying to apply it to my own. 

This search brought me to a book, The War of Art from Steven Pressfield. He’s the author of The Legend of Bagger Vance which was made into a major motion picture as well as a number of historical novels.

In the The War of Art, Pressfield introduces a mythical concept that he calls The Resistance whose sole mission is to keep things just as they are, to prevent anyone from doing anything that affects change in any way. The Resistance achieves this mission through  the creation of distractions and by instilling fears and doubts.

By doing whatever it must to stop one from moving forward.

The passage from his book above, titled How To Be Miserable, doesn’t have anything to do with overcoming The Resistance but it made me laugh. But not because it was ha-ha funny. It was because I recognized myself in the description and the idea that my willingness to accept and tolerate my own misery should be an important aspect of my chosen career struck me in a funny way.

I mean, I am doing something that I might describe as my dream job, getting to create work from my mind and get paid for it. I work in relative solitude and on my own schedule. I have nobody to answer to but myself.

I could go on and and on with the positive attributes of doing what I do. I love what I do and at this point cannot even imagine doing anything else. But even so, I am often utterly miserable. It is like continually existing, as Pressfield puts it, on a diet of isolation, rejection, self-doubt, despair, ridicule, contempt, and humiliation.

That doesn’t sound like it should be funny but the irony of it– that something that makes me so happy also often makes me absolutely miserable–just makes me laugh. 

I think Pressfield is right, that anyone who chooses this life has to understand and have a tolerance for their own misery. And interestingly, just recognizing and acknowledging this helps me see the current blockage as simply part of what I do.

It’s a torment that comes with the territory. I don’t like it but I will deal with it and might even use it to my advantage. It might be there just for that purpose.

The tormenting yin to my creative yang.

I don’t know if that’s true but for coming off a time when I have been feeling especially blocked, it feels pretty darn right. I will try to run with that.

 

Read Full Post »

Symphonies in Color/ Van Gogh

Posted in At the Movies, Influences, Motivation, Music, Process, Technique/History, Video, tagged , , , , , on May 11, 2021| 1 Comment »

Vincent-van-Gogh-Whaet-Field-with-Cypresses.-Image-via-wikimedia.org_

A few days back, I shared a video from composer Barnaby Martin that concerned the work of Wassily Kandinsky and how color related to music. I thought I’d share another of Martin’s videos this morning, this one again about the role of music and its relationship to painting, this time focusing on the work of Vincent Van Gogh.

This interests me because I have thought many times about how painting is related to music and how I often view my paintings as musical compositions. Many are simple tunes but some take on the grander aspects of a concerto or symphony.

I notice this more in recent years as many of the paintings take longer and longer to finish. I would have finished many of these paintings much sooner in earlier years but they would have remained simple tunes. And that’s fine. Who doesn’t love a simple that stays with you long after hearing it?

But time has shown that the once simple tune can often expand and deepen, growing into something that speaks to larger universal concepts.  The extra time spent now on these paintings is used in deepening and expanding the range within itself. Finding extra rhythms and harmonies within the colors. Adding dissonance and consonance, small counterpoints and contrasts that may not even be noticed to the casual viewer.

It’s not something I intended to do with my work. It just evolved as I saw more and more room to grow within the work. A lot of that comes from working in the way this video describes the process of painter Eugene Delacroix who had an influence on Van Gogh. Much of Delacroix’s work dealt with repetitions of subject and form. This allowed him to focus on fully exploring color and its effects.

This is something that I understand very well. I have used similar compositions many times through the years and each is significantly different than the others. Differences in color, tone, shading, contrast, texture and other color qualities give each piece its own unique emotional feel and voice.

Every artist works a bit differently and has different aims for their work. They have their own reasons for doing what they do. To be honest, I don’t really know why I do things the way I do. Maybe I look at the works and writings of others with the hope of finding some illumination into my own motivation and rationale.

Maybe it’s just my way of making music in the only way I know. Who knows?

Anyway, hope you’ll take look at this video from Barnaby Martin. It’s worth a few minutes of your time.

Read Full Post »

The Doubt, Again

Posted in Advice, Motivation, Quote, tagged , , , on May 4, 2021| Leave a Comment »

Paul_Gauguin_-_D'ou_venons-nous

What still concerns me the most is: am I on the right track, am I making progress, am I making mistakes in art?

–Paul Gauguin

I run this post every few years, usually when I am at a low ebb, when self-doubt is really nagging at me. Right now, as I prep for my upcoming Principle Gallery show, I am bouncing from highs to lows each day which is normal for me in my process. It’s during these times that I ask myself questions like those above that Gauguin posed for himself. However, this morning I feel pretty good. Fairly confident, feeling that my work is very much progressing and evolving in a positive way. But time has taught that by this afternoon I may be racked with doubt about my abilities or my own judgement of them. 

So, I try not to dwell on it and attempt to simply work through it. That. usually provides the answer to my questions and doubts. That’s what I am going to do right now, thank you.

At one of my gallery talks a year or two ago, I was asked about confidence in my work. I can’t remember the exact wording but the questioner seemed to imply that at a certain point in an artist’s evolution doubts fade away and one is absolutely certain and confident in their work.

I think I laughed a bit then tried to let them know that even though I stood up there and seemed confident in that moment, it was mere illusion, that I was often filled with raging doubts about my voice or direction or my ability. I wanted them to know that there were often periods when I lost all confidence in what I was doing, that there were days that turned into weeks where I bounced around in my studio, paralyzed with a giant knot in my gut because it seemed like everything I had done before was suddenly worthless and without content in my mind.

I don’t know that I explained myself well that day or if I can right now. There are moments (and days and weeks) of clarity where the doubts do ease up and I no longer pelt myself with questions that I can’t answer. Kind of like the painting at the top, Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?, the masterpiece from Paul Gauguin. Those are tough questions to answer, especially for a person who has little religious belief.

And maybe that’s the answer. Maybe my work has always served as a type of surrogate belief system, expressing instinctual reactions to these great questions. I don’t really know and I doubt that I ever will. I only hope that the doubts take a break once in a while.

There was another quote I was considering using for this subject from famed art critic Robert Hughes:

The greater the artist, the greater the doubt. Perfect confidence is given to the less talented as a consolation prize.

I liked the sentiment but it felt kind of self-serving, like saying that being aware aware of your own stupidity is actually a sign of your intelligence. While I would really like to believe that all those times when I realized I was dumb as a stump were actually evidence of my brilliance, I have real doubts about the logic. If it is true, there are a lot of geniuses out there operating under the guise of stupidity and overwhelming self-doubt.

However, if Hughes is correct then I may be one of the the greatest artists of all time and a genius to boot.

But, at the moment, I have grave doubts about that.

Read Full Post »

How To Be Alone

Posted in Biographical, Motivation, Poetry, Video, tagged , , , , on April 28, 2021| Leave a Comment »

GC Myers-The Fulfillment sm

“The Fulfillment”- Now at the West End Gallery

Take your hand
and place your hand
some place
upon your body.
And listen
to the community of madness
that
you are.

—How To Be Alone, Pádraig Ó Tuama

I am up and alone in the studio at 4:30 this morning, eager to get a brush in my hand. It might sound crazy but that doesn’t matter to me right now. I am excited about the work for my Principle Gallery show in June that I am working on and feel a compulsion to keep at it out of the fear that this feeling will soon pass.

But for as excited as I am still about the new work, I am not ready to show a lot of it quite yet. Something makes me want to hold most of it back for a bit, as though showing too much of it will somehow diminish the impact of it as a whole. Actually, the gallery hasn’t even seen a lot of this work, probably for that same reason.

I’ve spent more time already from this early morning than I had wanted before I get to work so I will get to the point of this post. It’s the author’s reading and animation of a piece, How To Belong Be Alone, from Irish poet Pádraig Ó Tuama. It’s a wonderful short poem that speaks to the need to belong which is similar to that driving need to have my voice heard that brought me to painting.

Some days I find myself questioning whether that need to have my voice heard is a necessity or a product of ego. I mean, here I sit writing about my paintings. Isn’t that an act of ego?

Part of me says that it is. But part of me rejects that idea. After all, we all need to know that our voices are heard, that our existence matters, that we belong in this world. Maybe if I believed that my voice or my work deserved to be heard and appreciated above all others or that it mattered more than that of anyone else, maybe then it would be an act of ego.

But I don’t believe that. We all deserve to let the world hear the voice of our unique selves. Each is as valid and valuable as the next.

I think this poem speaks well to this point.

… listen to the community of madness that you are.

Okay, got to get to work. before I burst. Take a look please.

Read Full Post »

Return to Acres of Diamonds

Posted in Advice, Biographical, Motivation, tagged , , on April 1, 2021| 2 Comments »

“Placidarium”

The more intensely we feel about an idea or a goal, the more assuredly the idea, buried deep in our subconscious, will direct us along the path to its fulfillment.

—Earl Nightingale

It’s funny sometimes what you take from an experience in your life. At one point in my life I was in the retail car business, working at a Honda dealership both as a salesman and for a time as a finance manager. In order to keep their sales staff engaged and excited about pushing their product, the management there would periodically send us to seminars with industry-specific motivational speakers and would also have sets of motivational tapes from other speakers that they would encourage us to listen to in our free time.

One of the sets of tapes was from famed motivational speaker Earl Nightingale who had a deep and engaging voice that added a serious dimension to whatever he said. As I listened to his tapes, it was easy to feel my interest growing as he told his little tales and his lessons began registering within me.

One of his stories was a short retelling of a classic lecture called Acres of Diamonds from Russell H. Conwell (1843-1925), an interesting fellow who was a Baptist minister, a lawyer, a philanthropist and the founder and first president of Temple University. The lecture, one that Conwell delivered over 5000 times during his lifetime, made the point that the riches we seek are often right in our own backyards. His tale is of an African farmer who sells his farm in order to go in search of diamonds and finds nothing but failure that ends with his suicide. Meanwhile, the man who took over the farm found an abundance of diamonds and ended up with one of the largest diamond mines in Africa.

There were a lot of lessons to be learned from this tale. obviously. But the primary lesson for me was that I had to leave the car business– it was not my backyard. It was the place to which I had come in search of my own diamonds. I had not even, at that point, began to search my own backyard.

I am not sure if that was the message that management had been hoping would sink in.

Or maybe it was. 

Their intent didn’t matter as I was soon on a different path, one that ultimately led me here, thankfully.

The other part of Nightingale’s message was that you had to set a course, aim for a destination. Everything was possible if you knew where you wanted to go and truly set your mind to it. He gave a laundry list of great human accomplishments that were achieved once we put our minds and wills in motion towards their fulfillment.

That resonated strongly with me. I had seen many people over the years who seemed deeply unhappy in their lives and most had no direction going forward, no destination for which they were working. Aimless, they drifted like a rudderless boat on the sea, going wherever the strongest current took them without having any influence over this motion.

If you can name it, you can do it in some form. Having a desired destination allows the mind, often subconsciously, to create a course that leads to that place.

As I said, it’s funny how things influence you. It’s been over thirty years since I heard those words but they still resonate strongly with me, even now. I try to be always conscious of the goals I set, knowing that the mind and the universe will always try to make a way for the possibility of achievement.

I run this post about every five years or so. As I say, there are lessons to be learned in every endeavor we undertake. Every job I ever held gave me something more than a paycheck. They showed me what I was and was not. In this case, I learned to work the fields that I knew and loved. 

It was a good lesson.

Read Full Post »

Doubt and Dead Fish

Posted in Advice, Motivation, Painting, Process, Quote, tagged , , , , on February 27, 2021| 4 Comments »

Every time I start a picture… I feel the same fear, the same self-doubts… and I have only one source on which I can draw, because it comes from within me.

–Federico Fellini

I know that Fellini was talking about starting a film production in the quote above but it translates pretty neatly to the beginning of almost every painting for me.

There is always some level of self-doubt involved. I find myself doubting my abilities, my imagination, my drive, my vision, and even the quality of my paint or the amount of light in my studio, among a hundred other things.

Anything that gives me some sort of reason me to not do what I know I need to do.

And like Fellini points out, the only answer to this doubt is within myself. I can look to other creators and see how they have overcome their own doubts but, like so many things in art, every artist has a truly unique set of circumstances. The only thing all have in common is the desire and need to create, to express their vision and voice.

So, you learn to trust that desire and need. Trust that you are good enough. Trust that what you will do next will move you closer to realizing that vision and voice. Trust that there is real emotion and feeling behind what you are attempting.

That last one is a big one for me.

I have found that when I put concept before feeling, my attempts most often fail miserably.  By that I mean if I start a painting with a strong visual idea in mind but one that is not formed in emotion or doesn’t have some real personal feeling attached to it, sometimes it fails to take on real life. It might carry out the concept but it just lies there like a dead fish.

I have some of those dead fish here in the studio. I look at them and remember the original idea that I had when I first embarked on them. I also remember the feeling of deflation when I realized that I had no emotional attachment to them, sometimes early in the process. Things just don;t come together in the way I thought they might. There is flatness and shallow where I saw richness and depth in my mind.

Dead fish.

However, there is a caveat. Sometimes, when starting on a concept piece, things fall into place and momentum and feeling build. Attributes that were not seen in the original thought process appear and those I hoped for emerge stronger and more vibrant than envisioned.

The excitement of creation transforms into real feeling and the fish that looked like it might be dead begins to come to life on the surface of the painting. 

The feeling of seeing your work come to life, or at least the prospect of it, might be enough to overcome that initial doubt for me.  The words and advice from other artists might offer comfort but my own need to do what I do and to experience that thrill of creation are what get me past the hesitancy and dreadful doubt I face each time I stand before my easel or painting table. 

Okay, got to go. There are dead fish waiting for me. I think I might be able to put a little life in them if I just can get started.

Have a good day.

Read Full Post »

The Unique and Only You

Posted in Advice, Biographical, Motivation, Quote, tagged , , , on February 15, 2021| Leave a Comment »

“There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and will be lost.”

― Martha Graham

I was thinking about a recent comment on social media below one of my paintings where the commenter said that the piece made this person feel as though they were wasting their time with their own painting. They added that this wouldn’t stop them from continuing to paint.

I can’t tell you how relieved I was at that. While I gladly accepted the implied compliment of the first part of the comment I was mortified by the idea that someone would not continue painting because of my work.

And this was mainly because I had been at that same point early on, when as a novice painter I would look at artists whose work was fully realized, who through hard work had found their own style and voice. At that point, in comparison to the famed artists whose careers were full and complete, I felt inferior and dejected, thinking that maybe this wasn’t the path for me after all.

Maybe I should give it up and try another path or just give up altogether.

But I had a thought in my head very similar to the words at the top from the late dancer/choreographer Martha Graham. I truly believed that I had something inside me that needed expression and since there was only one of me in this world, whatever came out, good or bad, would be uniquely mine. At that point, I wasn’t thinking about selling my work or galleries or a lifelong career. It was just about getting the inner thing that was distinctly mine out into the world, if only to say, “Like it or not, here I am.“

I believed then and now that we are all distinct creatures. We are all unique endpoints of evolution, ancestry, and experience. Even those people with almost identical evolution and ancestry often have widely varying experiential differences and influences. I see this with my own brother and sister.

Nobody has your exact pedigree. Nobody has your exact life experiences. Nobody has your exact way of seeing and feeling.

You are the unique and only you.

Your expression has meaning. It may not be pleasing to everyone or may not speak to all but it is yours alone.

This thought sustained me early on and it still does. I sometimes look at what I do and am deeply unsatisfied, thinking that I will never be at the point of which I think I am capable, never reach the endpoint I have formed in my mind. I see nothing but flaws and inadequacies at that moment.

But then I think, “This is me. For better or worse, nobody else could have done this.“

The endpoint doesn’t matter. It’s simply taking the journey that counts.

You don’t have to be perfect. You don’t have to be the best. You have to just try to show what you truly are– the unique and only you. Let the world know it.

And have a good day doing so.

 

Read Full Post »

Come Days of Color

Posted in Advice, Motivation, Quote, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , on February 6, 2021| Leave a Comment »

“Come Days of Color”- Now at the West End Gallery

Not knowing how near the truth is, we seek it far away.

― Hakuin Ekaku

Wise words from Hakuin Ekaku, the 18th century Japanese Zen Buddhist master. You have probably heard of his famed kōan (a short story, statement, or question meant to test a Zen student’s progress) that basically asks: What is the sound of one hand clapping?

Heady stuff. But today we’re focusing on two of his thoughts, the one at the top and this gem:

At this moment, is there anything lacking? Nirvana is right here now before our eyes. This place is the lotus land. This body now is the Buddha.

We are creatures of desire and envy. We want constantly what others have, somehow thinking it offers us some intangible that will somehow provide us with lasting happiness. We envy other places, seeing in them qualities that we believe are lacking in those places we now occupy and believing that those places will provide a higher level of happiness or contentment.

But is happiness better found in more things or in far flung places? As Hakuin points out, in this moment, is there anything lacking? What prevents you from knowing what your happiness or what your truth might be?

Those two things–truth and happiness– are interior qualities. No place or thing can provide lasting truth or happiness. The secret is in not straining for these things but in recognizing that they are at hand, available if only you open yourself to them.

You may still want to to improve things in your life, acquire things or even physically move. But remember that they are not the way to contentment because it is already here, wherever that might be.

I write these words as a reminder to myself. I am as susceptible as anyone to falling to the lure of thinking that I can find happiness in external things and places. But a simple reminder helps me remember the happiness found in simple things, in recognizing the good things present in the humblest moments.

I thought about just that the other day. I was trudging through the mud outside my studio, a common thing at this wet time of the year. At first, it made me cringe and grump about it for a bit. Then I wondered why it bothered me so. It was part of the place that is a very important piece of my life and simply a product of the ever changing seasons. Soon it would be dry and grass would again be growing. I changed my point of view and felt a pang of happiness in that wet moment.

Contentment.

Simple things are not necessarily small things.

And vice versa.

This post ran on the blog several years ago but I thought it matched up well with the new small painting at the top, Come Days of Color. which is part of the upcoming Little Gems show at the West End Gallery. The exhibit opens Friday, February 12.

I see much of the message of this post in this painting, about fully appreciating the fullness and beauty of all things within your reach. We often see the days of our lives as drab and dreary but there is great color to be found if only we attempt to see the beauty contained in all things.

Hope you see some color in your days. Have a good one.

Read Full Post »

A Little Kandinsky, Again

Posted in Influences, Motivation, Quote, Video, tagged , , on February 5, 2021| Leave a Comment »

kandinsky

 

Lend your ears to music, open your eyes to painting, and… stop thinking! Just ask yourself whether the work has enabled you to ‘walk about’ into a hitherto unknown world. If the answer is yes, what more do you want?

–Wassily Kandinsky

Still working on getting my creative engines revved up and ready to go. Normal for me at this point n the year. One thing that usually helps me in these times is turning to the words and works of Wassily Kandinsky.

Several years ago in a short post here, I shared the quote above and a great little film from Alfred Imageworks that features an animation of the elements from some of Kandinsky’s great paintings as well a film from 1926 of Kandinsky creating a drawing with these same elements.

These always seem to help me in some way that I can’t quantify. Maybe I should take Kandinsky’s advice and stop thinking on this.

Anyway, thought they’d be worth revisiting today before I get down to real work.

Take a look if you are so inclined and then have yourself a good day, again, if you are so inclined.

STEREOSCOPIC FOR EXHIBITION – KANDINSKY from Alfred Imageworks on Vimeo.

Read Full Post »

Franz Marc’s Tradition

Posted in Influences, Motivation, Quote, tagged , , on February 3, 2021| Leave a Comment »

Franz Marc- The Yellow Cow 1911

Traditions are lovely things- to create traditions, that is, not to live off of them… the great shapers do not search for their form in the fogs of the past.

–Franz Marc

I chose today’s quote from German painter Franz Marc (1880-1916) because he was an influence for me early in my career. Not so much in the style or subject matter that he employed but more in attitude. I admired the fact that he created work that stood out and was identifiable as his from across a gallery space.

His work, vision, and voice were his alone, never aspiring to follow the style or schools of others. This is basically what he is pointing towards in the aphorism above– to not toil in the fields planted by earlier artists but to carve out your own space and work it in the way that suits and  best expresses you.

Franz Marc- Large Blue Horses

Franz Marc- Large Blue Horses

He is not downplaying the influences of the past. Early in his career Marc copied the works of other artists from before and contemporary to him. Doing so allowed him to pick and choose the elements in the works of others that meshed with his vision, allowing him to use these found elements to create his own avenue of expression.

He did not want to remain a replicator but wanted instead to be a creator. He wanted to work in a field that he had planted and nurtured. One that was his own.

And that was the attraction for me.

Of course, there was safety and security in remaining in the larger symbolic field with others but it would often be as an anonymous member of a larger group, your furrow always directly compared to the furrow of those alongside you, your harvest always compared to those of others.

Breaking away and heading out was risky. You had to believe that in taking this leap of faith that you would be able to work your little spot in your own way away from others and produce a harvest that is uniquely appetizing to others in some manner. But you might end up toiling in barren soil, creating crops that appealed to no one but yourself. It was scary to think that your field might never expand but you were at least nourishing yourself.

This was the type of thinking that drove my work early on, fueled by looking at the work of Marc and others who veered from the traditions of the past in their times.

Unfortunately, Franz Marc only worked his fields for a relatively short time, dying in WW I at the Battle of Verdun. He was a mere 36 years old. But his crop still lives on, surviving being labeled as degenerate art in the 1930’s by Hitler and the Nazi regime.

It is unique and in his own tradition.

I believe that the lives and careers of artists  like Franz Marc provide valuable lessons for any aspiring artist, even in this world and creative environment that is vastly different than the one that Marc inhabited.

I know it helped me. 

Back trying to take a hiatus. This post ran six years ago but it’s one that I felt deserved another run. Unlike the traditions that sustain and give meaning to our everyday lives, art often occurs when the traditions of art are set aside. I think that is what Marc was talking about here and I believe it is an important thought to keep in mind for those who have their own voice heard.

Back to plowing. Again. Have a good day.

Franz Marc- The Waterfall 1912

Franz Marc- The Waterfall 1912

 

Franz Marc- Horse and Eagle 1912

Read Full Post »

Older Posts »

%d bloggers like this: