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Archive for the ‘Poetry’ Category

Into the Clear Air

Posted in Influences, Poetry, Quote, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , , , on October 28, 2016| Leave a Comment »

GC Myers-- Into the Clear AirI said to my soul, be still and wait without hope, for hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love, for love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith, but the faith and the love are all in the waiting. Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought: So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.

―T.S. Eliot

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I’ve read these lines from T.S. Eliot before but it was only this morning that I equated them to the creative process.  Well, so far as I see it in my own experience.  You see, you can struggle to describe in words how things come about, how things finally appear.

You might describe an inner process of visualizations and intricate thought synthesis, of pulling deep emotions to the surface and so on.  Maybe that is so but I think it is not really part of the process but is rather an interpretation of what you believe happened.

I think the real creative aspect occurs in a way much like the words above describe– in the stillness and darkness of a meditative void.  The mind emptied and all thoughts of the past and the future are set aside.  No hopes or desires.  Just a quiet dark blankness that waits in endless patience for the first crackling of light to pierce through.

But there are times when the light doesn’t come and you lose patience in the waiting.  So you start without the light and occasionally, nearing the end of the process, you find that your mind has emptied and the light has caught up with you.  What you are looking at it something quite unlike what you thought it might be when you struggled to begin.

I know this all sounds pretty esoteric, pretty out there and maybe it won’t make a lick of sense to most who somehow slog through to this point. But really it comes down to the idea that you clear the mind and let it just happen.

If it happens at all.  Sometimes the light doesn’t find you.  But on those times when it does, it is like the freshest clear air has wafted over you and left you with a feeling of ethereal lightness. The clearest air.  And I guess that is why I keep doing this and probably will until the day I die.

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The painting above is a 16″ by 20″ canvas titled Into the Clear Air and is included in Part of the Plan, my show that opens tomorrow, Saturday, October 29, at the Kada Gallery in Erie.  The reception begins at 6 PM.  Hope you can make it!

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The Internal Journey/ Redux

Posted in Favorite Things, Painting, Poetry, tagged , , on August 24, 2016| 3 Comments »

 

As I noted the other day, we are dealing with a personal issue in our family that has kept me from my work for the past couple of weeks.  It’s just a part of life, something that most families have to deal with at some point, but knowing that doesn’t make it any easier.  For me, the hard part has been being away from my work, that one thing that calms and settles me.  This has also kept me from writing much here.  In the interest of continuity, I thought that I’d at least share a blogpost from a few years back that is a personal favorite.

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GC Myers -Abundant Life-smAll day I think about it, then at night I say it.
Where did I come from, and what am I supposed to be doing?
I have no idea.
My soul is from elsewhere, I’m sure of that,
And I intend to end up there.

— Rumi, thirteenth-century Persian poet

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The other day, while going over some very early posts from this blog, I came across this short poem from Rumi.  It had been passed on to me by my friend Scott Allen from the Cleveland area after my 2008 show at the Kada Gallery.  It was what he himself had felt in my work.  The poem had, I’m sorry to confess, slipped my mind over the years and coming across it again immediately rekindled my  original reaction to it. Then and now,  I felt as though this little wisp of a poem captured the secret behind what I was doing.

Like Rumi’s voice in this poem, I have spent most of my life in an existential quandary, filled with doubts about who I am and what I should be doing.  I often felt like a stranger in a strange land, ill at ease in my surroundings and feeling, like Rumi, that my soul is from elsewhere.   Initially, I felt as though my uncertainties and doubts could be allayed externally.  I was simply not in the right physical location.  But it was soon apparent that it was not an external problem.  Regardless of the location, I would not be at ease on the outside until I sought and found where I needed to be internally.

That’s where the painting came in and filled the void in my life.  If life were an ocean, painting gave me a hope, an endpoint for which to navigate. Without it, I would still be rudderless in an ocean of doubt.  With it and through it, I feel that my soul is headed in the right direction.

I don’t know exactly why I feel the need to share this intimacy with you this morning.  Perhaps that openness is part of the journey or even the destination.  But for me, seeing this poem again reconnected me to the journey at a point when it felt as though I was going slightly off course.  Sometimes in the process of seeking one forgets why they set out on the journey in the beginning.  And that why, that motivation, sometimes needs to be revisited during the journey.  It gives the destination definition and immediately puts you back on course.

This morning, I feel like I am sailing on smooth seas again, knowing why I am going forward.

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I hope to feel that way again soon…

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The Untold Want

Posted in At the Movies, Favorite Things, Painting, Poetry, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on May 27, 2016| Leave a Comment »

GC MYers- The Untold Want smThis is another new painting headed to the Principle Gallery this weekend for my show there, Part of the Pattern, which opens next Friday, June 3.  This piece is 14″ by 34″ on paper and is titled , The Untold Want.  The title was taken from the title of a very short poem from Walt Whitman that contained the phrase that spawned and became the title of  the  Bette Davis movie,  Now, Voyager.

It’s a great film with a great cast, the kind of movie that could not be made today without becoming something other than what it was intended to be.  It’s the story of a young lady from a wealthy family who is hindered and defined by an overbearing mother.  She suffers until she meets a therapist (played by the great Claude Rains) who finds a way to let her break free and find her own definition of self.  To discover her own untold want.  He quotes the Whitman poem as she leaves his care.  He has given her the tools and she, the Voyager, must discover the world on her own.

There is a lot more to it than that, of course.  But I think that little synopsis captures what I see in this painting.  I see it as being about moving out into the wide world on one’s own terms, unafraid to show oneself as they truly are.  Visible for all to see, flaws and all, and ready to uncover all the mysteries that the world has to offer.

At least, that’s how I see this piece.  I like it, like the feel of it, like the color and tone of it.  It has a sturdiness and simplicity that I find appealing, like a piece of Craftsman furniture.

Here’s the poem:              

 The untold want, by life and land ne’er granted,  

Now, Voyager, sail thou forth, to seek and find.

-Walt Whitman, The Untold Want

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REMINDER: Engage Nepal

The clock is running on the event for the Soarway Foundation.  Every donation of $25 and above gets a signed poster like the one shown below as well as a chance to win a painting of mine valued at $5000.  This event ends June 6, 2016 so click on the Crowdrise link below or click here  to see how you can help and possibly win!

Soarway Poster -Engage Nepal

https://www.crowdrise.com/artists-engaging-nepal

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A Poet’s Advice ( e.e. cummings)

Posted in Advice, Motivation, Poetry, tagged , , , on May 5, 2016| 2 Comments »

 

GC Myers- Jumping Off PointWhenever I am asked to speak with students I usually tell them to try to find their own voice, to try to find that thing that expresses who they really are.  I add that this is not something that comes easily, that it takes real effort and sacrifice.  The great poet e e cummings (you most likely know him for his unusual punctuation) offered up a beautiful piece of similar advice for aspiring poets that I think can be applied to most any discipline.

Or to anyone who simply desires to feel deeply in this world.

I particularly like the line: To be nobody-but-yourself-in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else-means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.  That line alone speaks volumes.

Take a moment to read this short bit of advice and see what you think– or feel.

 

A Poet’s Advice To Students

(e e cummings)

A poet is somebody who feels, and who expresses his feeling through words.

This may sound easy. It isn’t.

A lot of people think or believe or know they feel-but that’s thinking or believing or knowing; not feeling. And poetry is feeling-not knowing or believing or thinking.

Almost anybody can learn to think or believe or know, but not a single human being can be taught to feel. Why? Because whenever you think or you believe or you know, you’re a lot of other people: but the moment you feel, you’re nobody-but-yourself.

To be nobody-but-yourself-in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else-means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.

As for expressing nobody-but-yourself in words, that means working just a little harder than anybody who isn’t a poet can possibly imagine. Why? Because nothing is quite as easy as using words like somebody else. We all of us do exactly this nearly all of the time-and whenever we do it, we’re not poets.

If, at the end of your first ten or fifteen years of fighting and working and feeling, you find you’ve written one line of one poem, you’ll be very lucky indeed.

And so my advice to all young people who wish to become poets is: do something easy, like learning how to blow up the world-unless you’re not only willing, but glad, to feel and work and fight till you die.

Does this sound dismal? It isn’t.

It’s the most wonderful life on earth.

Or so I feel.

 

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In the Waiting

Posted in Painting, Poetry, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , , , on May 2, 2016| 5 Comments »

GC Myers- In the Waiting sm… I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope

For hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love

For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith

But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting.

Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought:

So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.

-T.S. Eliot, East Coker, The Four Quartets

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I’ve been in a deep groove lately as I ready work for my upcoming June show, Part of the Pattern, at the Principle Gallery.  Part of finding this groove was returning in the last month or so to process of  transparent inkiness that marked the early incarnations of my work.  An example of this is the piece shown above, a 6″ by 24″ painting on paper that I am calling In the Waiting, taken from the Eliot lines above.

The strength of this wet work, at least for me, is in the way the fluidity of the paint creates the tension and contrast that carries the emotional content of the painting. The duskiness where light and dark comes together is filled with the anticipation of all that is to come, all unknown to the waiting Red Tree who attempts to tamp down its desire to imagine what is coming.

The goal is to put aside any faith or hope or love –as Eliot puts it so beautifully– and simply await the inevitability of what is to come without thought. But that stillness of thought makes the waiting tolerable and allows us to view that which is before without the influence of our desire, to see things as they really are.

But as we all know, that is easier said than done…

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Steeple

Posted in Poetry, Quote, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , on March 7, 2016| 4 Comments »

GC Myers-- SteepleI have stretched ropes from steeple to steeple; garlands from window to window; golden chains from star to star, and I dance.

—Arthur Rimbaud

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I was looking for a title for this new painting which is a 24″ by 12″ canvas.  I was seeing joy and exhilaration in it as well as the Red Tree being at the pinnacle or highest point.  Looking at a list of synonyms for the word pinnacle, I spotted the word steeple.  At first I thought it a bit odd, thinking of a steeple only in the context of a church’s architecture.

But then I realized that a steeple is built to be the highest point, reaching upward toward the heavens.  I began to think of the many times I had painted my Red Tree on sharp sided mounds that attempted to push it further upward, above the surrounding earth.  Was that mound not a steeple of some sort? Were not many of these paintings ultimately about reaching out to unknown forces as well as seeking inner peace?

Looking at this painting, I began to see it clearly as a steeple.  A steeple for a place of joy.  I guess that’s why the line from poet Arthur Rimbaud at the top fit so well,  Though most of the poetry from his very short career is dark and brooding in its imagery, I found the image put forth in this line bright and joyous.  It is  filled with the energy of self-realization, of the awareness of one’s connection to the cosmos.

Perhaps those swirls in the sky are ropes waiting to be stretched from this steeple to the next…

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If…

Posted in Painting, Poetry, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , , on March 2, 2016| 2 Comments »

GC Myers- If...I wasn’t going to feature another new painting here this morning but I felt that this piece just fits perfectly into the momentary state of our politics.  At least how it appears to me.

In most of the recent paintings from this series featuring patterned skies (I don’t know what else to call them) the sky represents hidden forces and powers that are just beyond our sight and reach.  It’s pretty much the same with this piece except that there is, at least for me, a more chaotic and turbulent aspect in the sky.

The tree stands as a direct counterpoint to this chaos, straight and unwavering.  It  has strength and resolve along with a placid sense of being.  A sense of self awareness beyond the influence of the madness occurring beyond it.  While it is simple in design, it has been a painting that has given me a lot to think about while at the same time calming me.

As I was nearing the end of this 18″ by 24″ piece, I began to think of the famous poem If from Rudyard Kipling and how it related in many ways to how I was seeing this painting.  The poem is basically a father’s advice to his son, telling him all of the things he should learn to endure if he wants to become a man.  It would also be good advice for the ideal political candidate, male or female.  I think most of the people we have seen in this year’s presidential primaries fail to meet most of those requirements that Kipling has laid out.

The poem is below but if you would rather hear it read aloud, there is a recording of actor Michael Caine reading it at the bottom.

If you can keep your head when all about you
    Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
    But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
    Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
    And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise: 

.

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
    If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
    And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
    Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
    And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:

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If you can make one heap of all your winnings
    And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
    And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
    To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
    Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’ 

.

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
    Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
    If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
    With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
    And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son! 
—Rudyard Kipling, If

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Valentine’s Day

Posted in Favorite Things, Music, Poetry, tagged , , , , , , , , on February 14, 2016| Leave a Comment »

GC Myers Time Comes Together 2006Valentine’s Day.

It would be easy to go on and on about the day and the meaning of love but sometimes words just do not do the subject justice.

So I will keep it short today and share a poem from the Nobel Peace Prize winning Turkish poet, Nazim Hikmet, along with this Sunday’s musical selection, a cover of Bruce Springsteen‘s Drive All Night from Glenn Hansard (best known for his songs from the film and stage production Once) with backing vocals from Eddie Vedder.  A very good cover of one of my favorite songs from The River album of 1980.

Have a good Valentine’s Day…

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I love you
like dipping bread into salt and eating
Like waking up at night with high fever
and drinking water, with the tap in my mouth
Like unwrapping the heavy box from the postman
with no clue what it is
fluttering, happy, doubtful
I love you
like flying over the sea in a plane for the first time
Like something moves inside me
when it gets dark softly in Istanbul
I love you
Like thanking God that we live.

—Nazim Hikmet
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The Lie/ Zabrina Lo

Posted in Painting, Poetry, tagged , , , , on January 20, 2016| 3 Comments »

GC Myers The Journey Begins 2002I’ve always put my work out there on the internet, never getting upset when people use it for their own purposes so long as they aren’t claiming it as their own or selling it in any form.  After all, the whole purpose in doing this is to expose the work to as many people as possible.  Periodically I check to see where it ends up.  It’s interesting to see how several sites use my work on their masts, especially groups associated with archaeology who use my work from the Archaeology series.

The painting above, a piece from 2002 called A Journey Begins, was used back in November to illustrate the winning entry in the 2015 English Poetry Contest  at  Hong Kong Baptist University.  The poem is titled The Lie and was written by Zabrina Lo, a third year student in Language and Literature.  I was struck how well the two pieces of art blended, each fitting perfectly well with  and complementing the other.

Here is the poem The Lie from Zarina Lo:

Her seat has been empty for a year.
Still we sit
together. Not together. Around the table
we eat the tasteless water chestnut cakes
which I insist ordering.
I lie that the plum rain of China in early January
nourishes the jade-like crunchy corms –
the best time to savour this New Year’s dish.

But I am silenced
by the huge heap of sliced cakes that remain
almost untouched by everyone here
except me
and by my father’s empirical science of how autumn, not winter,
is the harvesting season.
Already gone.

But I can’t refrain from lingering on
the past winters when my mother, with her gnarled veiny hands,
insisted on making and filling my tiny childhood plate full with
her – not my – favourite water chestnut cakes.
She never knew that when I said I loved her cakes, I loved
her smile at the sight of me eating, savouring, appreciating her cake –
her world.
That sight gave her bland, unrecognized life the sweetest touch she’d ever known
in our home where water chestnuts never grew, cracked and bloomed
through the floors, walls, ceilings and
outside the window.
She never knew
that the sweetness I tasted was not from the cake
but her heart.

I imagine
that if I listened hard enough I would hear the crunch of water chestnuts
from the empty chair next to me
where she would be sitting and smiling as usual
as if New Year never came,
and that I could tell her honestly
the blissful flavour she thought I liked
was never there
and would never be there again.

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Unafraid

Posted in Current Events, Painting, Poetry, Quote, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , , , on November 19, 2015| 5 Comments »

GC Myers- Unafraid 2015There’s nothing I’m afraid of like scared people.

–Robert Frost,  A Hundred Collars

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I think those eight words above from the Robert Frost poem, A Hundred Collars, says it all for me at the moment.  I don’t find myself filled with the fear of ISIS or terrorists in general.  I certainly don’t fear  that someone, a small child or a widow,  who has entered themselves into a long and grueling process to come here will one day attack me.

No, I am more afraid of the panic of scared people who throw calm thought and rationality out the window.  People who allow the fear raised by others to dictate their response.  People who react in a knee-jerk manner that does nothing to alleviate their fears and sometimes does harm to themselves and others around them.  People who fear the darkness and shoot blindly into it.

Don’t get me wrong– it’s a scary moment in time.  It deserves our full attention, cautious observation and appropriate response.  But to react in a reactionary manner that alters our identity, the makeup of who we are as a people, is to fall prey to the will of the terrorists.

So, while you may have fears, be careful and be calm.  Breath.  Think.  Know the world around you and try to let those fears go for a time.

I think that last short paragraph applies to the piece at the top, a new painting, 3.5″ by 5.5″ on paper, that I am calling Unafraid.

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