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Archive for the ‘Quote’ Category

Mandela

Posted in Current Events, Photography, Quote, tagged , , , on December 6, 2013| 3 Comments »

Mandela at Robben Island-Photo: Jurgen Schadeberg

Mandela at Robben Island-Photo: Jurgen Schadeberg

Difficulties break some men but make others. No axe is sharp enough to cut the soul of a sinner who keeps on trying, one armed with the hope that he will rise even in the end.

–Nelson Mandela

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Nelson Mandela died yesterday at the age of 95 in his native South Africa.  His is a remarkable story of strength and perseverance, a man who fought in words and actions for the freedom of a people in a repressive society.  He experienced the greatest depths and heights in his long and often arduous life, becoming one of the greatest sources of inspiration for our time.

His death is a great loss for all people everywhere.  We have lost a source of tempered wisdom and the placid eyes of reconciliation and forgiveness.  We have lost a knowing witness.

There is much to grieve in the death of Nelson Mandela but there much more to celebrate in the life of Nelson Mandela.  And that is what we must do today– celebrate his life and the great inspirational gift he gave to us to carry forward.

It is a gift that must never be forgotten.

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There is an interesting website at nelsonmadelaart.com that features lithographs of drawings from Mandela of Robben Island as well as iconic photos of him, such as the one above from Jurgen Schadeberg.  There is a lot of wonderful info on this site, making it definitely worth a visit.

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The Legend of Silence

Posted in Quote, tagged on December 2, 2013| 6 Comments »

Jean Arp- Torso of a Giant 1964

Jean Arp- Torso of a Giant 1964

Soon silence will have passed into legend. Man has turned his back on silence. Day after day he invents machines and devices that increase noise and distract humanity from the essence of life, contemplation, meditation… tooting, howling, screeching, booming, crashing, whistling, grinding, and trilling bolster his ego. His anxiety subsides. His inhuman void spreads monstrously like a gray vegetation.

~Jean Arp

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Giving Thanks

Posted in Quote, tagged , , on November 28, 2013| 2 Comments »

GC Myers- Facing Oneness sm

From too much love of living,
    From hope and fear set free,
We thank with brief thanksgiving
    Whatever gods may be
That no life lives for ever;
That dead men rise up never;
That even the weariest river
    Winds somewhere safe to sea.

—Algernon Charles Swinburne, The Garden of Prosperine

Wishing you all a wonderful Thanksgiving.

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Becoming

Posted in Favorite Things, Influences, Quote, tagged , , on November 24, 2013| 2 Comments »

GC Myers- Regal One The thought manifests as the word;

The word manifests as the deed;

The deed develops into habit;

And habit hardens into character;

So watch the thought and its ways with care,

And let it spring from love

Born out of concern for all beings…

 

As the shadow follows the body,

As we think, so we become.

 —From the Dhammapada,

Sayings of the Buddha

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I’vebeen writing this blog for over five years now which I find hard to believe.  Some days I have nothing to say but still feel the need to keep this habit alive.  Sometimes I read through older blog posts to gather inspiration and in doing so, I came across this bit of wisdom from the Buddha that I featured in a 2009 post.  When I used it at that time, I was referring to people’s words and deeds of  incivility eventually hardening into character.  This was of course inspired by extremist nature of the political climate.  But today when I read it, these words didn’t strike me in a cautionary way.

Instead, it seemed like good advice for the young artist or anyone aspiring to something more.  For me it was: Think as an artist.  Act as an artist.  Eventually, the thoughts, words and actions become part of who you are– an artist.  It took many years before this habit hardened into character.  I often questioned the validity of the claim over the years but slowly these doubts faded , replaced by a belief in those words and deeds.  I had practiced the habit of being an artist for so long that I could no longer  feel that doubt.

As I said, this applies to so many things, even simply being happy.  If you think of joy, speak of joy and act with joy, eventually happiness becomes part of who you truly are– your hardened character.  It’s a simple precept, almost too simple to be taken seriously especially on those days when it is challenging to remain joyful.  But it holds true, as the Buddha instructed, for those who can maintain the way.

Have a great Sunday and be happy…

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Alchemy

Posted in Biographical, Painting, Quote, tagged , , , , on November 15, 2013| 3 Comments »

“As I thought of these things, I drew aside the curtains and looked out into the darkness, and it seemed to my troubled fancy that all those little points of light filling the sky were the furnaces of innumerable divine alchemists, who labour continually, turning lead into gold, weariness into ecstasy, bodies into souls, the darkness into God; and at their perfect labour my mortality grew heavy, and I cried out, as so many dreamers and men of letters in our age have cried, for the birth of that elaborate spiritual beauty which could alone uplift souls weighted with so many dreams.”

—W.B. Yeats, Rosa Alchemica

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GC Myers--Alchemy My show, Alchemy, opens tomorrow night at the Kada Gallery in Erie, PA.  I wrote last month about how the title, Alchemy, came about from my own  wonder at the mystery of the whole idea of how the simple act of smearing some paint on a surface could transform that bit of pigment and paper into something that is filled with emotion and meaning.  And not just for me.  It crossed the boundary of the self and reached out, sometimes communicating in a way that seemed totally beyond me.  The whole thing seemed like alchemy to me, as though there was some mysterious force transmuting these base materials– the paint and paper– into something pure and precious.

This thought has stuck with me for many years.  I often find myself stepping back from my easel or painting table, suddenly confused by the abstract nature of this whole process.  At these moments, the rational part of my mind takes hold for a moment and  questions the very validity of  the world I have created over the past two decades.  My rational self tells me that I am not  educated nor wise,  not brave or special in any way.  How can I, a base material myself, create anything that is more than myself?

But this moment of doubt always passes, pushed aside by my belief in the reality of the world I am seeing before me.  It may only be slashes of paint on a bit of paper or canvas from a simple and ordinary man but it represents something more.  It represents a faith in the human spirit, a belief in the uniqueness of each individual and the belief that we all essentially maintain many of the same  hopes and dreams for our lives– peace and calmness, for example.  It’s a belief that if I am pure and earnest in my attempts to create this world, it makes this work  valid and real, as filled with feeling  and meaning as any work from anyone.

There must be alchemy at play, somewhere in here…

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Inner Realm

Posted in Painting, Quote, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , on November 14, 2013| Leave a Comment »

Take refuge in silence. You can be here or there or anywhere. Fixed in silence, established in the inner ‘I’, you can be as you are. The world will never perturb you if you are well founded upon the tranquility within. Gather your thoughts within. Find out the thought centre and discover your Self-equipoise. In storm and turmoil be calm and silent. Watch the events around as a witness. The world is a drama. Be a witness, inturned and introspective.

– Ramana Maharshi

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GC Myers- Inner Realm I often speak of seeking quiet, even absolute silence. I all too often come up short in my search, usually the victim of my own fears and shortcomings which cause me to fill the void around me with sound and chaos.

Silence is pushed aside.

It is only in those times when I allow myself to be pulled completely into my work that I feel the silence slowly creeping back in, stilling the fears and doubts that seem to wail around me like sirens at times.  It is at these moments while painting that I  feel in a small way as though I am like a witness  that the great guru Ramana Maharsi advises us to be in the quote above.

I am calm and silent.  I watch and gather my inner thoughts as I feel myself melding with the colors and forms before me.  It is absolute peace as I go deeper into this inner realm.

That’s as close as I can describe in words the feeling I have when I lose myself to painting.  The painting above, Inner Realm, a 12″ by 12″ canvas, is an example of this feeling.  It is a simple and quiet but harmonious and full.  It feels outside of time, always in the present.  It is not fearful of the future or regretful of the past.  It is just as it is– quiet and placid.

All that I seek.

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Inner Realm is part of Alchemy, my solo show at the Kada Gallery, opening Saturday, November 16th, with a reception from 6-9 PM.

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Fulfilled

Posted in Quote, Recent Paintings, tagged , , on October 31, 2013| 6 Comments »

GC Myers -Fulfilled smTo be what we are, and to become what we are capable of becoming, is the only end of life.

-Robert Louis Stevenson

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To me, this new small painting, a piece about 7″ square on paper that is titled Fulfilled, feels totally peaceful.  The road with its winding tracks that disappear over a small rise signifies a journey at its end for me and the Red Tree that appears on piece of land across the water represents the intended  destination that is reached.  The horizon here feels as though it might represent time or eternity.

Whatever the case, it has a great feeling of tranquility, one that feels very satisfying to me.  Fulfilling.

This was one of those pieces that came easily, as though it fell from my hand without any thought or struggle.  This is a sensation I have described in the past, saying that when it occurred earlier in my painting life I would not trust the ease with which it came.  I still felt that struggle was necessary.  Little did I know that what I sought required no struggle,  In fact, this inner wrestling only took me further from the desired end, confusing me and obscuring the destination.

No, what was required was an acceptance of the moment and what I was.  And am.  And in this simple, quiet painting I think I see that.

PS– This painting, Fulfilled, is going to the Kada Gallery in Erie as part of my upcoming solo show there, Alchemy.  The show opens  Saturday, November 16th.

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The Furthest Reach

Posted in Motivation, Painting, Quote, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , , on October 27, 2013| 6 Comments »

GC Myers- The Furthest Reach smNone of us will ever accomplish anything excellent or commanding except when he listens to this whisper which is heard by him alone.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

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This painting is called The Furthest Reach, a 20″ by 24″ canvas headed to the Kada Gallery for my November show.  This has been done for a few weeks now and has been at the edge of my sight as I have been prepping for this show.  There is something quite reassuring about having it there, serving as a reminder of the trust I have placed in that inner voice that Emerson references in the quote above.

 It has taken a number of years and many thousands of hours spent in the relative isolation of the studio to truly trust that voice, to feel as though I have separated my work from all  external noise and distraction, including the subjective criticism and opinion of others.   It has allowed me to use this  trust as the sole criteria for my work, to no longer judge it against the work or opinion of others.

With this trust the work becomes self-sovereign and, as I have written here earlier this year, the  island serves as a symbol of  this self-sovereignty while the stance of the Red Tree, a symbol of the work for me here,  represents the liberated feeling attained in the realization of this trust.  I see the dock as the gateway to outer world, meaning that while there is trust in the work spawned from this inner voice there is also a willingness to share it  with this outer world.

Again, that’s how I have come to see it in the last few weeks here in the studio.  Perhaps you will see something quite different.  Maybe you will see a confidence and  tranquility in it that meshes with your own experience or perhaps  simply a pleasant scene with a quiet warmth.  Or maybe you won’t see anything in at all.

Whatever your inner voice whispers to you, place some trust in it…

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Encouragement/Redux

Posted in Biographical, Quote, tagged , , on October 25, 2013| 2 Comments »

The Find- smKnowledge of what is possible is the beginning of happiness.

— George Santayana

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I was going through the blog archives and came across this blogpost from back in 2009 headlined with this quote from George Santayana.  The words really jumped off at me this morning.  So often it seems that we self-limit ourselves with our fears and anxieties, making tasks and goals that might actually be within our reach seem impossible to accomplish.  As a result we never reach beyond what we can see in our limited vision of the world.

This is just a short remembrance of my earliest aspirations, before any thought of what was possible or impossible had entered my thought process.  To an 8 year old everything is still attainable and, to their credit,  my parents never imposed any limits on my imagination or aspirations.  That was their form of encouragement.

Here is what I wrote back in 2009:

When I give gallery talks, generally there is a part at the beginning where I run through how I came to be a painter. I usually tell how I wanted to paint when I was a small child, maybe 7 or 8 years old, and my parents bought me an oil painting set from the old Cardinal Paint store in Elmira, where they sold art supplies alongside their house paints. 

Of course, I didn’t have the first idea how to use the paints and the canvas panel ended up covered with a smear of a color that could best be described as pukish looking. Discouraged, I moved on to other things. Many other things through the years. 

Now, that might seem, at first blush, like a sad little story but it always touches me. My parents didn’t know how to go about helping me but they did what they could and never discouraged me from whatever avenue I chose to follow. I was never told I couldn’t be this or that I should be that. They didn’t know what was possible and never tried to put limits on my hopes. 

In high school, I harbored dreams of being a writer and for Christmas one year they gave me a Remington Rand office typewriter. It was a reconditioned monster of a machine, must have weighed 75 pounds. I had it for years and when I did finally get rid of it, it was with great sadness. It was one of the best gifts I’d ever been given and was always a symbol of my parents’ encouragement. 

The point of this is that my parents allowed me the freedom to discover what was possible for me in my life. Did they always go about it in the best way or guide me in any way? Probably not but that didn’t seem as important as the freedom they gave me to search for what was possible for me. 

And being able to find what was possible, as the saying above says, is the beginning of happiness…

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The painting at the top is a new piece, The Find, going to the Kada Gallery for the November 16th show.  It is a 16″ by 20″ canvas,

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Deep Focus

Posted in Quote, Recent Paintings, Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on October 23, 2013| 8 Comments »

GC Myers- Deep Focus sm

Meditation brings wisdom; lack of mediation leaves ignorance. Know well what leads you forward and what hold you back, and choose the path that leads to wisdom.

–Buddha

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This is another new painting that is headed to the Kada Gallery for  Alchemy, my solo show that opens there on November 16.   This piece, 18″ by 18″ on canvas, is titled Deep Focus.  This was one of those pieces that just seemed to fall out with very little inner wrangling or consternation.  Once I started, it was off and running with what seemed very little assistance from me.

It was immediately clear that this painting was going to be about focus, about looking deeper and deeper into the canvas. Built from the bottom, each layer pushed the eye further inward.  About halfway into this I began to think of the title for this as being AutoFocus, just for the ease with which it was emerging.  But I finally opted for Deep Focus because of the depth I was seeing in  the picture and the way everything seemed to gravitate toward the central point of the sun that is peeking over the distant hill.

This piece seems to have a very meditative quality, a placid feeling that goes well with the ease of the piece.  Or at least,  the ease that I felt in its creation.  Sitting here now, taking it in, its construction seems simple, almost naive. Yet there is a feeling of opulence that I think comes from the colors and curves of the landscape that sheds this naivete and gives it a feeling of deeper knowledge.  or a way to deeper knowledge.  Far from naive.

Years ago, I had a  hard time trusting the validity of pieces that fell so easily from my hand, believing that  struggle must be part of making a painting come alive.  I was almost embarrassed by the ease with which some pieces came.  But over time, I have come to believe that it is this effortless work that is the goal, the work that is true and has the authenticity that I seek.  This piece is a testament to the trust in my intuition that has come with time.

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