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Archive for the ‘Quote’ Category

Quote of the Week: Candle

Posted in Painting, Quote, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , , , on September 10, 2015| 2 Comments »

GC Myers- CandleThere are two ways of spreading light… To be the candle, or the mirror that reflects it.

–Edith Wharton

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This is a new piece,  8″ by 10″ on paper, that I am calling Candle.  Working on this painting, I determined that I wanted to keep the composition very simple and stark.  There was so much energy in the radiating forms that adding anything beyond the blue panel at the bottom would change the whole feel of the piece as I was seeing it.  The blue provides contrast and forms a horizon line that gives the whole image a measure of inward depth without detracting from the simplicity of the image, which I see as being essential to the strength of this painting.

Simplicity, as is often the case, translates as grace.  And grace of some form was what began to show in this piece as it unfolded.  I was reminded as I worked on this of the great (in my mind, the greatest British artist) JMW Turner‘s reputed dying words: The sun is God.  There is a spiritual element in how the sun is depicted in his work and I often feel that I am representing something more than a source of physical light and energy when I paint these sun orbs in my work.

Perhaps that something more is a presence beyond the physical.

I don’t know.  But for a moment, my uncertainty is relieved and I feel connected with the warmth and light from the presence that is the sun in this piece.

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Perpetua

Posted in Painting, Quote, Recent Paintings, Technique/History, tagged , , , , on September 4, 2015| 1 Comment »

GC Myers- Perpetua

The decisive moment in human evolution is perpetual. That is why the revolutionary spiritual movements that declare all former things worthless are in the right, for nothing has yet happened.

—Franz Kafka

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I have been working on some new work that is built on layers of painted textures in the under painting.  They are often in their own way abstract pieces in themselves and I find myself contemplating the possibility of building more on these to create pure abstract paintings without any direction toward representation.  I think there will be at least several attempts in the future to at least explore the possibility, trying to see if I can satisfy my own needs within the realm of abstraction.  But for the moment, the abstract elements support, and hopefully enhance,  my own imagery.

Much like my normal gessoed surfaces, these painted underlying elements are meant to create a visual thumbprint, a distinct and individual surface that has a life force of its own and adds a measure of depth to the whole of the painting.  Some of the painted textures have been chaotic with multiple shapes and colors throughout.  Others use similar forms and colors set in a loosely patterned manner.  Whether they are random or built in a pattern, they must have some natural flow and depth within.

This new piece above is an 18″ by 18″ canvas that I call Perpetua.  It is built on a base of what I would call painted rectangular plates that seem to be descending into the background.  For me, it takes a simple image comprised of only a couple of elements and gives it added levels of depth and meaning.

When I look at this, that background has me considering things beyond the central figure of the Red Tree and its place in the moment.  It becomes a mere marker in a larger continuum, perhaps at the vanguard in its own present time but soon to be surpassed by the progress of the coming future.  Perhaps those plates represent images of past times and those things that were the cutting edges of those times, hovering in the background and supporting a new ascension.

Maybe.  Who knows?  I painted it and much of it remains a mystery to me.

And maybe that is the whole point…

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Quote of the Week: Lawren Harris

Posted in Favorite Things, Influences, Quote, tagged , , , on September 3, 2015| 4 Comments »

Lawren Harris- Mountains in Snow 1929

Lawren Harris- Mountains in Snow 1929

The power of beauty at work in man, as the artist has always known, is severe and exacting, and once evoked, will never leave him alone, until he brings his work and life into some semblance of harmony with its spirit.

—Lawren Harris

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The more I look at the work and read the words of the great Canadian painter Lawren Harris (1885-1970), the more of a fan I become.   His work was never about  capturing the physical reality of place.  No, it concerned itself with capturing the emotional response to the and harmony and spiritual nature of place, to evoke that power of beauty that has moved him.  It reminds me in that sense of  Edward Hopper’s work.

I am totally enamored with his paintings of the great white north in fantastic colors and forms but have been recently looking at his more abstract work and find then every bit as beautiful and engrossing.  They possess that same degree of feeling of his more representational pieces yet move into an even more internal space.  I find them intriguing and inspiring.

There is a book on the work of Lawren Harris coming out in a few weeks, co-authored by actor/comedian/art collector Steve Martin, The Idea of North: The Paintings of Lawren Harris,  that will be attempting to take Harris from being portrayed as  just a Canadian painter and place him highly in the larger context of all art.  It’s a book to which I am looking forward.

Lawren Harris The Spirit of the Remote Hills 1957Lawren Harris - abstractLawren Harris- Abstract #7 Lawren Harris- Abstract Painting #20 Lawren Harris abstractlawren harris-mt-lefroy LawrenHarris-Mount-Thule-Bylot-Island-1930

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Quote of the Week: Satisfaction

Posted in Motivation, Painting, Quote, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , , , on August 27, 2015| 3 Comments »

GC Myers- The Satisfaction smSatisfaction lies in the effort, not in the attainment. Full effort is full victory.

–Mahatma Gandhi

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I often paint the rows of a freshly cut field in my work.  While this creates an interesting visual effect with its pattern of alternating colors, it also satisfies my own need to express the importance — and necessity–of effort for myself and for my work.

I have often pointed out at gallery talks that I spend huge amounts of time alone working in my studio, well over 50,000 hours in the past fifteen years.  I usually make a joke of this, saying that I just tell people I am hard at work during my time in the studio so they will not bother me and that its really not that much work.  Okay, maybe there is some truth there as far as not having people bother me.  But the fact remains that while I find my time in the studio enjoyable as well as enlightening, it requires great effort and work.

And I wouldn’t have it any other way.

I guess that’s because there is usually a moment after finishing a piece or a group of work for a show when I stop and look at the work in its state of completion.  In this moment there is a great sense of satisfaction at the result of my full efforts.  And that full effort gives the results a sense of completeness and their completeness brings me my own completeness, a fulfillment of some small purpose that I find necessary in order to persist in this world.

That small moment of satisfaction makes all the work, all the frustration and missteps, fade away and that which should have depleted me now serves as nourishment.  I find myself strengthened for another day.

Maybe that what I see in this new painting, an 18″ by 18″ canvas which is headed out to California.  It is called The Satisfaction, of course.  It very much reflects what I have written here, with the Red Tree representing someone looking back on the results of a long day of labor.  And again, they feel uplifted rather than worn down.

I know it’s not always that way.  There have been times when work has been very draining, definitely in my past and occasionally even now.  But knowing that  special moment of satisfaction that comes along every so often is out there makes me look forward to the task and the effort ahead.

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Quote of the Week: Oscar Wilde

Posted in Quote, tagged , , , , on August 18, 2015| 2 Comments »

GC Myers- Light ObsessionIt is Art, and Art only, that reveals us to ourselves.–Oscar Wilde

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Cruel August

Posted in Biographical, Motivation, Quote, tagged , , , , on August 12, 2015| 8 Comments »

 

pablopicassoskeletonYour willingness to wrestle with your demons will cause your angels to sing.

—August Wilson

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As the post below from back in August of 2010 points out, most years I struggle with the month of August and this particular one is no different.  The doldrums set in and I am filled with an anxiety and a stifling restlessness that combine to create a sense of desperation within me.  If I hadn’t experienced this before, this feeling would seem unbearable.

But it’s not something new so I realize that it’s just a matter of hanging on and letting it pass, all the while trying to pull something from it that will show itself in my work.  I have found that such keen desperation is often the source of great work, much as playwright August Wilson —a fitting first name!— points out so eloquently in the quote above.  So, while I find myself fighting through the cruel days and demons of August, I do so as I listen for the song of angels to begin.

And from experience, I know they will begin soon enough.  Sing, angels, sing!

From August 18, 2010:

This print from Picasso [ Above] very much sums up my feelings for the month of August. 

I have never been a fan of August.  Memories of the so-called dog days of summer spent as a child.  Hot from a relentless sun.  Bored.  Burnt grass crunching underfoot.  The coming school year hanging overhead like the sword of Damocles.

August has always had a faint aura of death around it for me.  I remember the death of my grandfather in ’68.  My beloved dog Maggie years later.  Several friends over the years, from a variety of causes. Elvis.   The bright glare of the August sun seeming to taunt the grief of the moment.

August.

We were watching something on television the other night, perhaps Mad Men– I can’t really remember.  Anyway, the character in the scene that was on said , “I hate August.” 

It made my ears prick up and I couldn’t help but mutter, “I’m with you there, brother.”

August.

Well, I’ve got a lot to do this August  morning.  It takes a lot of work to keep busy to ward off the cruelty of  August…

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Raindance

Posted in Painting, Quote, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , on August 5, 2015| Leave a Comment »

GC Myers- Raindance smThere will be a rain dance Friday night, weather permitting.

—George Carlin

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This new painting, Raindance, is a 16″ by 20″ canvas at the West End Gallery as part of the Home+Land show now hanging there.  As I finished this piece I was keenly aware of the drought taking place in California and other parts of the American west.  It has resulted in dozens of wildfires throughout California, destroying homes and wildlife habitats as it furies along.  Rain can’t come soon enough for that part of the country.

In this painting the Red Tree seemed to be in the midst of some sort of beseeching, twisting and extending its limbs upward.  I saw it as a rain dance of sorts, begging the dark skies above to release the rain and feed the hills and valleys below.  The skies here have an ominous warmth that gives the distant hills a pale yellow hue and the yellow semi-circle in the foreground that supports the Red Tree acts as a sun symbol.

Let’s hope that this rain dance achieves its desired effect…

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Gallery Talk Today (With Prizes!)

Posted in Biographical, Current Events, Painting, Quote, tagged , , , , , on August 1, 2015| Leave a Comment »

GC Myers Destiny Bound framedIn everything that can be called art there is a quality of redemption.

—Raymond Chandler, The Simple Art of Murder

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If you’re in the Corning area this afternoon, I will be giving a Gallery Talk at the West End Gallery beginning at 1 PM.  My talks usually consist of some biographical background, a few stories about the paintings as well as some other things and honest answers to any questions asked of me.  Oh, and it comes to an end with a drawing for the painting above, Destiny Bound.

I try to make it as entertaining and informative as possible, usually just speaking off the cuff.  Sometimes there is a theme, other times there is not.  I may have a theme for today and perhaps the quote from author Raymond Chandler points to what it might be. Or not.  Maybe I just like and agree with this quote.  Or maybe the talk will go ina completely different direction right from the start.

I won’t know until I’m standing there and open my mouth for the first time.  These talks are kind of like my painting– sometimes I have an idea of where I want them to go and they go to a place I never saw coming.  And sometimes those unexpected places are the most gratifying.  So, we’ll see where we end up today.

Hope you can make it.

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Quote of the Week: Fellini

Posted in Biographical, Painting, Quote, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , , , , on July 30, 2015| 2 Comments »

GC Myers-Transmitters smAll art is autobiographical; the pearl is the oyster’s autobiography.

—Federico Fellini

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I love this quote from legendary Italian filmmaker Federico Fellini and the image of us all having a pearl inside ourselves, just waiting to be revealed to the outer world.  It’s a pearl that is formed from the experiences and observations that make up our lives.

It fits well  with the theme for the Gallery Talk that takes place Saturday at the West End Gallery in Corning.  I plan on talking about  how art has transformed my life and how that transformation has made its way into my work.  In short, how my own simple pearl was formed and  brought to light.

An example of that might be in the painting at the top, a very new work that will be shown for the first time on Saturday called Transmitters which is 10″ by 20″ on canvas.  I see it as being about the need to communicate, about how we seek  and reach out to like-minded people throughout our lives.  For me this has been one of the biggest needs that  painting has fulfilled for me.  It has provided a platform for me to express thoughts and emotions that I would struggle to express in any other way.  In doing so it has created a path forward to reaching others who share similar thoughts and emotions.

So here the pearl is the Red Tree and it reaches across space to others who feel they have their own Red Tree within.  Hopefully, knowing that allows them to open their own shells and share it with the world.

Well, that might be part of what I’ll be talking about on Saturday.  Who knows what might come up?

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Living in All Dimensions

Posted in Quote, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , , , , on July 29, 2015| 1 Comment »

GC Myers- Living In All Dimensions smInward is not a direction.  Inward is a dimension.

-Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev

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This quote from the contemporary Indian Yogi Jaggi Vasudev rang very true for me when I first came across it and it seems to fit this painting, Living in All Dimensions, which is another piece from the Home+Land show  hanging at the West End Gallery.

It is a painting that appears to be outward in all aspects.  It is no shrinking violet.  In fact, the violet color of the sky and  the other deep colors seem to want to lift off of the deeply textured surface and reach out of the picture to the viewer.    There is outward distance in the moon appearing on the horizon and the Red Tree itself seems to be radiating outward.

But for me, this is completely inward in nature.  It is about finding a center of calmness and timelessness.  It’s about transcending the here and now and discovering that inward dimension that binds us to all other dimensions.  A spiritual Oneness.

Well, that’s my take anyway, for what it’s worth.  It’s the kind of piece that will no doubt come across differently to many different people, both in a positive and  a negative way.

And that is as it should be.

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