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Archive for the ‘Recent Paintings’ Category

Midnight Special

Posted in Favorite Things, Music, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , , , , on July 31, 2016| 2 Comments »

GC Myers- Voyager Blue smToday there is none of that other stuff here– I won’t even utter the “P” word here this morning.  As promised, today is about art and music.

This morning I want to link a song and a painting and the piece shown above immediately came to mind.  It’s a 20″ by 10″ canvas titled Voyager Blue that is included in my current show, Contact, at the West End Gallery.  It has a definite narrative to it, with the small almost indistinguishable figure at the horizon serving as The Seeker, which is often the character that figures portray when they appear in my work.  The Seeker constantly searches for meaning, for purpose and for answers in this life.

The song I thought I would attach to this painting is the great folk classic The Midnight Special.  This song, whose lyrics first appeared in 1905, is about a prisoner who longs for his freedom and symbolizes it in the form of The Midnight Special, a night train that would carry them away from the despair of their imprisonment. There was an actual Midnight Special train that ran between Chicago and St. Louis but the one depicted in this song is considered to be more likely a train on the Missouri Pacific line, the Houstonian, that ran between Houston and New Orleans, departing just before midnight.

But maybe it simply refers to the night train that is nearest to the prisoner singing for his freedom.

This song has been recorded many, many times over the past century by artists from Leadbelly to ABBA but today I chose a version from the Queen of American folk music, Odetta.  It has a nice bluesy sway to it and seems like a good song to push off from on this Sunday morning.

Have a great day.  I hope the Midnight Special shines her ever-loving light on you.

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“Contact” Opening Tonight

Posted in Painting, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , , on July 22, 2016| Leave a Comment »

GC Myers- Contact sm

“Contact”- GC Myers

GC Myers- The Empowering sm

“The Empowering”- GC Myers

Well, Friday’s finally here which means that my show, Contact, opens this evening at the West End Gallery in Corning.  I think it’s a very strong group of work with an emphasis on color, texture, rhythm and pattern.

Definitely color.

If you know my work in any way you know that color is vital to my work.   Like words to a writer, it is the real conveyor for everything I am trying to express.  It can carry emotion, thought and a sense of time and space.  Color unconsciously speaks to us and puts us in contact with those unseen forces I so often speak of here.  I think you’ll see that in this show at the West End.

So, if you’re in the area this evening, please stop in at the West End Gallery.  The reception today, Friday, July 22,  runs from 5-7:30 PM and is free and open to everyone.  I will be there for the duration and would be happy to spend some time with you there, answering any questions you might have or discussing your feelings on the work.

I hope to see you on Market Street tonight!

"Unrestrained" -GC Myers

“Unrestrained” -GC Myers

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Linked

Posted in Painting, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , on July 21, 2016| 4 Comments »

GC Myers- Linked smThis new painting, titled Linked, is a 12″ by 36″ canvas.  It is one of the works from my new show, Contact, that is now hanging at the West End Gallery.  The show officially opens tomorrow, Friday, July 22, with an opening reception at the gallery that runs from 5-7:30 PM.  As always, the opening is free and everyone is welcome.

Even though the narrative of this painting is about the rope bridge that connects these two islands and their resident Red Trees, the weight of it is carried by its vivid colors that seem to pop off the canvas.  The mixture of blues in the sky above and the water below  contrast and appear to intensify the redness of the trees, giving them a true sense of being alive.

The strength of the colors really draws in my eyes and makes the narrative of the linking of these two islands seem even more compelling.  The term linked is often used in the cyberworld when sites are digitally connected but here it relates to our own bonds that we build in life between friends and family.  Even though some of us would like to say that we can thrive as solitary islands, we are strengthened and nurtured by these bonds, these connections.  We as humans are creatures of community.  We need those links.

Well, that’s what I see here.  Maybe it’s just a bright and colorful picture.  It’s all in how you choose to see it isn’t it?

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Day of Hope

Posted in Current Events, Quote, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , , on July 20, 2016| 2 Comments »

GC Myers- Day of Hope smWe have always held to the hope, the belief, the conviction that there is a better life, a better world, beyond the horizon. 

—Franklin D. Roosevelt

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We’ve had our share of fear and anger in recent days.  Time to begin looking forward towards the light of the horizon.

Time to look for hope.

I think that pretty much sums up my feelings about this new painting, a 10″ by 30″ canvas called Day of Hope.  It’s about calmness and a real considered contemplation of the future set in optimistic terms, far removed from reactionary destructiveness and irrationality of fear and anger.

Nothing good or lasting has ever been built with fear and anger.  Sure, we have moved ahead in the past when fear and anger have been present but it was in spite of those things, not because of them.  Most of the great strides forward from the past were built on a vision of hope, with a rational belief that the world could somehow be a better place.

That is what I see in this painting– a patient hopeful look to the future.

Call it naivete, call it what you will– I don’t care.  I will choose a hopeful naivete any day over fear or angry cynicism.

This is another painting from my show, Contact, which opens this Friday, July 22, at the West End Gallery in Corning, NY.

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Energizing Light

Posted in Painting, Quote, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , , , on July 19, 2016| Leave a Comment »

GC Myers- Energizing Light smThere are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.

–Edith Wharton

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As a rule I don’t have favorites when it comes to my work.  I have always felt that I can see something in each completed painting that somehow resonates within me, something that calls out and connects to me.

In some pieces I see traces of myself as I am and as I have been in the past, reflecting moments of emotion that I have experienced at some point in the distant or recent past.  In other pieces I see them as aspiring to a form of consciousness that seems in the future, at a point well beyond me in the present.

It is one that appears to be rooted in a placid state of mind, one that is connected to a greater source of light and becomes, as Edith Wharton so aptly put it, the mirror that reflects it.

That is how I saw this painting, a 36″ by 24″ canvas titled Energizing Light, from the minute it took form on the easel.  It has a harmony and depth that gives it that aspirational aspect that so appeals to me.  It makes me hopeful in my possibilities as a human as well as an artist.  And that hopefulness makes pieces such as Energizing Light feel special for me.

This painting is part of my show, Contact, which opens Friday, July 22, at the West End Gallery.  There is an opening reception from 5-7:30 PM which is open to all.  Stop on in, have a glass of wine and take a look around.  I’ll be glad to see you there.

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An Inner Warmth

Posted in Favorite Things, Music, Painting, Recent Paintings, Technique/History, tagged , , , , , , , on July 17, 2016| 4 Comments »

GC Myers- An Inner Warmth smIt’s been a warm summer.  I guess for some of us that’s an understatement.  The mowed lawns are burned to the color of Shredded Wheat and ponds show more and more of their banks as the water levels slowly descend.  There’s a dustiness in the air from the driveway that coats everything and the thickness of the heat has me dreaming of hopefully cooler days ahead in the fall and winter.

In that vein, I thought I’d show another piece from my show that opens this coming Friday, July 22, at the West End Gallery in Corning.  Titled An Inner Warmth, it’s 10″ by 16″ on paper and feature cooler color tones yet has a warmth to it that is pleasant to me.  It’s a painting that points very much back to my earlier work in the way it is composed of distinct upper and lower blocks of color divided by an unpainted line.

The interplay of those blocks of colors is what carries the weight of the painting for me, carrying its message and meaning.  The details of the trees and the path in the foreground add a narrative element but the colors tell the story here.  The red of the tree seems even warmer here set against the cooler tones.

For this Sunday Morning Music, I thought I’d play a version of one of the songs from the great American songbook, Summertime from George and Ira Gershwin, taken from their opera Porgy and Bess.  It has been covered by so many people and there are so many wonderful versions out there from which to choose.  You’ve got the operatic versions from the likes of Kathleen Battle and Renee Fleming,  jazzier versions from Ella Fitzgerald and Sarah Vaughn,  rockier versions from Janis Joplin and Sting and countrified ones from Doc Watson and Willie Nelson.  And that is only a tiny sampling.  And almost all of them are absolutely outstanding which I thinks speaks to the strength of the composition.

I chose this version from Norah Jones just because I like it’s coolness.  This is a duet between her and the late jazz piano legend Marian McPartland.  It’s a lovely version and gives a cooler feel to these hot days.

Have a great day…

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The Patient Heart

Posted in Current Events, Quote, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , , , on July 16, 2016| 4 Comments »

GC Myers-The Patient Heart smOnly a burning patience will lead to the attainment of a splendid happiness.

–Pablo Neruda

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We are living in a crazy time.  Every week, every day, brings us news of some new atrocity around the world– Nice, France is just the latest of all too many– and we find ourselves gripped with feelings of anger, fear and confusion.  We want answers and solutions yet we don’t really know what are the real questions being posed before us.  We just want action, or should I say reaction.

We seem to react, raging and flailing, to every situation without thought.  We take little time to consider our words or actions and their consequences.  It is all now, now, now.  And this unsettled impatience makes us willing to look to those people who offer us quick and easy answers with little substance to back their claims of what they can do.  This path ultimately comes at a much greater expense than we could ever foresee in our haste to react.

There are no quick and easy answers to the questions and problems that lay before us.  The immediate future requires, as Neruda puts it above, a burning patience.  Our first reaction is not always our best and taking a long moment to contemplate our actions is generally a wise move.

That being said, I have to say that the last few weeks have proved to me that my work has a real purpose, at least for myself.  This has been a time of real stress in the world and with every day’s dose of awful news I found myself looking closer and closer at my work as I was getting ready for the upcoming show.  At certain stressful moments, I found myself really going into the work, being absorbed by the harmonies and rhythms.

These moments were like little meditative breaks where I felt the chaos of the outside world was blocked off, only a dark mass well beyond the boundaries of the world I was now in.  It brought on an energizing calm, one that allowed me to not react with anger or despair.  It reinforced my burning patience.

And that was just what I needed from it.

The painting above is titled The Patient Heart and is 4″ by 16″ on paper.  It is included in my show, Contact, at the West End Gallery in Corning, which opens next Friday, July 22.  The show has been delivered and is now in the gallery for previews.

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That Rare Moment

Posted in Painting, Quote, Recent Paintings, Technique/History, tagged , , , , , on July 14, 2016| Leave a Comment »

GC Myers- That Rare Moment smPictures must be miraculous: the instant one is completed, the intimacy between the creation and the creator is ended.

—Mark Rothko

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I came across the words above from the late painter Mark Rothko and found myself relating very much to their meaning.  The process of creating a picture is ideally a period of intimacy, one where the maker  ideally opens their self and exposes their totality to the surface.  There is a transference of energy and knowledge in that moment that forms the new life taking place on that surface.

Each move, each change to the surface pulls bits from the inner stores of the creator and alters the new reality being formed.  For a rare moment, the two entities– the maker and the surface–are are locked together.  They are one.

But as the picture takes shape and form, beginning to express its own life force, it moves away from the maker.  It is its own being at that point, beyond the reach and influence of the maker.

As a maker of pictures, I can say that this moment is both wistfully sad and exhilarating.  When that moment of completion is at hand I immediately miss that time of transference, so full of possibility.  But seeing the new picture, self-contained and speaking for itself, brings a kind of parental pride.  I know that I will never be as close to that picture as I was in that moment.  But that moment binds us forever, even if it will be always as a faint memory when I glimpse its image in the future.

I chose the piece at the top for this post- fittingly titled That Rare Moment– because what I could have been writing solely about this piece.  This painting, an 8″ by 24″ canvas, was very much created with in the process that I described.

There was a definite moment of transference when this painting made the leap from being me to being it.  In the days after it was complete, I would look at it and sigh with that mix of sadness and pride.  It is beyond me now and speaks with its own voice, its own meaning that will no doubt soon express itself to someone other than me.

And they will hopefully experience their own rare moment….

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This painting is part of my solo show, Contact, at the West End Gallery in Corning, NY.  The show opens Friday, July 22, 2016 with an opening reception that runs from 5-7:30 PM.  There is also an accompanying Gallery Talk that takes place on August 6.  More details on that later.

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Purified Solitude

Posted in Quote, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , on July 11, 2016| Leave a Comment »

GC Myers- Purified Solitude smSolitude is the place of purification.

–Martin Buber

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I have found myself painting quite a few islands lately, much like the one shown here in this new piece.  This small 12″ by 6″ painting on canvas is titled Purified Solitude and is part of my show, Contact, at the West End Gallery which opens on July 22.

Maybe the islands have come about because they are simply interesting compositional elements.  But part of me thinks it’s most likely an emotional response to the tensions of the world, an inner desire to pull away and find some peaceful solitude in a place where the bang and thrum of the outer world can’t reach me.

Of course, that is only possible on a short term basis.  We are formed in this world and are part of this world and can never fully break away.  The world is always with us.  But those moments when I find myself on that island of solitude do much to reinvigorate me, to make me feel strengthened to come back into the world once more.

That’s what I see in this little piece– a temporary refuge where the light can fully surround and cleanse me, purifying and washing away the confusion, the anger and the despair that builds up after time spent in this world.

Thankfully, I know that island is always there, waiting for me to arrive.

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On the Dock

Posted in Current Events, Music, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , , on July 10, 2016| Leave a Comment »

GC Myers-- On the Dock smWhat a time, what a time…

Watching the news it seems like we live in a time of chaos, in days and nights of division and anger.  To a certain extent I believe that’s true.  But for the majority of us– and I believe this includes people of every color, ethnicity and religion– we simply want to live a hassle-free life, one without rancor and hatred.  One where we can be ourselves as we wish ourselves to be and move through our days without fear.

One where chaos is a distant thing that doesn’t find its way to our guts.

Can we get to that point?  I believe we can.

How? That I don’t know.  Perhaps it to be found at first in small ways, in acts of kindness and tolerance towards others.  In not rushing to judgments and showing empathy.

It can’t hurt.

The painting at the top is in my upcoming show, Contact,  at the West End Gallery, opening July 22.  It’s an 8″ by 24″ canvas that is titled On the Dock.  There’s something very pacifying in this piece, something that definitely reminds me of the great Otis Redding classic, (Sittin’ on) The Dock of the Bay.  I have heard this song literally thousands of time and it never gets old for me.  It’s always calming and that is something I need these days.

It’s hard to believe that Otis Redding was only 26 when he cut this track not long before his death.  His life may have been short but he gave us so much to enjoy.  So, give a listen and have a peaceful Sunday.

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