Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Archive for the ‘Personal Mythology’ Category

Family Lines

Posted in Influences, Personal Mythology, Quote, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , , , , on October 21, 2014| 5 Comments »

In different hours, a man represents each of several of his ancestors, as if there were seven or eight of us rolled up in each man’s skin, — seven or eight ancestors at least, — and they constitute the variety of notes for that new piece of music which his life is.
―Ralph Waldo Emerson

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

GC Myers- Family Lines smThis is another newer painting that is headed to Erie for my show, Into the Common Ground,  in December at the Kada Gallery.  This 30′ by 40″ canvas is titled Family Lines with the Red Tree serving as the symbol of a family tree and the Red Chair acting as an offspring of it.  The broken segments of the winding path leading up to it represent for me the often arduous task of finding your connection to this tree while the light of the sky represents ultimate discovery and illumination.

I’ve often felt as though I had little definition of myself or my connection to the world through my ancestors.  My work as an artist has helped change this in many ways, giving me a portal for displaying who I am or  at least aspire to be in definition.  But my connection to my ancestors was always vague and hidden away beyond my knowledge.  I wondered who they were, what their stories held  and what traits they fed forward  through time to me.  I began to study my genealogy, hoping to discover some form of connection with the past that might help me better understand who I was in the present.  To discover what worlds the winding path that led to my own life traveled through.

It’s been a wonderful process that has given me greater connection with the past and with the history of this country and with those countries that gave birth to my ancestors.  Naturally, I am always drawn to the grand stories that are uncovered, the heroic and celebrated ancestors that I find myself hoping have somehow contributed some of their positive traits to my DNA.  But I am equally intrigued and touched by the simple and sometimes tragic tales that are uncovered.

I had earlier written of a great grand uncle who had lived his whole life in a county home for the infirmed. He was described in the censuses during his life as “feeble-minded” and he was unceremoniously buried  in an unmarked grave there at the county home.  I recently came across his death certificate and they listed him as a lifelong sufferer of epilepsy.  It made the story even more tragic in that this was perhaps a person who had a condition that would be treatable today.

I think of this person quite often.  His story is as much a part of that tree as those of  its more celebrated members.  It may not be the most beautiful leaf on the branch but it is there.  As Emerson says, we represent in some form a number of our ancestors and whose to say what part this ancestor plays in that piece of new music that is my life.

Read Full Post »

Inner Perceptions

Posted in Biographical, Painting, Personal Mythology, tagged , , , , , , on September 22, 2014| 1 Comment »

GC Myers- Inner Perception smallThis is a painting from a few years back that has toured around a bit and found its way back to me. Called Inner Perception, it has been one of my favorites right from the moment it came off my painting table.  Maybe the inclusion of the the paint brush (even though it is a house painter’s brush) with red paint in the bristles makes it feel more biographical, more directly connected to my own self.   Or maybe it was the self-referential Red Tree painting on the wall behind the Red Chair.

I don’t know for sure.  But whatever the case, it is a piece that immediately makes me reflective, as though it is a shortcut to some sort of inner thought.  Looking at it this morning, the question I was asked at the Principle Gallery talk a week or so ago re-emerged, the one that asked what advice I might give my fifth-grade self if I had the opportunity.  I had answered that I would tell myself to believe in my own unique voice, to believe in the validity of what I had to say to the world.

I do believe that but I think I might add a bit to that answer, saying that I would tell my younger self to be patient and not worry about how the world perceives you.  That if you believed that your work was reflecting something genuine from within, others would come to see it eventually.

I would also add to never put your work above the work of anyone else and, conversely, never put your work beneath that of anyone else.  I would tell myself to always ask , “Why not me?”

This realization came to me a couple of years ago at my exhibit at the Fenimore Art Museum.  When it first went up it was in a gallery next to one that held the work of the great American Impressionists along with a Monet.  I was initially intimidated, worrying that my work would not stand the muster of being in such close proximity to those painters who I had so revered over the years.

But over the course of the exhibit, I began to ask myself that question: Why not me?

If my work was genuine, if it was true expression of my inner self and inner perceptions, was it any less valid than the work of these other painters?  Did they have some greater insight of which I was not aware, something that made their work deeper and more connected to some common human theme?  If, as I believe, everyone has something unique to share with the world, why would my expression of self not be able to stand along their own?

The answer to my question was in my own belief in the work and by the exhibit’s end I was no longer doubting my right to be there.  So to my fifth-grade self and to anyone who faces self-doubt about the path they have chosen, I say that if you know you have given it your all, shown your own unique self,  then you must ask that question: Why not me?

 

Read Full Post »

Memory Way

Posted in Influences, Personal Mythology, Quote, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , , on February 4, 2014| 4 Comments »

GC Myers-Memory Way smEvery man’s memory is his private literature.

-Aldous Huxley

***********

As I have stated in the past here, the Red Chair, an icon that often appears in my work, is a symbol to me of people and places and experiences from the past.  In short, my memory.  In this new piece, Memory Way, that is most certainly the case.  This little painting, 2″ by 5″ on paper, is another of my pieces from the Little Gems exhibit which opens Friday at the West End Gallery.

The road here represents to me the continuum of time.  The landscape is almost idyllic, perhaps representing my tendency to block out the worst parts of memory.  At least, to downplay them and keep them in the background and to put what good there was there in the best possible light.  I like to revisit the past occasionally and I have to make it a place where I am comfortable.  A past filled with nothing but dark and fear-filled memories is no place to venture on a regular basis.

Anyway, this little piece makes me happy and fills my mind with a feeling of good memories.  As Huxley said  above, our memory is our own private literature, filled with the memories of our lives and the lives of our ancestors.  I sometimes edit, embellish and redact my life’s literature, all to make it an interesting read for myself.

That’s what I see in this little guy.

Read Full Post »

Exceptionalism/ Redux

Posted in Biographical, Influences, Motivation, Personal Mythology, tagged , , on December 27, 2013| 1 Comment »

GC Myers- Time of Peace smThis season always signals the end of one year and the beginning of the next and generally sets me to thinking about pasts and futures, thinking about their connection and how it affects my life and work.  One way to examine the past is to delve into genealogy, something that I began doing in earnest several years ago and continue on a regular basis, especially at this time of the year.  It has provided a background, a basis for being and a connection with my environment that I often felt was missing as I grew up.

I will talk a little bit about it with family members, trying to pass on my findings, but have gotten so used to glassy-eyed looks of disinterest that I now seldom bring it up in conversation.  Not everyone wants to look back and I can respect that.  For me, however, it has been essential to my own progress forward, providing me with perspective and a sense of being.  I wrote a bit about this several years ago on this blog, documenting a relative’s pitiable existence and how it relates to my work.  I think it says as much about how I define my purpose as an artist as well as anything I have written before or since.

_________________________

I woke up much too early this morning.  Deep darkness and quiet but my mind racing.  Oddly enough I found myself thinking of a person I had come across in my explorations in my personal genealogy.  It was a cousin  several generations back, someone who lived in the late 1800′s in rural northern Pennsylvania.  The name was one of those you often come across in genealogy, one with few hints as to the life they led.  Few traces of their existence at all. 

 At the time, it piqued my curiosity for some reason I couldn’t identify.  He was simply a son of  the brother of one of my great-great grandparents.  As I said, you run across these people by the droves in genealogy, people who show up then disappear in the mist of history, many dying at a young age.  But this one had something that made me want to look further.  I could find nothing but a mention in an early census record then nothing.  No family of any sort.  No military service.  No land or property.  No listings in the cemeteries around where he lived.  I searched all the local records available to me and finally came across one lone record.  One mention of this name at the right time in the right place, a decade or so from when I lost sight of them.

It was a census record and this person was now in their late 30′s.  It was one line with no other family members, one of many in a long list that stretched over two pages.  I had seen this before.  Maybe this was a jail or a prison.  I had other family members in my tree who, when the census rolled around, were incarcerated and showed up for those years as prisoners.  So I went to the beginning of the list and there was my answer.

It wasn’t a prison.  Well, not in name.  It was the County Home.  This person was either insane or mentally or physically handicapped and was living out their life in a home when they could or would no longer be cared for by family.  It struck me at the time that this was someone who lived and experienced as we all do and who has probably not been thought of in many, many decades.  If ever.

This all came back to me in a flash as I laid there in the dark this morning.  I began to think of what I do and, as is often the case when I find myself wide awake  in the dark at 3:30 AM, began to question why I do it and what purpose it serves in this world.  Is there any value other than pretty pictures to hang on a wall?  How does my work pertain to someone like my relative who lived and died in obscurity? 

In my work, the red tree is the most prominent symbol used.   I see myself as the red tree when I look at these paintings and see it as a way of calling attention to the simple fact that I exist in this world.  I think that may be what others see as well– a symbol of their own existence and uniqueness in the world. 

If I am a red tree, isn’t everyone a red tree in some way?  Isn’t my distant cousin living in a rural county home, alone and apart from family, a red tree as well?  What was his uniqueness, his exceptionalism?  He had something, I’m sure.  We all do.

And it came to me then, as I laid in the blackness.  Maybe the red tree isn’t about my own uniqueness.  Maybe it was about recognizing the uniqueness of others and seeing ourselves in them, recognizing that we all have special qualities to celebrate.  Maybe that is the real purpose in what I do.  Perhaps this realization that everyone has an exceptionalism that deserves recognition and celebration is the reason that I find it so hard to shake the red tree from my vocabulary of imagery. 

 Don’t we all deserve to be a red tree, in someone’s eyes?

There was more in the spinning gears this morning but I want to leave it at that for now.  It’s 5:30 AM and the day awaits…

Read Full Post »

Stranger in a Strange Land

Posted in Biographical, Early Paintings, Favorite Things, Influences, Music, Personal Mythology, Video, tagged , , , , , , , on October 20, 2013| 3 Comments »

GC Myers Stranger (In a Strange Land) -I featured an older piece here on the blog last month, a painting that was considered my Dark Work from around 2002.   The piece shown above is another of these paintings and is one that I have always considered solely mine.  I very seldom consider a painting being for myself only but this one has always felt as though it should stay with me.  It is titled  Stranger (In a Strange Land) which is derived from the title of Robert Heinlein’s famous sci-fi novel which in turn  was derived from the words of Moses in Exodus 2:22.

The landscape in this piece has an eerie, alien feel to it under that ominous sky.  When I look at it I am instantly reminded of the feeling of that sense of not belonging that I have often felt throughout my life, as though I was that stranger in that strange land.  The rolling field rows in the foreground remind me just a bit of the Levite cloth that adorned Moses when he was discovered in the Nile as an infant, a symbol of origin and heritage that acts as a comforting element here, almost like a swaddling blanket for the stranger as he views the landscape before him.

As I said, it is one of those rare pieces that I feel is for me alone, that has only personal meaning, even though I am sure there are others who will recognize that same feeling in this .  For me  this painting symbolizes so much that feeling of alienation that I have experienced for much of my life, that same feeling  from which my other more optimistic and hopeful work sprung as a reaction to it.  Perhaps this is where I found myself and the more hopeful work was where I aspired to be.

Anyway, that’s enough for my five-cent psychology  lesson for today.  In short, this is a piece that I see as elemental to who I am and where I am going.  This one stays put .

Here’s a little of the great ( and I think underappreciated) Leon Russell  from way back in 1971 singing, appropriately,  Stranger in a Stranger Land…

 

Read Full Post »

Trust

Posted in Early Paintings, Personal Mythology, Technique/History, tagged , , , on September 26, 2013| 4 Comments »

GC Myers Early Work ca1994I came across this little piece recently.  It’s a small watercolor on paper that was done in 1994, while I was still developing my own voice and before I began showing my work publicly.  It’s not a great piece of work and will always just live its life in a bin of experiments and other pieces that just aren’t up to snuff.  But this little painting always has meaning for me, providing a lesson in trusting your own instincts as well as weighing the words of guidance given to you.

You see, I had another artist around this time critique my work.  He was a professional artist with years of experience and I trusted his judgement, wanting any feedback that would help me narrow my quest for an individual voice.  On this particular piece he told me that it was sorely lacking, that the figure needed to be more accurate in its depiction, that people would not respond to this kind of rendering.  I  wasn’t positive in his advice but I hesitatingly took it to heart and avoided figures for many years and even to this day hear his words when I consider a figure in my work.

I consider it a huge mistake on my part and wonder what my path might have been had I discounted his advice at that time.  I mistook him for a guide on the creative path to my own voice but what he offered was a route that took me to where he himself was headed.  His guidance was purely subjective, linked to his own vision of how the world looked and should be depicted.

His road was not mine.

Over the years, I have become resistant to listening to others when they begin to tell me what my work should be or where it should be headed.   I also am hesitant in giving advice for the same reason– our destinations may not be the same.

It may not be much but this little piece is a symbol of the trust I now have in my voice and intuition.  It is a constant reminder that it is up to me as to how I use the advice given by those posing as guides on the path.  In this way, this painting is priceless to me.

Read Full Post »

Coincidence

Posted in Music, Personal Mythology, Television, Video, tagged , , , , , , , on September 24, 2013| 9 Comments »

Triple SpiralThe rational part of my brain always wants to shrug off coincidence as mere matters of probability but I still am excited in a way when I experience it, even when the coincidences are seemingly  mundane, not appearing as some sort of cosmic omen or example of the universe’s synchronicity.

Take this past weekend.  I had one of those weird moments when I was singing a song to myself and just a short time later it pops up on the car radio.  Now, that doesn’t seem like too much of a coincidence.  I mean, I’m sure most of us have had this experience, especially when a song is popular and regularly played on our favorite station.  I know this used to happen to me all the time as a kid, when I would be humming a song and would flip on the radio and there it was, almost synchronized in its timing.  But this recent time was with a song from 1967 that was not a classic song but a novelty hit, Judy in Disguise (With Glasses),   from what was considered a bubblegum band of the time, John Fred and the Playboys.

I shrugged it off with a smile.  It is an infectious song, after all.  Besides, who wants to think that their destiny is somehow entwined with this song?

Then on Sunday evening, we were watching the Martin Scorsese produced Boardwalk Empire on HBO.    A few days before this, I had written a post for this blog that was titled Acres of Diamonds, about the famed inspirational speech from Temple University founder Russell Conwell.  The episode this night was also titled Acres of Diamonds and briefly played  a recording of the speech performed by Conwell.

This coincidence gave me more of a pause than Judy in Disguise.  It just struck me as odd that I had chosen to write about this story on just the weekend that it was also referenced on the TV show.  It was a somewhat famous speech in its time but is pretty obscure today.

Coincidence or omen , a symbol of deeper meaning?  Some view coincidence as evidence of a universal consciousness or of God’s directing hand at work.  I don’t know that we can ever know with any certainty of such things.   I know that I would like to believe that these pop culture coincidences somehow demonstrate that I am closer to the center of the labyrinth that is life, but, as I said, the rational part of me tells me to take it easy– if it’s a symbol, it will reveal itself in due time.  If not, it’s just a fun coincidence.

What do you think this is trying to tell me?  Maybe the message was a warning about buying those pants. Message received…

Read Full Post »

Wish I Was a River

Posted in Favorite Things, Music, Painting, Personal Mythology, tagged , , on September 18, 2013| 4 Comments »

GC Myers- Wish I Was a River smThere are some pieces in  my studio that will always be with me , some because they are very personal pieces, virtual parts of my memory.  Others because they are somewhat lacking and I wouldn’t want them out in the world.  Then there are some that stay simply because I want them here.  This piece is one of those.

It is painted on a piece of our old upright piano , the lid that opened on its top.  It’s about 8″ tall by 62″ long.  You might think that this painting is about the  heavy clusters of Red Roofs but for me this is a piece of escape.  That cool blue ribbon of water that cuts through this painting, shown only in snips, is freedom to me, a rushing current to carry me away from the noise and chaos of the gathered village.  Or better yet, I could become the river and move easily and forever– hopefully– through the land, joined with the other waters of the world.

I find myself thinking a lot when I look at this piece, which I do most everyday as it is mounted above the large window in my studio.  It gives me pause and makes me think about being quiet internally, stilling the spinning wheels.  But most of all, it makes me wish I was that river.

I call this piece Wish I Was a River, sort of after the Joni Mitchell song, River.  However, her chorus goes “ I wish I had a river…”  Maybe I’m being greedy here but I want to be the river.  Maybe I’d let her skate away on me.  I don’t know.

Here’s the song from Joni Mitchell.

 

Read Full Post »

The Sky Doesn’t Pity

Posted in Biographical, Favorite Things, Influences, Painting, Personal Mythology, tagged , , , , , on August 22, 2013| 4 Comments »

GC Myers-The Sky Doesn't Pity 1995smI was looking around my studio, taking in some of the work hanging on the walls throughout the house.  There are pieces from other artists, including some notables such as David Levine and Ogden Pleissner, but most of it is older work of my own.  There are a few orphans, paintings that showed extensively but never found a home.  In some I see flaws that probably kept someone from taking it home but most just didn’t find that right person with which to connect.  Most of the other hanging work is work that I won’t part with, work that somehow has deeper meaning for me.  Work that just stays close.

One of these paintings is the one shown here, The Sky Doesn’t Pity, a smallish watercolor that’s a little over 4″ square.  It was painted in 1995 after I had started publicly showing my work for the first time at the West End Gallery in Corning, NY, not too far from my home.  The gallery has been what I consider my home gallery for 18 years now, hosting an annual solo show of my work for the last eleven years.  This year’s show, Islander, ends next Friday.

But when this piece was done I was still new there, still trying to find a voice and a style that I could call my own.  I had sold a few paintings and had received a lot of encouragement from showing the work at the gallery but was still not sure that this would lead anywhere.  I entered this painting in a regional competition at the Gmeiner Art Center in Wellsboro , a lovely rural village in northern Pennsylvania with beautiful Victorian homes and gas lamps running down Main Street.

It was the first competition I had ever entered and, having no expectations, was amazed when I was notified that this piece had taken one of the top prizes.  I believe it was a third but that didn’t matter to me.  Just the fact that the judges had seen something in it, had recognized the life in it, meant so much to me.  It gave me a tremendous sense of validation and confidence in moving ahead.  Just a fantastic boost that opened new avenues of possibility in my mind.

I still get that same sense even when I look at this little piece today, a feeling that would never let me get rid of this little guy.  I can’t tell you how many times I have glimpsed over at this painting and smiled a bit, knowing what it had given me all those years ago.

 

Read Full Post »

Observers

Posted in Biographical, Personal Mythology, Recent Paintings, tagged on May 28, 2013| 3 Comments »

GC Myers- Observers frm smI am in the last stages of putting the finishing touches on the work for my Principle Gallery show before I deliver it later this week.  It’s always a thrill to see the work move from the raw image into its finished state, like seeing a raw gem put into a proper setting that focuses the light and color.  The piece above is a good example.  I showed it here  back in the first days of April in a fairly finished state but lacking the frame and the gold edge that surrounds each panel.  I really liked it then, liked the interaction of the elements and the way the color popped off the wood panel.

But these finishing touches have really transformed it for me.  Though it is pretty large, measuring in at about 28″ by 52″, it seems larger and demands the eye more than before.  Amazing how how little things can change the whole effect and feel.

Like the show, this piece is called Observers.  I think many many of us are observers, those people never quite in the middle of things, just off to the side as they watch the action take place.  They never have much control over and seldom set the course of anything but note how it proceeds. Some members of this group, artists and writers among them,  notice this as well, along with little details that give their accounts depth and meaning.  Things like how the light was and what the air smelled like at certain moments, the facial expressions and body language of those around them.  Things like patterns and shapes and quality of color in the environment of the moment.

Growing up, I often felt like I was watching things from a distance, never in the center of things.  Oh, I had those moments of being the center of attention.  I was the baby of our family and at times got more attention than I warranted.  But often  I felt like a third party watching things from the outside.  A lot of this came from spending a lot of time in the adult world, kind of a tagalong.

I remember spending several days one spring break when I was maybe 9 years old at my aunt’s house.  My cousin and best friend of the same age was still in school as their spring break was a week later than ours so I didn’t have him for companionship.  While he was in school I would go to work with my uncle who was a water well driller.  I just followed along for several days, not saying much and just watching his world.  I still remember vividly the coldness and thickness of the mud we slogged around in  around the drilling site.  I remember the smell of the cheese and dried blood in an old country store where we stopped to grab some lunch, a rich cheddar stench that blossomed when the proprietor pulled the heavy glass cover off the huge cheese round.  I remember the small glass of soda with the huge ice cubes that I drank at the tavern while I stood next to him at the bar, all the time reading the goofy plaques behind the bar with risque quips and jokes on them.  I can still see the lettering and words of those plaques and my uncle’s face when he asked me what I was smiling about.  I pointed out the one that had something to do with male genitalia and itching (that’s all the info I’m sharing about this although I remember it well) and he chuckled and told me not to read so much.

It wasn’t much fun for those few days but the memory is vivid and there is something there that I hold on to.  I think that is what observers do , hold onto fleeting bits of memory and detail.  And that’s a bit of what I  see in this work.

Read Full Post »

« Newer Posts - Older Posts »