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Archive for the ‘Painting’ Category

Big Quiet

Posted in Biographical, Favorite Things, Painting, Quote, tagged , , , on May 2, 2020| 3 Comments »

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“He who does not understand your silence will probably not understand your words.”

― Elbert Hubbard

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The painting above is called Endless Time, from back in 2008. It’s what I might call one of my Big Quiet paintings. Just color and forms. No central objects to garner the focus. No Red Trees or Red Roofs or Red Chairs. Not even a far point that seems like a destination.

I am not passing through, not heading anywhere past this point nor concerned with paths to follow.

In this piece, I’m just there. Now.

It’s a place without words. Pure silence.

The Big Quiet.

I would try to describe it further but unless you know or seek the Big Quiet yourself, as Elbert Hubbard points out above, you probably won’t understand.

Silence and quiet is a subjective thing as our recent isolation has proven. For some, it is a glorious thing without the sounds of traffic and crowds. For others, it is horrifying, maybe a reminder of the stillness of the grave.

We all experience the silence differently.

I think you know where I stand on the Big Quiet.

Enough said.

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In Gaudium Mundi

Posted in Event, Motivation, Painting, Process, tagged , , , , on May 1, 2020| 4 Comments »

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“True glory consists in doing what deserves to be written, in writing what deserves to be read, and in so living as to make the world happier and better for our living in it.”

― Pliny the Elder

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A couple of days ago I showed a painting in progress, at a point where I believe it had taken on its life force. Even though it was far from complete, it was already exuding some sort of energy.

I can’t speak for other artists but for me, that’s always a great feeling. It energizes the process, makes me eager to see it through, to discover what its final phase will reveal. There’s a sense of gliding. It feels easy and smooth with little resistance, nothing to stop you from soaring forward.

Believe me when I say this is not normally the case. No, it’s not always gliding through a cool sky. Sometimes the process is a slow trudging march forward in the pouring rain. There are multiple periods in the process where  everything goes flat and dull, including my own enthusiasm for continuing, and there seems to be no satisfying end in sight.

But the strange thing is that often both of these paths– the soaring as well as the slogging– come to the same final point. Both often result in a piece that speaks on its own, that has its own life, its own energy.

They just get there via different routes.

The beauty in both ways is that both are energizing for me. The easy way, such as this painting followed, excites me and inspires me, throwing me instantly into my next work.

It’s joyful.

The slog, on the other hand, reinforces me. It builds the confidence that I can go deep within myself and get past the next obstacle I face. To just keep moving ahead.

It’s satisfying.

This piece was, as I said, easy. It excited me and inspired me from its very beginning. There’s a cleanness in its energy, its colors and forms clear and easily read. Graceful. The inspiration I felt in painting it hangs to it still. As does its joyful feeling.

It’s what I hope for in all my work.

I call this piece In Gaudium Mundi.

The joy in the world.

It’s an 18″ by 36″ canvas that will be part of my Social Distancing show at the Principle Gallery that opens in June at the Principle Gallery in Alexandria, VA.

Have a great day.

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Rays of Power

Posted in Painting, Process, Quote, tagged , , , on April 29, 2020| 3 Comments »

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Art is interested in life at the moment when the ray of power is passing through it.

—Boris Pasternak

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I think Boris Pasternak (author of Doctor Zhivago) is really spot on with with this terse definition of art. Art at its core is, for me, an attempt to affirm our existence and the existence of that life force within us.

I really like that term that Pasternak uses here– ray of power. That description of the force that drives all living things jibes well with that animating force that I try to find in my own work, that indeterminate quality that makes a static thing seem to take on a life of its own.

How and if it comes through in the work is the interesting thing for me. Sometimes, despite my extreme efforts, I cannot find that life force. Maybe I should say I can’t find force this because of my extreme efforts instead of despite. Sometimes it seems as though trying to consciously find that thing prevents it from being found, as though the energy expended in searching creates a cloud that somehow obscures that which is sought.

It often finally appears when I finally let go of the search and don’t focus on finding anything. I just let my mind wander free and lose myself in the process of actually painting– the colors, lines and forms before me.

And suddenly there it is.

It’s as though you don’t find it. It finds you.

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The bit of writing above is from five years ago but I thought I’d share it along with a glimpse at a corner of my studio from this morning. The 18″ wide by 36″ high canvas on the easel was started yesterday and reminded me of this post. It is obviously a work in progress not nearly close to any sort of finish. But even as it was forming in its earliest stages, it was displaying a strong life force.

That is not always the case. Sometimes a piece takes days, going through several frustrating stages where it flattens and has all the life force of a dead fish before finally bursting to life.

Bit in this case, it came together quickly and without a lot of thought or wringing of hands. It just pushed itself onto the canvas. Maybe it is the slashing strokes that make up the sky. There’s a lot of energy in those slashes and the way their colors react to one another.

Maybe this piece will be called Rays of Power?

We’ll see.

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Elbow Room

Posted in Biographical, Current Events, Event, Favorite Things, Music, Painting, tagged , , , , , , , , on April 26, 2020| 6 Comments »

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When the gates swing wide on the other side
Just beyond the sunset sea
There’ll be room to spare as we enter there
Room for you and room for me
For the gates are wide on the other side
Where the flowers ever bloom
On the right hand on the left hand
Fifty miles of elbow room

—50 Miles of Elbow Room, Herbert Buffum

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I have always longed for elbow room.

Huge arching domes of clear air above.

Wide open spaces for the eye to search.

Soundless vistas with not a soul to be seen.

The elbow room I long for is not that described in the lyrics of the 1930 gospel song, 50 Miles of Elbow Room, from songwriter Herbert Buffum. His version of elbow room is a placid paradise in the hereafter

Ideally, I don’t have to die to find my sought after elbow room. Of course, finding such a place might entail a little imagination along with a willingness to accept that this elbow room most likely will be located inside oneself.

Maybe that’s what I am trying to uncover with my work.

Elbow room. At least, my own little bits of elbow room.

The painting at the top is such a piece. It’s part of my aptly titled show, Social Distancing, that is still planned to open on June 5 at the Principle Gallery in Alexandria, VA. There is some doubt as to whether there will be an actual physical opening reception but there will be a show hung to be viewed so long there is– wait for it– social distancing.

This painting is titled Elbow Room, of course. It’s a return of sorts to my earlier work of the early and mid 2000’s, painted in the transparent inks I favor on paper. In a way, painting it felt like it was something inherent. Built in. Natural, like coming home, like a circle being completed.

For me, this is the hardest work to judge. It’s like looking at old family photos. You don’t look at the faces and apprise them for attractiveness or ugliness. You just see them for what you know them to be, for what they mean to you. How the outside world sees them is not important.

And this certainly feels like a family photo for me.

So, on this Sunday morning, let’s hear a bit of that song, 50 Miles of Elbow Room. I couldn’t find the original from Vaughan Happy Two. The two most significant versions are a gospel version from the Rev. F.W. McGee in 1933 and a traditional folk version from the Carter Family in 1942. The song I am playing today owes its influence to the Carter Family. It’s performed by a favorite of mine, Gillian Welch.

Have a good Sunday. Hope you find some elbow room for yourself, if that’s what you want.

 

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The Quarantine House

Posted in Current Events, Event, Painting, Poetry, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , on April 22, 2020| 2 Comments »

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Loneliness clarifies. Here silence stands
Like heat. Here leaves unnoticed thicken,
Hidden weeds flower, neglected waters quicken,
Luminously-peopled air ascends;
And past the poppies bluish neutral distance
Ends the land suddenly beyond a beach
Of shapes and shingle. Here is unfenced existence:
Facing the sun, untalkative, out of reach.

― Philip Larkin, The Whitsun Weddings

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A newer painting, this one on paper called The Quarantine House, that is part of my upcoming show, Social Distancing, at the Principle Gallery. The show is tentatively scheduled to open on June 5. There is, of course, uncertainty about how it might proceed given the current circumstances.

Uncertainty is a common companion for most of us these days. In regular times in the past, there were types of uncertainty that I was comfortable with, having developed a tolerance of sorts for them. You know, things like belief systems, confidence in my own abilities and those sorts of things. In fact, preparing for my annual shows was one of the coping mechanisms that built up that tolerance..

It gave me a defined task and a dead focus on that task. Certainty.

It was a certainty that pushed all other uncertainty to the back of my mind, out of sight and rendered harmless.

But now, there is a constant uncertainty that runs through these days. I still have the task but it feels less defined, less certain. And that dead focus that has sustained me in the past now feels like it is being restrained. Or held captive.

Like it is the one being confined to that quarantine house. It knows there is work to be done but the uncertainty has brought it to a standstill in the dragging minutes and hours of its confinement. It looks around for something that will feed it but all it see are the corners of its confined space and out the windows nothing but endless plains and distant horizons.

That dead focus feeds on certainty and it feels a bit starved at the moment.

I know that dead focus will leave the quarantine house eventually, that it will find its way to sustenance of some sort. A small bit of certainty will whet its appetite and soon, it will once again be ravenous for all the time it can consume.

But for now, I just have to wait it out with that uncertainty as a housemate here in the studio.

 

 

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Who Knows Where the Time Goes?

Posted in Early Paintings, Favorite Things, Music, Painting, tagged , , , , , on April 21, 2020| 2 Comments »

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Sad, deserted shore, your fickle friends are leaving
Ah, but then you know it’s time for them to go
But I will still be here, I have no thought of leaving
I do not count the time
For who knows where the time goes?
Who knows where the time goes?

–Who Knows Where the Time Goes, Sandy Denny

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Kind of a convergence of things today. I was looking at some work form 2002, from the period after 9/11. My work at that time went primarily from transparent bright colors painted on a white ground to deeper saturated colors painted on a black ground, which became known as my Dark Work. There was a group of paintings in this series that featured interior scenes with with windows and an occasional open door along with a single red chair.

While these pieces were still being shown in galleries, I began hoarding them a bit, wanting to hold on to them. It felt like there was something personal in them that I didn’t want to share. at that time. Too close to the bone. I have several of these paintings and they are among the untouchables, those pieces that aren’t for sale.

The feeling in them had rhythm and feel that spoke to the bleaker days of this current isolation– a mix of sadness, resignation and longing. A lot of introspection and stillness in them.

At the same time, a friend sent me an email asking if I had heard of a singer named Eva Cassidy. I had heard her name and knew a little about her from years before but hadn’t found the time to listen to her work. She was a gifted singer/songwriter who, while well known in the DC area, never achieved wider recognition before succumbing to melanoma at the tender age of 33 in 1996. After her death, her work took off in the UK and the rest of Europe. Her recording released after her death have sold over ten million copies and have went to the top of the British charts 3 times.

Her music, or rather her voice, often has that same mixture of sadness, resignation, longing and stillness that I see in this group of paintings.

I am playing one of her recordings today, a cover of a Sandy Denny song called Who Knows Where the Time Goes? There is a bit of a convergence in her having recorded this song. Sandy Denny, for those of you who don’t know the name, was a tremendously talented British singer/songwriter, who is hailed as being “the pre-eminent British folk rock singer.” She fronted Fairport Convention for a while, alongside Richard Thompson, and was the only guest singer to ever appear on a Led Zeppelin recording, The Battle of Evermore. 

But she had bouts of depression along with alcohol and drug issues that often caused her physical injury. In late March of 1978, she suffered a fall where she banged her head on concrete. Soon after, she began to experience severe headaches. On April 1, she made her last public appearance with Who Knows Where the Time Goes? being the last song she ever sang in public.

She died on April 21, 1978 from a brain hemorrhage at the age of 31.

Like Eva Cassidy, her renown only grew after her death, with multiple posthumous releases of her work.

Two tragic lives that ended at much too early an age, bonded by this song. Both do haunting versions of it. I think I will listen to it again while I look at the painting at the top.

Have a good day and be thankful for the life that you have.

 

 

 

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How To Be a Poet, Again

Posted in Advice, Favorite Things, Painting, Poetry, tagged , , on April 20, 2020| 7 Comments »

Earlier, I came across this blog post from several years ago that features an older painting of mine at its top. It’s a favorite of mine that hangs in my main painting space, high in a far corner. But even tucked away, it’s one that often has me glimpsing over it or going over to it and standing in front of it to ponder it for a bit. It seemed like an apt companion for this post years ago and still does now. Its simplicity and stillness echo the final line of Berry’s poem perfectly: make a poem that does not disturb the silence from which it came.

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GC Myers- Trio:Three Squares

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I came across this poem from poet/author Wendell Berry on Maria Popova‘s wonderful site, Brain Pickings. It’s a lovely rumination that could apply to any creative endeavor or to simply being a human being.

I particularly identified with the final verse that begins with the line: Accept what comes from silence. I’ve always thought there was great wisdom and power in silence, a source of self-revelation. Perhaps that is why so many of us shun the silence, fearing that it might reveal our true self to be something other than what we see in the mirror. Berry’s words very much sum up how I attempt to tap into silence with my work.

At the bottom is a recording of Wendell Berry reading the poem which gives it even a little more depth, hearing his words in that rural Kentucky voice. It’s fairly short so please take a moment and give a listen.

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HOW TO BE A POET
(to remind myself)

Make a place to sit down.
Sit down. Be quiet.
You must depend upon
affection, reading, knowledge,
skill — more of each
than you have — inspiration,
work, growing older, patience,
for patience joins time
to eternity. Any readers
who like your poems,
doubt their judgment.

Breathe with unconditional breath
the unconditioned air.
Shun electric wire.
Communicate slowly. Live
a three-dimensioned life;
stay away from screens.
Stay away from anything
that obscures the place it is in.
There are no unsacred places;
there are only sacred places
and desecrated places.

Accept what comes from silence.
Make the best you can of it.
Of the little words that come
out of the silence, like prayers
prayed back to the one who prays,
make a poem that does not disturb
the silence from which it came.

—Wendell Berry

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I Contain Multitudes

Posted in Music, Painting, Poetry, tagged , , , , , , , on April 18, 2020| Leave a Comment »

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Walt Whitman: Song of Myself, Part 51

 

The past and present wilt—I have fill’d them, emptied them.

And proceed to fill my next fold of the future.

Listener up there! what have you to confide to me?

Look in my face while I snuff the sidle of evening,

(Talk honestly, no one else hears you, and I stay only a minute longer.)

Do I contradict myself?

Very well then I contradict myself,

(I am large, I contain multitudes.)

I concentrate toward them that are nigh, I wait on the door-slab.

Who has done his day’s work? who will soonest be through with his supper?

Who wishes to walk with me?

Will you speak before I am gone? will you prove already too late?

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Bob Dylan unveiled another new song a few days ago, a follow up to his 17 minute epic, Murder Most Foul. Its title, I Contain Multitudes, references a line from Song of Myself from Walt Whitman. It’s a line that I have used in the past, most notably last year as the basis for my series of face paintings, Multitudes.

The piece from that series, shown here on the right, is what I would consider the title piece for the series, bearing the title Multitudes. I see the faces in these pieces as being parts of me, small parts that make up a greater whole. Just as the masses of people that make up a nation, it is always filed with paradox and contradiction.

The good and the bad. The wise and the foolish. The happy and the sad. The humble and the greedy. The careful and the careless.

You try to focus on the better parts with the hope that is the part that people identify with you. But like a vast nation, you can never know which part of you is  perceived as your true self by others.

So, there you are, containing multitudes that contradict one another from moment to moment, trying to put on your best face. It’s all you can do.

Here’s Dylan’s new song. Give a listen and put your best face forward today, if you can.

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Hero’s Call/ Auction For the Food Bank

Posted in Auction, Current Events, Favorite Things, Painting, tagged , , , on April 16, 2020| 4 Comments »

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“When we give cheerfully and accept gratefully, everyone is blessed.”

― Maya Angelou

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I am back to being angry this morning and badly want to vent.

But I won’t.

Instead, I am going to follow my own request from yesterday’s blogpost that we look past our own instincts for self preservation and try to do something good for others now.

I have to confess that the current crisis has me in my survival mode. As an artist, my business and livelihood is effectively in shutdown as many folks are also in survival mode which means that very few are buying paintings. I expect the income from my work to be cut by anywhere from 50 to 75% for the year unless something dramatic and unforeseen occurs. So, as a result, austerity has become the watchword around here.

I am not whining or complaining. It’s simply a fact that has to be handled. And we will deal with it. In fact, I am exceedingly grateful to be fortunate enough to have a small cushion to protect us, for the most part, for a reasonable period of time into the near future.

It’s those people who were less fortunate before this all started that make me worry most. They were already living on the fringes of survival. They were already experiencing food anxiety, not knowing where their next day or week’s meals were coming from. They were already struggling to meet rising rents and the many costs associated with raising a child. These were the folks who didn’t have $400 in savings to spare should an emergency arise. These were also, most likely, the folks working jobs that paid near the minimum wage and may have very well been laid off during this shutdown. And also most likely had little healthcare.

In normal times, with a smaller percentage of the population experiencing these problems, charitable organizations could pick up a lot of the slack that government assistance misses. But we are talking about a pretty thick slice of the pie now which makes it a problem that affects us all. Food banks around the country are being crushed by the huge demand from people in need.

I know that’s the case in my home area, which is an area that was never on very sturdy economic footing even in the best times over the past 30 or 40 years. In fact, just before the virus hit, this area was determined to be one of only two metropolitan areas in the entire nation to still be in recession.

Our local food bank, Food Bank of the Southern Tier, has been a mainstay for many years now, doing yeoman’s work on the behalf of those in need. They are heroes all the time and in normal times, I try to donate cash to them on a regular basis. However, my own self survival mode has me cutting back on that a bit, unfortunately.

But I still want to help them and about the only way I can right now is by putting a piece of work up for auction to benefit them.

Here’s what I propose:

The painting shown at the top is an 18″ wide by 24″ high painting on canvas from a couple of years ago. It’s not a painting that has been shown much at all. It began it’s life as as a demonstration piece for the annual workshop I lead in Penn Yan. The class that year did a remarkable job with their own pieces while working from this painting. After the workshop, I brought this piece back to the studio and earnestly went to work on it. There was something in it that really spoke to me. It just felt like a prototypical piece for me and when it was done, it meant enough to me that I gave it the title Hero’s Call.

So, I am putting this painting, Hero’s Call, up for auction with all funds going completely to the Food Bank of the Southern Tier. I will pay all shipping costs.

A painting of this size of mine normally is valued at between $2400-2600. My goal for this auction would normally be to get as close to that amount as possible but I know that given the circumstances of these time, that would be a reach. So, I am shooting for getting about half of its value, $1250. That would do a lot of good for my local Food Bank.

The opening bid is set at $200.

The auction ends when a bid of $1250 is received.

You can bid by emailing me at info@gcmyers.com with Hero’s Call on the subject line.

If a bid of  $1250 is not received, the auction will end on Saturday at 12 noon EST. The high bid at that time will receive the painting.

This is your call, your chance to be a hero in a way.  Your winning bid will help a lot of people, perhaps taking away a bit of that anxiety about where their next meal comes from. Plus, you also receive what is, for me, a meaningful piece of art.

I know it’s a lot to ask in these times, but I do ask that you help if possible. If you can’t help me and my local Food Bank, help someone in your own area, even if can only spare a few dollars to your own food bank or similar charity that is being stressed by this moment.

Answer the call. Please.

UPDATE 8:15 AM: The call has been answered. I have received a bid of $1250. I am stunned at how quickly this came to be but am grateful beyond words. This will help a lot of folks in this area.

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Boulevard of Broken Dreams

Posted in Current Events, Music, Painting, Recent Paintings, tagged , , on April 14, 2020| 1 Comment »

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My shadow’s the only one that walks beside me
My shallow heart’s the only thing that’s beating
Sometimes I wish someone out there will find me
Till then I walk alone

— Green Day, Boulevard of Broken Dreams

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At the top is another piece from my Social Distancing show at the Principle Gallery, tentatively scheduled for early June. This painting is called Shelter in Place. The interesting thing about this group of paintings of empty city streets is that most of them were completed well before the imposed isolation began. But the situation has certainly caught up with these pieces.

The scenes of empty streets from around the world that we have seen on our screens in the past month are often haunting. They really capture the feel of this crisis, especially the day to day rhythms of life.

Or lack of rhythm.

I know that this is my biggest takeaway thus far.

I say that this isolation is neither nothing new or daunting for me, as an artist and as someone who would rather be alone for the most part. I have spent over two decades happily alone in my studio. There’s a certain rhythm that I find in this solitude, one that is comforting and nurturing to the creative process.

But that is the rhythm of a self-imposed isolation, more like the feeling of a hermitage or retreat. This feels different. It is more claustrophobic, more imposed from the outside.

More like solitary confinement. The hermit’s cell might not be much different than the cell of a prisoner in solitary in size and adornment but the feel one has in each is distinctly different.

The hermit chooses to be cloistered there and finds ample space in that small cell to wander and explore the vastness of the mind. The prisoner’s experience is set upon them and the closeness of the cell becomes even smaller, more confined. Even the mind seems walled in.

The same setting but with two different situations and two decidedly different rhythms of being.

The current situation of shelter in place seems like an odd mixture of the two, sowing confusion in my role as either hermit or prisoner, which most definitely throws my rhythms out of whack. There are moments of productive peacefulness followed quickly by a high level of anxiety that leaves me listless, almost frozen in place.

Oh, how I long for my hermit’s rhythm to be completely restored…

Anyway, here’s Boulevard of Broken Dreams from Green Day. Seems to match up with the painting.

Hope you find your rhythm. Have a good day.

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