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Click

Posted in Influences, Painting, Technique/History, tagged , , on March 23, 2013| 1 Comment »

GC Myers Studio 4 AMSometimes you can almost hear it click.

It happened this morning about 3 AM as I was laying in bed trying to convince myself that I really needed to get to sleep,  to try to grab some rest.  But my mind would have none of that.  It was spinning and snapping– things that had to be done,  ideas for upcoming shows, new compositions that I wanted to get down.  My head was racing and it felt like a big ball of anxiety was building inside of me.  In the past I might have written it off as such.

But for me it was a huge relief to have that knot in my stomach once again.  It was like the big click of a switch going off inside that was triggering some creative surge.  I had felt this before and had missing it as of late.  I know that it sounds funny to bemoan the fact that anxiety and fear have been absent in one’s mind.  But I knew from experience that this anxiety was something just trying to push itself out of me.  Something to which I had to respond, had to harness and use.  React to and express.

When I did the interview for the TV crew  last week, they asked what painting meant to me and I struggled in coming up with an answer.  I can’t remember exactly what I told them.  I guess the answer should have been that painting gave me a way to make this anxiety that has been my lifelong companion take a positive form.  I have learned to embrace it and when it comes around with that big click that is telling me there’s something on the way, I react.   So here I am at 4 AM, happily in the studio,   already having prepped new panels, jotted down the images that were dancing in my head and am getting ready to break out the paint.

Click.

 

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Higher Ground

Posted in Music, Painting, Recent Paintings, Video, tagged , , , on March 19, 2013| 4 Comments »

I’m so glad that I know more than I knew then

Gonna keep on trying

Till reach my highest ground

GC Myers-Higher Ground

I wrote that when I was visited  last week in my studio by a film crew from WSKG  that they had taped me working on a painting in its early stages.  The painting above is the final version of that piece.  It’s a 20″ by 40″ canvas that I am calling Higher Ground, a title somewhat borrowed from the Stevie Wonder song of the same name quoted above.

This piece has a couple of different elements than most of my work.  For instance, the rocky walls of the canal/river as well as the rocky outcropping of the rise on which the Red Tree stand.  There’s also an orchard in the lower right corner that I use sparingly in these pieces.  I have sometimes said that these paintings are often not really about the Red Tree at all but are more about the mood created by the combinations of color and form.  But the Red Tree is definitely center stage here, everything revolving around and focusing on it.

Higher ground could  represent the safety offered by it  in times of flood or in combat.  For me, I see it as attaining a higher plane of being, or at least aspiring to it as a goal.  Perhaps not the same highest ground that Stevie Wonder is seeking ,  which seems to represent  a  Raptured heaven.  No, I see it more as being free of the the everyday, represented in the anonymous houses below.  To a point that is above hate and anger.  Above envy.  Above spitefulness and deceit.

Above judgement.  I add that because I don’t see the Red Tree as looking down on those house below it here. Rather,  I see it looking upward and outward.  And higher ground affords that better view…

Here’s the song from Stevie Wonder.  Great groove to start a day.

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Redemption Bay

Posted in Painting, Recent Paintings, Technique/History, tagged , on March 15, 2013| 6 Comments »

GC Myers 2013- Redemption BayEarly last week, I wrote about spending several hours working on a piece that seemed to go nowhere, had no rhythm or flow.  I was trying to force things that just weren’t there and the whole thing gave me an anxious feeling.   I  decided to count  it as a momentary setback and painted it over, erasing the failure and creating a clean slate on which to build something new .  I then went to work, trying to quiet my mind and letting the piece grow bit by bit.

This is what has emerged.

I am temporarily calling this painting, a 36″ by 36″ canvas, Redemption Bay.  It’s obviously named for the effort in reversing a failure but the name may fit in other ways, as well.  I’m still reading it and trying to decipher exactly what it says to me.  I can see many themes in it.  Cycle of life, external guidance and so on.

It has the flow and rhythm that was missing in the first attempt, elements meshing together to create a movement that takes the eye through and into the piece.  It’s exactly what I was trying to force in the failed attempt and came once I let the piece go on its own.   It’s been my experience that my best work comes when I trust   instincts over intellect.  I’m going to spend some time with this piece and see how it grows on me now.

So far, so good.

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Lessons Revealed…

Posted in Music, Painting, Technique/History, Video, tagged , , on March 3, 2013| 9 Comments »

gc-myers-studio-march-2011I’m sitting in my studio looking at an empty canvas.  It wasn’t empty not too long ago.  No, I spent the better part of the afternoon yesterday working on this canvas, a 36″ square that was prepped beforehand with gesso and a first layer of black paint.  Several hours spent and not a minute of it felt smooth or in rhythm.  The paint didn’t come off the brush in the way that I expected or desired.  The composition seemed to just go nowhere ,leaving bland and lifeless  bits of nothing littered all over the canvas.  I never felt a flow, that quality I have described before where one mark leads to the next as though you are reading the lines and strokes on the canvas like they were revelatory tea leaves.

No tea leaves here yesterday.  Everything led to nothing.   After a few hours, I was exasperated and I knew deep down inside  that I had betrayed my own words and had tried to force the work rather than let it flow out organically.  That was the lesson and I knew what had to be done.  I  laid the canvas flat on the floor and broke out the black paint, covering the offensive marks that had been there moments before.

It felt good, actually.

Time reveals many things and after tens of thousands of hours spent in the studio I have learned that  failure is no big deal.  It’s like the weather– temporary.  It comes and goes.  A failure like yesterday doesn’t make me happy but knowing that sometimes things just don’t work out makes me take such  a temporary failure  with a philosophical shrug.  And instead of struggling ahead with this horror show that was unfurling before me, trying to somehow cobble it back to life, my experience has taught me that it would be best to retreat and start anew.

Tabula rasa, so to speak.told

So here I sit this morning, a new day,  with a fresh canvas waiting for me and there is a new air of anticipation around it.  Yesterday is but a lesson and there’s no telling what the time spent today will reveal.  Can’t wait.

Here’s one of my all-time favorites which sort of ties in with today’s post.  It’s Time (The Revelator) from Gillian Welch.

 

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Judging/ Game of Life

Posted in Painting, tagged , , on February 27, 2013| 10 Comments »

GC Myers--Game of Life FlipviewThere was a piece that I featured a few weeks back as a work in progress.  It is a 24″ by 48″ painting that I have decided to call Game of Life.  I thought it was strong piece at the time and have nothing that swayed my opinion since, looking at it on a daily basis in the studio.  But yesterday, as I was framing several pieces, the painting was laying on a table and from my vantage point it appeared upside down to me.  I kept coming back to it with my gaze , noting how well the piece kept together in an almost abstract manner with the balance of the painting’s elements still strong.

I was really pleased by this as well as reminded of this earlier method of judging my work, where I would flip a painting over then set it on it’s ends to check it’s balance and to see if it still translated.  I don’t do it very often anymore, instead trusting a judgement that has been shaped over the years that allows me to evaluate a piece incrementally as I work.  But seeing this painting inverted reminded me how well this simple method worked for me in the past.  It forced me to look at and judge the work in from a different perspective.  I couldn’t be lulled into submission by the scene itself– it had to stand on strong compositional legs that created a bonded unity in the work.

Now, I don’t know if this method works for all work.  I’m not sure all of my work stands the test.  Probably not.  But when it does pass this test, it’s a reassurance and validation that I really trust.

Here’s what Game of Life looks like in its normal state:

GC Myers -Game of Life

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Treasure Island

Posted in Painting, Quote, tagged , on February 26, 2013| 11 Comments »

People travel to wonder at the height of mountains, at the huge waves of the sea, at the long courses of rivers, at the vast compass of the ocean, at the circular motion of the stars; and they pass by themselves without wondering.

–St. Augustine

*******************

GC Myers- Treasure Island This is a new painting, a 12″ by 36″ canvas that is titled Treasure Island.  For me, this has nothing  to do with the Robert Louis Stevenson book of the same title  with Long John Silver and his pirate crew.  Oh, there’s an element of treasure in this piece, from the golden tones of the crown of the central figure of the island tree to the rich and regal  color of the sky.

But what I see in this piece is really more about introspection and the discovery of  an inner wealth.  It’s a theme I often see in my work, this idea of finding what we are and are not , celebrating those qualities we possess rather than lamenting our deficiencies.  This evaluation of self creates a sovereign realm within us, one that is a safe haven from the intrusion of the outer world, one that lets our strengths flower and grow in an unfettered way.

That sounds like a lot of mumbo-jumbo and maybe it is. But I do see this as a painting that speaks about inner strength and celebrating what we are on our own terms.  About controlling those things we value in ourselves and not letting others define us.  We are all small islands containing all different sorts of wealth, if only we would take the time to look.  Look inward then let your own wealth shine outward, whatever it might be.

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Bluefire

Posted in Painting, Recent Paintings, tagged on February 22, 2013| 10 Comments »

GC Myers- BluefireHere’s a new painting, a 10″ by 20″ canvas,  that I am calling Bluefire.   I don’t know if the title refers to the blue sun rising over the distant ridge or if it refers to the hot contrast of the red tree to the predominately blue environment.  It doesn’t really matter  because the title feels right, feels at home in this painting.  At least, it does this morning.

Bluefire also sounds like a gem of some sort and the color of this piece definitely has a gem-like quality, sapphire  and topaz and tourmaline green.  It feels as much like a jeweled object as it does a simple painting, which I like.  I have spoken a number of times of the idea of the painting being viewed in multiple ways, as a pure object in itself as well as a representation of something emotion-based on its surface.   This seems to fit this idea.

I also like the paradox of  the warmth of this piece despite the blue overtone of the whole.  Blue is often portrayed as a cool color but sometimes that doesn’t hold completely true.  I think this is one good example of warmth in blue.  And I think it’s this going against what is the norm that I like about Bluefire.  The blues are warm and the sun is blue but it somehow doesn’t matter.  It registers true to me and that is the test that counts.

Now, whether others see and accept it in those terms is another matter.

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Paint the Paintings You Want to See…

Posted in Influences, Painting, tagged , , , on February 20, 2013| 4 Comments »

GC Myers- ExplorerAnother thing from the Out of Bounds interview that I wanted to expand on was my answer to Tish Pearlman‘s question as to what advice I  might give to aspiring artists.  I said that I thought that they should paint the paintings that they wanted to see.  I think there needs to be a little more depth to that answer.

Earlier in the interview I had said that I was influenced by a wide variety of imagery from other great painters and illustrators to advertising and film and television.  Any visual input had some influence.  I spoke of   deeply saturated colors that I had seen maybe 25 years ago in a Coke ad on TV, colors that still dwell in my mind.  There are hundreds of little nudges that push at the buttons for the perfect, idealized  image that you maintain in your mind but is never quite fully captured.  I know that’s how it was for me.

I would go into museums and look at great works of art and absolutely love so many of them yet still felt that none was exactly an expression of what I was feeling or who I was.  There was always a lingering feeling that there was work that was closer to the hazy criteria my mind presented, work that I still wasn’t seeing.  It was this feeling that led me to the conclusion that I would never find what I was looking for by trying to paint in the style of other painters.  If their work was what I was looking for to begin with, why even paint?  It seemed to me that too many artists are satisfied by simply doing work that resembles other work, safe in the accepted pack, rather that taking the gamble on stepping away from it.

But I wanted to step away and to do so I would have to assess what I was as well as what I wasn’t.  By that, I mean I would play to what I felt were my strengths and not waste too much energy on my weaknesses.  I knew that anything that would be close to what I wanted to see had to come from a total belief from within and that trying to do things that were not who I was, which would be a weak area in my abilities, would diminish the whole thing.  No, it needed a total commitment from myself.

I guess what I am saying it that aspiring artists need to focus on what they believe they want to see and use their strengths to try to achieve that end.  By concentrating their efforts on their strengths, a natural  style or voice will evolve.  If they accept this voice with a real belief in its validity, it will soon be as natural as signing their name.  They will soon be able to celebrate the things that make them different  than others, rather than striving to be like them.

I don’t know if any of this is making sense this morning.  I’m sure some of the above will ring true to some and ruffle the feathers of others.  That’s art  for you.  It’s more mystery than science.  I might, be right, wrong or both.  Depends on who’s looking…

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Work In Progress/ Just About There

Posted in Painting, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , on February 11, 2013| 11 Comments »

GC Myers WIP- Final Stages 2013I am getting closer to completion on the piece that I have been showing over the last week here, a 24″ by 48″ canvas.  After taking the photo shown here, I was able to spot several areas that need small touches to bring it to a possible finish.

The painting has changed considerably since the last stage  I showed of it in the prior post.  The everpresent Red Tree has appeared on a rise overlooking the lake.  The sky and sun (or is it a moon?) have unified in color.  The trees and fields have taken on more color which gives them shape and depth.   The lake that was last seen as a black pool has transformed into a surface of teeming blue brushstrokes.

It may not be very obvious in these photos but I lightened the most distant hills which moved the horizon deeper into the picture and gave the whole piece more depth.  It’s one of those things that doesn’t register when you first look at the painting.  You see the closer images – the lake, the houses, the graveyard, the bridge and roads– or maybe you focus on the sun/moon and the Red Tree stretching up into the sky.  Those are all important elements that make the painting vibrant and certainly are the stars of the show.  But, for me, it’s this extra perception of depth beyond the scene that gives the piece a real sense of wholeness.  This depth attaches the fantastic to reality.

GC Myers WIP Detail 2I spoke in the last post about the graveyard which is a new element for me in my  landscape paintings.  Another new element is located in the area around the covered bridge.  Now, I have used bridges  a number of times in my work and even a few covered bridges have popped up so it’s not that.  It’s the simplified gas station, a one-pumper that recalls rural gas stations of the past where the pump was just off the shoulder of the road.  I don’t know how that came to be in this painting except to say that I wanted a strong distinct element that would balance the graveyard and like the way it breaks up the space in which it is located.  Plus, the addition of the it and the graveyard give this piece a sense of real place, of community, for me.

There is a lot for me to like in this piece.  It’s as strong  and appealing as I had hoped it might be, with great rhythm and flow through its many elements that gives it a sense of harmony.  I had mentioned that I might use this piece for a Name That Painting contest but now I’m not so sure.  I have a title in mind and am strongly leaning toward using it, although I want to mull it over.  However, I would love to hear any other titles you might have in mind.

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Work In Progress/Update

Posted in Painting, Recent Paintings, Work In Progress, tagged , , , on February 8, 2013| 9 Comments »

GC Myers WIP 2013This the piece I showed earlier in the week, a 24″ by 48″ canvas started last weekend.  As you can see by the image to the left, the composition of the landscape has filled in and the sky has began to take shape.   I have laid in several layers of brushstrokes in the sky but probably won’t go back into it until I do more on the landscape below.  The landscape will set the final tone and feel for the sky and I need more color in it to fully be able to read it.

I sometimes question whether I need to have as many layers of color in the sky because  often in the final surface you can’t even discern any of these layers.  For example, there is a layer with  numerous strokes of violet in the sky here that you probably can’t make out in the picture above.  When this piece is complete, you may only be able to see a tiny  hint of  violet at any point in the sky.

Could I skip that layer and several other similar layers?

Sure.  It may not make a bit of difference to the casual observer.  But for me, it is an integral part of the process, a  slow development of the depth and complexity of the color that I am seeking, a color that I won’t know until it finally shows itself.  That little touch of violet is necessary for me, an important step that, if skipped, would have me thinking that something was amiss in the picture.

DSC_0011 smLeaving the sky, I begin to lay in preliminary colors for the landscape, a variety of blues and greens for the trees and a brownish  putty color for the houses and a bit of red for the roofs. It’s always exciting at this point because the color begins to bring real shape and life to the landscape.  As  each house comes to life with a little color as I work across the canvas, it is like there is a wave of light moving over it.  The whole surface begins to feel animated.

DSC_0014 smAfter that layer, I begin to lay in the surface of the landscape with a multitude of colors, weighing each block of color  as I place it  to get a sense of how it fits into the rhythm of the whole.  I begin to put on what may or may not be final touches on some of the houses, slashes of white that glows on the canvas.  I really am beginning to feel the direction of the painting at this point and have a sense of where it may finish, starting to think how I will handle the blackness of the lake.

GC Myers WIP DetailI know that this sounds goofy and I can’t really explain in any coherent manner, but there’s a good feeling around this painting at this point.  I like it’s strength and think it will show dynamically in its final state.  I really like it so far and like a few of the details in it that are new to my work.  For example, this scene has a small church graveyard  with a road circling it as it overlooks the lake.   Although I sometimes reference death and the past in my work and have a great personal fondness for graveyards, I have never actually portrayed a cemetery in my work.  But I really wanted to show it as part of the community of this painting.  It somehow tempers the piece for me.

So, while the painting is beginning to take shape, there is still a ways to go before I can sit back.  I am still trying to see what the final focus of the piece will be, what will give me a name that fits it.  Perhaps I should ask you for some help.

Shall we have a Name That Painting Contest?

 

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