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Archive for the ‘Painting’ Category

No Talking Sunday

Posted in Painting, Technique/History on August 29, 2010| 4 Comments »

Yet another Sunday morning.  I don’t have a lot to say this morning, which is pretty normal when I’m very busy painting.  I become very focused on the task of painting when I’m in full painting rhythm.   It seems the spaces in my mind that might be filled with opinion and trivial thought become clogged with flashes of color and and other elements.  I tend to set my limited mental capacity towards solving the puzzles of painting–  how to make a piece that seems to be static at one stage come alive with the next or making a painting that says something with the fewest amount of detail.  Solving compositional conundrums that float in the ether of  my mind. 

 It’s an interesting state of mind, being in the painting rhythm.  Like being in a location that is far removed from the realities of everyday life.  Oh, I’m aware of them but my concentration is far from them.

The painting shown here, Through the Portal, from back in 2004 kind of sums up how I feel about being in this rhythm.  It’s somewhat like passing through a gateway into a world comprised of my own little trees and landscapes, all easily pushed into place with a glance.  The real world with all its problems is behind me and feels a million miles away.  I know it sounds goofy but as I’ve stated before, if I could decribe it I wouldn’t have to paint.

So, I’ll stop trying to describe it this morning and focus on doing what I do.  Being in my own little world. 

Where I belong.

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Next Steps

Posted in Painting, Recent Paintings, Technique/History, tagged , on July 29, 2010| 2 Comments »

Left of Center- GC Myers 2010

This is a piece from the show, New Days, at the West End Gallery.  Its one of the pieces that are being called gray paintings, a series of pieces I have been recently doing in shades of black, white and gray with small touches of color.  As I’m starting to prepare for my show in October at the Kada Gallery in Erie, I’ve began to ponder if and how I will incorporate this series into that show. 

As with anyhting new that clicks with me, I want to run it out to see if I can expand it beyond what it starts as.  For instance, I am really excited about the prospect of using this gray format in a much larger work comprised of a grid of many small individual cells each containing a simple landscape with perhaps one cell having a red tree.  It would have a great graphic quality and the size and austerity would make the small slash of red pop out of the gray. 

 I’m thinking something like a 30″ by 30″ image.  It would work on canvas or paper although I lean toward paper because with the graphic feel of the gray work I like having a mat forming a field of white around the image, something that makes the image stand out even more.  It would be have either 25 or 30 individual cells, 5 or 6 cells across and 5 or 6 down.  I’ve done a few, many years ago, that had 45 and 49 cells.  I haven’t done anything like that in the past several years.

World Shifts-- GC Myers 2003

The other consideration is whether the cells will be very uniform with straight lines, each very much like the next.  Or will it be more organic, with each cell very individual in shape and size.  Here on the right is an example from several years back that has that naturally grown look, with barely anything in it that resembles a straight line.  I like the look and feel of this but looking at it now, I think it is better suited to color. 

 But one never knows.  Maybe I will try a small organic piece in the gray to get a better feel.  Sometimes that first impression I form in my head is off a bit and when further examined, something that I didn’t foresee reveals itself.  Sometimes for the better.  Sometimes not.

This is as close to planning ahead as I often get with my work.  I have a somewhat well-formed idea of what I want to see on the canvas or paper, know how I plan on painting it, know the subject matter– pretty know everything I need to jump in.  The interesting thing is that something invariably happens that changes one of these factors and the piece transforms into something quite different that the one I have in my head now.  Usually, it changes for the better, provided I let these changes emerge in an organic fashion, not forced.  Occasionally the transformation doesn’t work and that is usually the result of a flaw in how I was seeing the painting in my head in the first place or if I try to resist obvious changes that are dictated by shifitng factors.

Hey, the worst thing I can do is think too much about this.  Said too much already. Just give it a direction and let it go.  That said, gotta run…

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Roots Show Through

Posted in Biographical, Influences, Neat Stuff, Painting, Recent Paintings, tagged , on July 20, 2010| 2 Comments »

This is a new painting that is also part of the New Days exhibit at the West End Gallery.  Titled Roots Show Through, it’s one of those paintings that, for me, brings to mind an immediate thought.  When I look at this piece I am instantly reminded that we are the products of our past and that our ancestry deeply dictates many of our behaviors.  We may believe that our actions are ours alone and that our forebearers are remote from us in all ways but they show themselves in ways we may never recognize.

I was watching the end of the PBS series Faces of America with Henry Louis Gates (of the infamous arrest and subsequent Beer Summit at the White House) which traces the genealogical background of a number of well known folks, showing how they came to be and how they are interrelated to many others.  I was captivated by how they were able to break down the genetic composition of their subjects, showing how richly we are endowed those things that make us unique by prior generations.  Each one of our direct anscestors made it possible for us to be here in the form, for better or worse, that we are at present.  Take away any of them and we become much different people, if we exist at all.

The roots show through.

Now there are roots that we would like to keep deeply buried.  I know from doing genealogy that there is a tendency to want to see our ancestors in the best possible light, to give them the most positive attributes.  You imagine them to be wise and good and often you can find some evidence that some of your ancestors were .  But sometimes you find things that are less flattering, things you hope haven’t found their way to you through the genetic network.  In doing my own genealogy ( and my guess is that it is similar to a great many people out there) I have found a number of good and learned people who had places of respect in their communities.  But for every one of these folks I found even more who were less accomplished. 

 Going through census records, I find many ancestors in the recent past  who could not read nor write.  Some are listed on these same records in prisons and county poor houses and sanitariums.  Some are found in other records listing their misdeeds.  I have thieves and swindlers in my line.  My favorite was a beaver thief from the late 1600’s up the Hudson Valley.  I have some ancestors who were killed in various battles and massacres and as many who took part in other massacres, including one who was darkly remembered for the lifelong  revenge he took against the Indian tribes who had killed his father.  I have murderers including a great-great grandfather from several generations back who was hung in the town square in Easton, PA  for the murder of his wife. 

You hope some of those roots found a dead-end generations ago.  But they probably found their way through in some form and you ultimately deal with the background that brought you here in ways you hope allow you to live and prosper, with some semblance of wisdom and good.  You hope that the positive traits handed down to you by your ancestors far outweigh the negative ones.

Oddly enough, all of this and more comes to mind when I glimpse this piece.  It has almost become an icon for this particular thought.  How others see it, I cannot guess…

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Galliard

Posted in Painting, Recent Paintings, tagged , on July 19, 2010| 2 Comments »

As I normally do in the weeks before a show, I’m featuring new work from a show in my blog posts.  The show this time is one called New Days that opens Thursday with an opening at the West End Gallery in Corning.  Today’s painting is one called Galliard, a 13″ by 13″ painting on paper.

When I had finished this piece and began to search for a title, I focused on the intertwined trees.  I’ve often used dance terms to describe the way they seem to hold each in these paintings and this piece definitely had the feel of dance for me.  So I began to search for a term that captured this painting. 

I came across the term galliard and, without even knowing what the term meant, immediately felt pulled to the word.  It has a rhythm in its pronunciation that struck me.  It just sounded right.  Looking further, I discover that the galliard was a lively Renaissance dance, said to be a favorite of Elizabeth I.  There is one section of the dance called lavolta that involved the couple in an intimate hold where the woman is lifted in the air as they do about a 3/4 turn.  It was considered pretty scandalous at the time.  The Lambada of the Renaissance, if you will.

It fit though.  There is a sense of intimacy in the two trees.  The open, airy space in which they perform the dance represents a liberation of sorts for me, as though they hold no shame for their dance of devotion for one another.  The red in the trees gives it a feeling of passion set against the fertile lushness of the green in the foreground. 

So, in this case, the sound and meaning of the title worked for me.  Perhaps the title and the painting itself are performing a dance…

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Eastern Influence

Posted in Influences, Painting, Recent Paintings, tagged , , on July 18, 2010| Leave a Comment »

Sometimes a title for a piece is so undeniable that it makes all other attempts at naming it seem utterly futile.  When I completed this 8″ by 16″ painting on paper, I tried to find something in it that reminded me of  something other than  the feeling of  Eastern influence that seemed to drip from the surface.  The bonsai-like tree and the mound from which it sprouts.  The rising sun.  Even the way the sky is segmented and shaded seemed to bring forth thought of a flag from the East.  It all conspired to give the painting a decidedly Eastern Zen flavor.

I was trying to get away from having the viewer see the piece as only a product of influence, as though that might somehow lessen the work.  But isn’t every painting a product of influence somehow?  I can often see the onfluence of others in my work.  A bit of color here borrowed from something I’ve seen in another artist’s work.  I remember doing a piece when I was first showing and I had used a green in the work that had a wonderful rich earthiness to it.  This little bit of my painting so reminded me of the greens that Albrecht Durer had used in some of his lovely paintings of small wildlife such as rabbits and squirrels.  One day, I was in the gallery and the piece was hanging when another artist who also showed his work there saw it.

“That’s Durer’s green!” he exclaimed. 

I was thrilled that he caught it, that he saw the same qualities in it that I saw in Durer’s use of the color even though there was no other similarity in the work.  It provided a real insight into how influence works in how we create and view work.

So, why fight it when an influence shows through even more prominently?  It was influenced by the East as am I.  Even as I sit here now, my desk looks out an east-facing window as I watch the sun’s rays filter through the thick foliage of the trees as it rises from the east.  Every morning that I look into the eastern sky I am influenced by it.  You can’t deny your influences or habits, the things that shape your views.  So to call this piece anything other than Eastern Influence would be like trying to force a square peg into a round hole.

This painting is part of the New Days exhibit of my work at the West End Gallery in Corning, NY  that open this Thursday, July 22.

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All Is Given

Posted in Painting, Recent Paintings, Technique/History, tagged , on July 13, 2010| 2 Comments »

Another new painting for my show, New Days, that opens next Thursday, Jully 22, at the West End Gallery in Corning.  this piece is titled All Is Given and is 12″ by 12″ on paper.  This piece, for me, is like comfort food.  The color and the way it comes together as a composition has a very soothing effect and there is a real harmony in the deep greens and blues that shines through here.

Even the fact that there is motion in the central figure of the tree doesn’t detract from this peaceful feeling.  The giving of leaves to the wind by the tree seems natural and there is no remorse over the loss.  It is all just part of existing in nature.  Just being and not reacting.  Accepting what is and what cannot be.

It’s one of those pieces where, when done, I feel a great sense of satisfaction.  As though  I’ve hit my mark, reaching some undefined, hazy goal that is known only by reaching it.  That’s hard to explain.  I don’t have specific endpoints when I’m painting.  There is seldom, if ever, a fully realized image in my mind when I start painting.  It’s more of a shifting amorphous mass of color and  with no specific shape or imagery.  I just hope that when I’m painting I can somehow capture the essence of this idea or whatever it is.  Sometimes it is revealed and other times, something different emerges which is a discovery in itself that is quite unlike what I felt in my mind at the beginning of the painting. 

See?  Hard to explain.

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Bent But Not Bowed

Posted in Painting, Recent Paintings, Technique/History, tagged , on July 10, 2010| 4 Comments »

This is the last painting I finished for my show, New Days, that opens in two weeks at the West End Gallery.  The name of this 24″ by 30″ canvas is Bent But Not Bowed and was started several months ago, sitting in various stages just on the periphery of my vision. 

 It started with many layers of gesso that were at first troweled on then finsihed with thick veins that run through the surface in a haphazard, chaotic fashion.  When it was finally prepped it had a definite character before I ever put the first drop of paint to it and as a result, begged for me to put it aside and ponder it.  It had something in it that was there to be revealed with the paint above it, if I could only find it. 

So I set it aside and would consider it as I worked on other paintings, always a bit intimidated by the strength and motion within the surface.  It had to be right or it would fall apart under its own force.

The surface was so rich in texture that over the months I determined that the imagery should be simple and close to the surface, not deep into the picture plane, which is counter to what I normally seek in my work.  The imagery should truly react to such a strong and emotive surface. 

It also needed strong color to accentuate the surface, to bring it even more forward.  More prominent, not understated.  The trick was bringing these elements together in a way that didn’t look too considered, too thought out.  Make each element- the texture, the color and the imagery- play off of one another, bringing the strengths to the forefront in an organic fashion that gives the painting a feeling of it bursting off the canvas on its own. 

This piece certainly has a dynamism is the studio.  It demands the eye.

I feel as though I haven’t squandered the potential that the canvas first held when I first looked on it after the gesso was applied.  It is a piece that has real life, real feel.  A voice that has words of its own, well beyond mine.

In short, it is what I hoped it could be…

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Change and Breakthrough

Posted in Influences, Opinion, Painting, Quote, Technique/History, tagged on July 9, 2010| 2 Comments »

Helen Frankenthaler- Savage Breeze

 

There are no rules. That is how art is born, how breakthroughs happen. Go against the rules or ignore the rules. That is what invention is about.

–Helen Frankenthaler

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I’m using this quote from Helen Frankenthaler, the famed Abstract Expressionist, as a sort of follow-up or addenda to yesterday’s post about change.  I remember reading about Frankenthaler when I was first beginning to really paint with purpose.  In an article that I read but can’t locate now, she spoke of how she came to her trademark stain paintings where very thinned oil paint is applied to unprimed canvas.  She said it was almost by accident that she first experienced the absorbing of the paint by the raw cotton canvas and how that it caused a reaction, a breakthrough, in her thinking about how she wanted to express herself within her work. 

She felt that all artistic breakthroughs were the result of a change in the way one saw and used their materials.  It could entail changing the type of material used or using them in a more unconventional manner, as her above quote stating there are no rules infers.

This immediately clicked with me at the time I read it.  I had been trying to shape my way of thinking to fit the materials I was using at the time.  Unsuccessfully.  What I needed to do was change the materials to fit the way I was thinking.  Allow my thought process more free rein and not cater to the restraints of materials.

That may sound kind of abstract but it allowed me to start working with my paints and grounds in a much different way, forming my own process that worked well for my way of thinking and has become entrenched in my thought process.  Even though it may be outside more traditional forms of using these same materials,this process has over time become as rigid in my use as the techniques used by the most steadfast adherent of the most traditional school of painting.  This is sort of what I was referring to when I mentioned the end of the cycle, as far as art is concerned.  You reach a certain point, a mastery of your materials, where there are few accidents, few surprises in the materials’ reactions and, as a result, fewer surprises in your own reactions. 

For most, this is the goal.  But I want that surprise, that not knowing exactly how the materials will react and that need to solve the problem presented by the need to express with the limitations of the materials used.  So I try to continually tweak, create a little tension in how the materials react to my use of them, to create a sense of surprise.  Breakthrough.

And that’s where I feel I am at the end of the cycle mentioned in yesterday’s post.

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Alive in the Gray Area

Posted in Painting, Recent Paintings, tagged , on June 11, 2010| 3 Comments »

Alive in the Gray Area- GC Myers

My show opens tonight at the Principle Gallery.  I head down the highway early in the day and settle into my hotel and relax for a short time before the opening.  Have a bite to eat and try to take my mind off the show.  I still have anxiety over the whole thing, as I talked about in yesterday’s post.  But it’s not so much of a panic after 25 or so solo shows. 

Just try to keep the flop sweat down and be grateful for those who show up.

Dancing in the Gray Light

This year, I’m bringing a couple of pieces with me on the day of the show.  They are two smaller paintings done in shades of gray and black with touches of color.  I started these this week as an exercise, sort of to clear my palette.  Go back beyond color then come forward again.  These were primarily done as such and were not meant to be shown but I found that they really appealed to me and gave a different flavor to my normal compositions.  Taking the focus off the color made my eye instead fall to subtlety of line and tonal differences in the grays.

It was still my work but I was seeing it  in a different way.  Like hearing a song you know very well played in a much different manner.  You recognize all the things about it that you liked in it normally but notice things that evaded you before.

That’s kind of how I feel about these pieces. 

So I decided to show them tonight if only to get a bit of feedback.

So if you’re in Alexandria tonight, stop in at the Principle Gallery and say hello. Maybe take a look around.  There’s plenty of color to go along with the grays…

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Gossamer Days

Posted in Painting, Recent Paintings, Technique/History, tagged , on June 6, 2010| Leave a Comment »

Gossamer Days - GC Myers 2010

The studio is relatively empty now as I’m now in the week between delivering the Facets show to the Principle Gallery and the actual opening night this coming Friday.  While there is always anxiety over the show itself, there is usually a sense of relieved relaxation in the studio at this point, an almost giddy feeling over the possibility of what may come next there.  Usually at the end of painting for a show, all the creative energies  have come to a sharp, focused point and in the weeks of prepping the work for a show and the point when painting is resumed, this point is constantly poking me, impatiently waiting to be untethered.

At the moment, it wants to explore new ideas in sometime older styles.  For instance, the painting shown here, Gossamer Days, is painted in the more transparent manner of my early work and  provides me with a new spark each time I see it.  After years of having the work grow and evolve beyond this style, it’s always interesting to revisit it with the benefit of knowledge and insight gained through the years.  Something new and exciting emerges as new ideas are incorporated and older ideas that may have faded from my vocabulary are reintroduced.  For me, this an exciting time in the studio.

This discovery of things new and old keeps me always fully engaged, always feeling that the work is growing and not stagnant.  The idea of the work not moving forward is death in the energy of the studio and something for which I always on the lookout.  For the work to be vibrant and have its own sense of life, I must have a sense of engagement with and excitement for the work myself.  So, at points like this, when that excitement is almost palpable I am thrilled because I know the importance of it.  But I am always also a bit nervous of not capturing the full strength of this creative wind in my sails and being left adrift to paddle my way out by creating new energy somehow.

That is tough work…

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