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Archive for the ‘Quote’ Category

Quote of the Week: Happiness

Posted in Quote, tagged , , , , on February 26, 2015| 8 Comments »

GC Myers A Consideration of Grace 2002The greatest happiness you can have is knowing that you do not necessarily require happiness.

–William Saroyan

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This quote from William Saroyan caught me off guard when I came across it, mainly because it captured in a few words the lesson I had finally gleaned from years of  seeking this elusive beast called happiness.  And  a beast it was, a creature from mythology.  I had made it into a thing that had special powers and was like the Abominable Snowman— rumored to exist but seldom seen.

I discovered over time that this was a mistake.

I was picturing happiness as a once in a life thing, some sort of peak moment, when it was, in fact, just a small part of our being human.  The key in Saroyan’s short quote is the word knowing.  Once we begin to know who and what we are and are not, the need for peak moments subsides as we understand that there is a sort of happiness in the smaller moments of simply being.  It is not a gleeful, heart-pounding joy but a comfortable warm glow and an inner sense of satisfaction that often comes to you at what seems to be the most mundane of moments.

Stopping just now and looking out my studio window, for example.  A light snow is falling almost in time to Paul Desmond’s sax that is mingling with Dave Brubeck’s piano and I sip my coffee.  It is gray and almost gloomy but I feel this glow, this satisfaction in the moment.  It is not happiness as most might define the word .  It is just a moment of knowing that  I exist in the world,  that I am here to bear witness to the small wonders that take place around me in my small corner of the universe.

And that’s good enough.

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I chose the painting at the top, A Consideration of Grace from back in 2002, because there is something like the feeling I am describing today in it for me.  Maybe it can be described as grace.  I don’t know…

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A Seat at the Table

Posted in Quote, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , , on February 20, 2015| 2 Comments »

GC Myers- A Seat at the Table smMan is a part of the world, and his spirit is part of the spirit of the world.  We are merely a peculiar mode of Being, a living atom within it, or, rather, a cell that, if sufficiently open to itself and its own mystery, can also experience the mystery, the will, the pain, and the hope of the world.

– Vàclav Havel

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The Red Chair normally represents memory for me.  Often it is the form of familial memory with the chair lifted by the branches of what seems to be its family tree.  But in this newer painting, an 18″ by 36″ canvas that I call A Seat at the Table I see it as being part of a larger family unit, as a piece of the entirety of the world and the universe.

Oh, it may only play a small part but it is a part nonetheless, a link in the chained mesh of all things.  It belongs.

It has a seat at the table.

And that’s an important thing to remember for each of us– that we do belong, that we play a part in serving to hold together this universe.  We are not universes unto ourselves however much it sometimes seem.  We best function in our parts when we seek to serve others and in some way strengthen our part of  this universal mesh.

So play your part and involve yourself in the world, in the universe.  You do have a seat at the table, after all.

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Quote of the Week: Franz Marc

Posted in Influences, Quote, tagged , , , , on February 19, 2015| 2 Comments »

Traditions are lovely things- to create traditions, that is, not to live off of them… the great shapers do not search for their form in the fogs of the past.

–Franz Marc

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Franz Marc- The Yellow Cow 1911

Franz Marc- The Yellow Cow 1911

I chose today’s quote from German painter Franz Marc because he was an influence for me early on.  Not so much in the style or subject matter that he employed but simply in the fact that he created work that stood out and was identifiable as his from across a gallery space.  This is basically what he is pointing towards in this aphorism–to not toil in the fields planted by earlier artists but to carve out your own space and work it in the way that suits and  best expresses you.

Franz Marc- Large Blue Horses

Franz Marc- Large Blue Horses

He is not downplaying the influences of the past.  Early in his career  Marc copied the works of other artists from before and contemporary to him, using it as a way in which to find an avenue of expression that meshed with his vision.  He did not want to remain a replicator but wanted instead to be a creator.  And that was the attraction for me.

There was safety and security in remaining in this symbolic field with others but it would often be as an anonymous member of a larger group, your furrow always directly compared to the furrow of those alongside you, your harvest compared to their’s.

Breaking away and heading out was risky.   You had to believe that in taking this leap of faith that you would be able to work your little spot in your own way away from others and produce a harvest that is uniquely appetizing to others in some manner.   But you might end up toiling in barren soil, creating crops that appealed to no one but yourself.  It was scary to think that your field might never expand but you were at least nourishing yourself.

This was the type of thinking that drove my work early on, fueled by looking at the work of Marc and others who veered from the traditions of the past in their times.

Unfortunately, Franz Marc only worked his fields for a relatively short time, dying in WW I at the Battle of Verdun.  He was 36 years old.  But his crop still lives on, surviving being labeled as degenerate art in the 1930’s by Hitler and the Nazi regime.

It is unique and his own tradition.

Franz Marc- The Waterfall 1912

Franz Marc- The Waterfall 1912

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Quote of the Week: Rothko

Posted in Favorite Things, Quote, tagged , , on February 12, 2015| 2 Comments »

Rothko Number 14Art to me is an anecdote of the spirit, and the only means of making concrete the purpose of its varied quickness and stillness.

–Mark Rothko

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I don’t think there is anything that I can add to this except to nod silently in agreement.

Have a great day.

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Quote of the Week: Trailblazer

Posted in Quote, Recent Paintings, Technique/History, tagged , , , , , on February 5, 2015| 1 Comment »

Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.

–Ralph Waldo Emerson

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GC Myers- Trailblazer I chose this little gem of advice from Emerson as the Quote of the Week because I thought it fit so well with the small painting above, a Little Gem itself.  It’s a small 4″ by 6″ painting that is called Trailblazer and is part of the Little Gems exhibit that opens tomorrow night at the West End Gallery in Corning.  I also chose it because those words fits so well for my own experience at the time I began showing my work for the first time, at this very same exhibit twenty years.

I was thrilled to have an outlet in which to show it publicly but was still in the process of finding a singular voice of my own–how my work would be styled.  Part of that process of finding this  was in determining what path I would follow with the work, whether I try to emulate the work of other painters I knew and admired.  That seemed like a natural path to follow, wide and well defined.

 But the path was also crowded.  Sometimes it was hard to distinguish yourself  and find a foothold among so many companions.  But if I set out on my own  that would not be the case.  On the the well-trodden path,  I would always be subject to comparison  and immediate critique.  Blazing my own trail would allow me to set my own pace and destination, define my own objectives.

Plus it would be my path alone.  And that was no small thing. In fact, it was a primary goal of  mine.   I had determined from my visits to museums that the work that stood out most for me was the work of artists who you could identify immediately from across the gallery space.  Looking at the shelves in front of me, most of the books are of the works of such artists, all who eventually set out on their own trails and created work from a world that was their’s alone.

I’m still on my path.  I’d like to think it departed from that wider, more traveled path sometime ago.  I can’t be the judge of that.  So I plug ahead with words of Emerson ringing in my ears and hope for the best.

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Serenity Flag

Posted in Quote, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , on February 3, 2015| 2 Comments »

GC Myers- Serenity Flag smWhen despair for the world grows in me, and I wake in the night at the least sound in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be — I go and lie down where the wood drake rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds. I come into the peace of wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought or grief. I come into the presence of still water. And I feel above me the day-blind stars waiting with their light. For a time I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

-Wendell Berry

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There’s something in the design of this new piece that is part of the Little Gems exhibit  at the West End Gallery that reminded me of a flag or banner.  I kept looking at it in the studio, wondering where or what it might represent as a flag, when it came to me: a place of peaceful stillness.  Resting , as Wendell Berry points out in the quote above, in the grace of the world.

A state of serenity.

It’s a small painting, only 4″ by 6″ in size and titled Serenity Flag, but it speaks very strongly to me of the desire to quell the anxieties that often rise up within me and to find that moment of grace where they all dissolve into the stillness.  I’ve spoken here often about this desire as being one of the prime motivators behind my painting and this simple, small piece sums it up well.

I think there’s the possibility that if I ever stumble into that state of placid stillness I will see the Serenity Flag flying.

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Quote of the Week: Robert Henri on Collecting

Posted in Quote, tagged , , on January 29, 2015| 3 Comments »

Robert Henri- At Far Rockaway

Robert Henri- At Far Rockaway

The man who has honesty, integrity, the love of inquiry, the desire to see beyond, is ready to appreciate good art. He needs no one to give him an ‘Art Education’; he is already qualified. He needs but to see pictures with his active mind, look into them for the things that belong to him, and he will find soon enough in himself an art connoisseur and an art lover of the first order.

-Robert Henri

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A lot of people over the years have made my work their first art purchase which pleases me greatly because I know how difficult it is to make that first decision to spend hard-earned money on a piece of art.  It is tremendously gratifying to me as an artist to have that person find something in the work that belongs to them that allows them to overcome the fear of buying art.

And there is a fear in buying art.  Or even showing one’s appreciation of it.

I hear it all the time from people who come up to me in galleries and say that they know nothing about art, some who are very powerful people who move through the world with a supreme air of confidence about them. They are often afraid of making a mistake that will reveal their lack of knowledge about art.

My first response is to tell them that they don’t have to know anything about art.  They don’t need a wide knowledge of art history or contemporary art.  They only need to first trust their eyes and their emotional response to a piece of work.  No amount of persuasion can make you like those things that don’t stir your emotions.

Ultimately, you like what you like– work that speaks to who you are at your core.   And that is the first requirement and rule for any lover of art, whether you collect or simply enjoy taking in the images when you come across them.

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Wisdom of the Wind

Posted in Quote, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , , on January 28, 2015| 1 Comment »

GC Myers- Wisdom of the WindWisdom sails with wind and time.

–John Florio

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Thought I’d take the opportunity to show another new small painting that will be part of the Little Gems show at the West End Gallery, opening next Friday.  This little 4″ by 6″ piece is titled Wisdom of the Wind.

For me, this is a piece about motion, about the movement of the trees caught in the gusting winds.  Like the words from the 16th century above, I see this as being about how we  are often shaped by exposure and time to prevailing thought.  Some will simply succumb to the winds of the time while some will offer resistance against the direction in which the wind is blowing.

I suppose that the wisdom comes from knowing when to relent and when to resist.  What fights to pick and what fights to let pass.

There’s a long pause between that last short paragraph and this one.  I find myself lost in that thought, wondering if there is any wisdom in it at all.  It’s one of those things where I can see a viable argument for either side.  I suppose it comes down to one’s nature, how one is built.  Some trees are made to simply go with the wind while others always struggle against every wind.

I sometimes can’t decide what type of tree I am.

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Quote of the Week: Picasso

Posted in Favorite Things, Motivation, Quote, tagged , , on January 22, 2015| 2 Comments »

Pablo Picasso- GuernicaQuotes are often used here to illustrate the point of a certain blog post but sometimes a quote is just fun to examine on its own, without a lot of  wordiness.  I often read a quote this way and it sets me off in all sorts of directions, often away from the central theme of the quote.  It can be pretty inspirational in this manner.  To that end, I am starting a new weekly feature here on the blog called Quote of the Week.  I want to focus on themes that relate to painting and some of the central themes of life.

Hopefully, they will be enlightening  or, at the very least, interesting.

I am going to kick it off with one of my favorite quotes from Pablo Picasso.  It pretty sums up my own criteria for evaluating art.  At the top is one of his greater works, the anti-fascist masterpiece Guernica.

There is no past and future in art.  If a work of art cannot always live in the present it must not be considered at all.

–Pablo Picasso

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A Changed Sovereign Solitude

Posted in Painting, Quote, Work In Progress, tagged , , , , on December 16, 2014| Leave a Comment »

Human beings are works in progress that mistakenly think they’re finished.

–Daniel Gilbert

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GC Myers- Sovereign Solitude smThe statement at the top from Harvard psychologist Daniel Gilbert is one that I have found very true for myself and many of those I know, although sometimes we tend to see folks captured at certain steps in their changing lives through our memories of single moments.  His words also has a certain truth for some of my work, as well.

  One of the paintings that went to my current Kada Gallery show was the painting shown above, Sovereign Solitude.  It’s a painting that has been with me for a couple of years now, one that somehow hasn’t yet found a home.  It was a piece that really resonated for me and I found myself surprised when it came back from showing in a couple of galleries.  It was in my studio for some time and I began to try to look at it with the imagined eyes of someone else.   For me, it was complete but looking longer at it, I discovered that I was only seeing it as complete.  I was filling in its blank areas with the knowledge of what needed to be done.  Without actually doing those things.

So I went back into it.  The clouds had been dark masses of red  and they changed to have more lightness in them.  The white side of the structure became much whiter and the tree, which had been barren, gained some light foliage along with a few falling leaves.  The mass of color that was the sky was darkened at the upper and outer edges.  Finishing, it still held that same satisfying sensation for me but now seemed to be complete, to not hold the blanks spaces that I saw as being filled in my mind.

I guess you can’t be afraid to change.

Here’s what I wrote about this piece a few years back.  I think it still applies after the change.  Maybe more so.

The word sovereignty often comes to mind often when I scan through the body of my work. The idea of the individual standing apart, self-reliant and strong, is an appealing notion to me, as it is to many others. This sovereign individual is still part of this world yet self-contained, it alone being responsible for its actions and reactions. It has made its choice and it has chosen solitude.

This is a scary concept for some, a life where we must take responsibility for our actions and decisions, where we relish our time alone in solitude. It is a freedom which we profess to desire but are often hesitant in pursuing. It may not be a freedom which suits everybody but for those who seek this sovereignty of self, there is no greater reward than living by your own decisions and beliefs. We may not seem significant in the greater world but we have the power to rule our own lives.

And that should always be remembered.

This painting is a good example of this thought.  It has a warmth and calmness in it that I myself find appealing. It is like taking a deep breath then slowly releasing it, allowing the effects of this action to be felt fully. The pulse slows and breathing levels off.

Solitude found.

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