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Archive for the ‘Music’ Category

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.

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Show’s Over, Folks

Posted in Event, Favorite Things, Music, Painting, Quote, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , , on May 3, 2021| Leave a Comment »

GC Myers- Show's Over, Folks

Everything is going to be fine in the end.
If it’s not fine it’s not the end.

― Oscar Wilde

My solo show, Between Here and There, which opens June 4th at the Principle Gallery, has a group of smaller paintings featuring Red Chairs in interior scenes are mostly scenes of the aftermath of prior proceedings. I’ve shown a few here already and thought I would share another today. The one above is titled Show’s Over, Folks.

Kind of like a cop at a crime scene saying, “Shows, Over, folks, Nothing more to see here. Move on.”

I enjoy these pieces in many ways. I like composing and painting them. I enjoy looking at them because while they often make me smile, they often make me think as well. There’s usually a fair amount of atmosphere in them to take in and interpret. Sometimes my take on a piece like this will change from view to view. Perhaps it’s dependent on my own mood at the time that I am looking.

Right now, this one makes me smile. The show might be over for the night and that might be sad but it ain’t the end. Like Wilde’s words at the top– if it’s not fine it’s not the end.

Here’s song that kind of goes with this piece. It’s an old Kinks favorite, Till the End of the Day. With lyrics like: Yeah, I get up/And I see the sun up/And I feel good, yeah/’Cause my life has begun how can things not be fine?

Now, off to work.

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Bodhissattva

Posted in Favorite Things, Music, tagged , , , , on May 2, 2021| Leave a Comment »

GC Myers- The Animating Presence sm

“The Animating Presence”- At the West End Gallery, Corning

Running a little behind this morning but feel an obligation to at least share a song this morning. It’s Bodhissattva from an old favorite, Steely Dan.

Bodhissattva is a Buddhist term for a person who believes that their own enlightenment is not important as guiding and assisting others to reach enlightenment. They have put off reaching becoming arhats, which is the term given to those who reached enlightenment or nirvana, meaning that they have rid themselves completely of the Three Poisons of greed, hatred, and ignorance. Since an arhat is considered a “perfected person” they become free of the cycle of samsara or reincarnation.

On the other hand, a bodhissattva, which the Dalai Lama is considered, forgoes samsara in order to continually be reborn so that they can help many others free themselves from suffering and reach nirvana before ultimately reaching enlightenment themselves at some point in the distant future. To be a bodhissattva one must practice the Six Perfections which are:

  1. Be generous and give to others.
  2. Live a life in which you do the right thing.
  3. Have patience with all people.
  4. Sustain your energy so that you keep going through difficult times.
  5. Work on concentration by meditating.
  6. Gain wisdom

So, there’s a little knowledge this morning. I don’t know if you needed it. But I guess freeing ourselves from the Three Poisons of greed, hatred, and ignorance or practicing most or all of the Six Perfections can’t hurt any of us.

Here’s Bodhissattva from Steely Dan. Good tune to start off the morning.

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In Retreat (Shelter)

Posted in Biographical, Event, In the Studio, Music, Painting, Process, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , , , , , on May 1, 2021| Leave a Comment »

GC Myers- In Retreat (Shelter)

When I flew over the Atlas Mountains in a plane, I realized that their formation-through erosion, geological dramas, the action of winds-was completely independent of our moral anxieties; man is in a kind of cyclone; he builds solid houses to protect and shelter his heart. Outside, nature is nothing but indifference, even terror.

― Le Corbusier, When the Cathedrals Were White

As I have written recently, I am neck deep in the  work right now as I prepare for my upcoming solo show, Between Here and There, at the Principle Gallery. It opens on June 4 at the Alexandria, VA gallery that has graciously hosted my solo outings there for the past 22 years.

I am generally excited about each show as it nears but the anticipation to get this work out in the public, out in open air, feels even greater this year. Maybe it’s the events of this past year– a pandemic, an insurrection, the death of my father, a hobbled ankle that has constantly nagged at me, etc– but I felt somewhat distracted in my work over the past year or so. I feel that the work from this time was where I wanted it to be but it came with great effort and a focus that wasn’t always there.

The work from the past several months has been quite unlike that. I am in the midst of a great groove where I feel focused and locked in. It’s one of those rare and wonderful times where the work is coming easily, one piece throwing me instantly into the next, to the point where I will set aside a painting that is 3/4 complete so I can begin the next while the focus and rhythm is still resonating in my brain. I have several such paintings still awaiting completion around the studio as I sit here this morning.

It’s a wonderful feeling, one that I can’t fully explain to you. With this focus, the outside world is diminished, almost blocked out. The work becomes a sort of shelter, a retreat from the darkness and outrage of the world beyond my studio walls. Of the many benefits that being an artist offers, that might be the most valuable for me, the thing that keeps me afloat through thick and thin. The shelter of this work is a life saver.

So good to have it back. I only hope that the show lives up to the feeling. It’s at this point each year that I begin to worry that I am delusional, that my proximity to the work and the process makes me incapable of actually seeing it for what it is.

Contact intoxication, maybe?

But the benefit of being in such a groove is that the work engrosses me so much that it keeps me from fully fixating on this uncertainty. How it is received seems insignificant when it’s like this.

Now that’s the shelter I need.

This leads me to the small piece shown at the top, a 12″ by 12″ canvas that is part of the show, one of the first pieces completed. It set things in motion. It is titled In Retreat (Shelter) which only seems appropriate this morning. I could easily see that Red Roofed structure as my studio or myself as one of those Red Trees that seem to be seeking shelter behind it.

I am going to link this image and post to a song whose chorus has periodically entered my mind over the past 30 or so years. It’s fittingly titled Shelter and is from Lone Justice from back in the mid 1980’s. Led by vocalist Maria McKee, they were very hot for a few years but they couldn’t hold together long enough to reach the potential that so many saw in them. They disbanded in 1987 and Maria McKee went on to a solo career. I thought their two albums were very good and they were regulars on my turntable back in the day. But honestly, I haven’t heard any of their music for probably twenty five years though, as I said, the chorus from this songs pops into my head every now and then. It was produced and cowritten with McKee by Steve Van Zandt, who is known as Miami Steve with Springsteen’s E Street Band, Little Steven with his Disciples of Soul or with his Underground Garage Sirius show, or as Tony’s consigliere Silvio Dante on The Sopranos. You can hear his influence in this song.

Give a listen. Maybe it will help you find some shelter of your own or at least have its chorus pop into your head someday in the future.

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I Feel Free

Posted in Biographical, Early Paintings, Music, Process, tagged , on April 26, 2021| Leave a Comment »

GC Myers Early Work 1994-Winter Park

From my seat here, I am looking across the studio at a canvas on the easel. It was nearly finished when yesterday’s painting session came to an end. It was just at that point where it was making the vital transformation into something more than just paint smeared on a surface. The most exciting and gratifying part of the process for me.

Thoughts of this piece  haunted me all last night and were there waiting for me this morning. I was envisioning where my next move on the canvas would come and how it would blossom after that.

I found myself eager to move quickly through the woods and over to the studio.

Almost compelled, as though I had no choice in the matter. That painting was demanding my presence in its service, like I was serving some sort of strange psychic bondage to it. As though it was something that needed to released for my own wellbeing, and the sooner it was done, the better.

The difference, of course, that this is a voluntary thing, a welcomed binding to service. I don’t feel restrained by this.

Instead, I feel freed by the ability to follow this impulse.

It’s a hard thing to describe. And to be frank, I don’t have the time this morning to try to do so any further. That painting is waiting to be released out into the world from its own bondage. Got to go set it free.

Here’s a fitting song, I Feel Free from Cream from many moons ago, back in 1966. It has a real atmospheric, cinematic aspect to it. The painting at the top has no relevance here at all. It’s just an early piece from around 1994 that I call Winter Park. I include it this morning just because it pleases me and I am free to do this.

Enjoy.

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Shared Joy/ On the Sunny Side of the Street

Posted in Event, Music, Painting, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , , , , on April 25, 2021| Leave a Comment »

GC Myers- Shared Joy sm

This is the true joy in life: the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one, the being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap heap, the being a force of nature instead of a feverish selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.

-George Bernard Shaw

The painting above is a new piece from my June show at the Principle Gallery. It’s a 12″ by 12″ canvas that feature my Baucis and Philemon inspired trees. There’s a brightness to it that gives me a true feeling of joy which most likely led to its title, Shared Joy. It reminded me of a blogpost from back in 2016 where I was describing another piece that brought up similar feelings. I thought I would share it today along with this Sunday Morning music which is a jazzy version of On the Sunny Side of the Street from Esperanza Spalding. It’s from a 2015 White House performance and it showcases her virtuosity on the double bass. Nice version with a lot of joy in it.

Here’s the blogpost from 2016 followed by On the Sunny Side of the Street. Enjoy.

After describing a painting that I found joyfully appealing, I continued:  There was just a feeling of realized joy and happiness throughout it, the kind that Shaw described above in his play Man and Superman.

I think the feeling he describes must be one of the greatest joy in this world: to find a purpose into which you can fully throw your whole being for all of your time on this planet.

A purpose that gives you a place to stand and rise above the selfishness and pettiness of those, including yourself, who would drag you down.

A purpose that allows you to tap into some greater force in order to gain energy for your toils.

A purpose that lets you deny the cynicism that sometimes shows up in abundance in this world.

A purpose that serves you endless joy in what seem to be empty moments.

A purpose that even finds the joy in tears.

I think there is a purpose for each of us. Finding it is not always a simple matter and some of us will never find the one purpose that is truly our own. We may not be willing to give enough of ourselves to something that is beyond our own needs and desires. We might still find some joy in our life but it will no doubt be short lived.

For me, it has been painting. At first, I found this surprising because I often viewed it as being selfish in nature. It was my perspectives. My emotions. It was even called self-expression.

But I found that there is purpose in it and that this came from having others find comfort and happiness in their reactions to my expression.

Their joy fed my joy, even more than my own satisfaction and joy from the work.

But there are days when I still find myself losing sight of this purpose, when it is a struggle both in the studio and in the outer world and I feel drawn back down to less positive feelings. But I will be somehow reminded of that purpose and that joyful feeling returns.

That happened the other day. A gallery owner called and told me of a person who had bought a painting of mine that they had desired for quite a long time. In fact, this person had come into the gallery for this painting and it was gone, having been returned to me. I sent the piece back to the gallery and when the person returned to get it, they started crying in joy. I can’t even express how this makes me feel outside of saying again that their joy fed my joy, their tears became my tears.

Those moments make my time alone in the studio seem more special and filled with purpose. They make me that joyous one, if only for a while.

And that is good enough for me…

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Blue and Green Music

Posted in Favorite Things, Influences, Music, tagged , , on April 22, 2021| 2 Comments »

Georgia O'Keeffe- Blue and Green Music

Lots to do this morning so I am just going to share a favorite painting from Georgia O’Keeffe and a piece of music whose composition was influenced by that same painting.

The painting is Blue and Green Music which was painted by O’Keeffe during her years in New York, somewhere around 1920. It is her attempt at translating music into visual form. I think it works on that level but even without knowing that this was her aim, I would be enthralled by this piece. The use of contrasts of colors, light and dark, and hard and soft edges along with the rhythmic curl of the bright organic form that occupies the center of the picture makes this an absolute feast for the eyes.

Or, maybe I should say, a symphony for the eyes.

I know that it sets off all sorts of sparks in me.

The piece of music is titled, of course, Blue and Green Music, and is a composition from the contemporary composer Samuel Hazo. I believe this piece is from somewhere around 2010 or 11. From the number of videos of this piece on YouTube, I would guess this has become a popular piece for high school and college concert bands and orchestras.

It’s a lovely piece of music. Taking a few minutes to listen while pondering Georgia O’Keeffe’s brilliant creation is not a bad way to kick off the morning.

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Lest We Forget

Posted in In the Studio, Music, Process, tagged , , , on April 18, 2021| Leave a Comment »

Esperanza Spalding Lest We Forget

Don’t have much to say this morning. To be honest, I am itching to get at a panel on my easel that is at that crucial point where it begins to fully take on life. The most exciting part of the process.

I was thinking about this the other day while working on another new painting. The initial phase of compositional layout was great but from there on it was kind of a slog. The more I painted, the more dissatisfied I was with how it looked. I thought at the time that in earlier points in my career I would have hung it up, just let it go and move on to something easier.

But I had experience now and knew that this awkward part was just how this sometimes proceeded. You had to persist and use your know-how to push it forward, trusting that the grace contained within it would at some point emerge.

That little bit of knowledge comforts me in those rough moments during the creative process. And the painting I was working on turned out beautifully, at least in my eyes. Full of grace and color and a life all its own now. 

All that I can ask of my work.

For this Sunday Morning Music, I am going with a song from the great Jazz singer/songwriter/bassist Esperanza Spalding off her album, 12 Little Spells, from 2019. On it, each song is devoted to a part of the human body. This song, Lest We Forget, is devoted to blood, how we are all united to one another and the earth and the stars.

Everything is written within us.

Anyway, it makes for a lovely way to kick off a Sunday morning, with a reminder we are related to everything and that have the ability to bring that grace to life if we simply persist.

Lest we forget.

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Book Club Meeting

Posted in Music, Painting, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , , , on April 17, 2021| 2 Comments »

GC Myers- Book Club Meeting sm

It’s the Book Club Meeting.

Seems like it should be a mild affair but, in fact, it’s a recipe for disaster.

Books. Liquor. A warm evening. Tight shoes. 

Who knows how this madness will end?

This is a new painting, a 12″ by 12″ canvas, titled, of course, Book Club Meeting. It’s headed to the Principle Gallery in Alexandria, VA for my annual solo show there. The show this year is titled Between Here and There and opens on Friday, June 4.

This painting is part of a small group of pieces that feature interior scenes. They take on the quietness of a still life but most are set in the aftermath of some sort of blow up or scuffle, allowing the mind to imagine the events that led to this moment. Who did this and why? What really happened here?

I think it’s this blank space, this evident mystery, that the viewer has to fill in for themselves that is the appeal in this series. They have the ability to make it what they want it to be rather than me just dictating a narrative. 

I know I enjoy painting these particular pieces. I guess I am drawn to it because it’s a matter of leaving small bits of evidence that will hopefully create a new narrative for the viewer while still composing a piece that has harmony, calm stillness, and visual appeal.

Hopefully, they will appeal to others, as well.

Here’s a song from the late Willie Dixon that I think plays well with this piece. This was originally first released by Bo Diddley and covered by many artists, including one from Long John Baldry that is a favorite of mine that has player here in the past. I like this version from jazz/rock keyboardist Ben Sidran. It’s kind of a different cover of the song but it still works well in its own unique way which is how I like my covers. 

Give a listen. And be careful with those books, folks.

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Gnossienne

Posted in Music, Neat Stuff, tagged , , , , on April 16, 2021| 4 Comments »

GC Myers- In Radiance sm

“In Radiance”- Now at the West End Gallery

gnossienne – n. a moment of awareness that someone you’ve known for years still has a private and mysterious inner life, and somewhere in the hallways of their personality is a door locked from the inside, a stairway leading to a wing of the house that you’ve never fully explored—an unfinished attic that will remain maddeningly unknowable to you, because ultimately neither of you has a map, or a master key, or any way of knowing exactly where you stand.

–The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows

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I don’t have much to say this morning. I just wanted to share a little music from the French composer Erik Satie, someone whose work has always spoken to me in its elegant spareness. It was a great influence on some of my earliest works. In fact, I even titled an early piece or two after the composer but I can’t locate the images at this point.

I thought I’d share his  Gnossienne no. 1 as played in this fine video from the contemporary Italian pianist/composer Alessio Nanni. The word gnossienne was created by Satie.  He sometimes created new terms or appropriated terms from other fields to describe his compositions. Gnossienne is generally thought to simply denote a new form although I like the alternative definition at the top from the website The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows.  It seems to fit the composition very well.

I ran this in a post several years back but since I am busier than expected this morning and didn’t want o spare the time to write too much, thought it was worth sharing again, if only to point out the The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows website. Well, and to couple the beautiful Satie piece with the painting, In Radiance, at the top.

Now, off to a very full day.

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