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Archive for the ‘Recent Paintings’ Category

Hasten Down the Wind

Posted in Music, Painting, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , on February 9, 2015| 3 Comments »

GC Myers-Hasten Down the Wind smThis is a painting  that I finished over the weekend.  It’s 10″ by 30″ on canvas and is titled Hasten Down the Wind.  If that sounds familiar you probably remember the old Warren Zevon song from the the 70’s most famously covered by Linda Ronstadt on her album with the same title.  It was a pretty big album at the time.  I just always loved the imagery in that phrase– hasten down the wind– and thought it fit well with this piece.

The song is about the end of a relationship, where the girl recognizes that nothing is working for them any more and the guy finally grudgingly admits it as well, telling her to leave , to go hasten down the wind.

I see this in this painting with the Red Tree reluctantly holding onto those leaves as they struggle to depart on the wind even though it knows that it has to be this way, that they must leave.  There is something bittersweet yet liberating in this idea that sometimes things are just not meant to be.  We often hold onto things–people, ideas and hopes and dreams– that don’t truly fit with who we are with the thin hope that things will somehow change to match our perceptions.  But recognizing that this is not meant to be and letting these things go allows us to perhaps find our truer selves.

In short, we sometimes have to lose things to reveal who we really are.

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Unpuzzled

Posted in Motivation, Painting, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , , on February 7, 2015| 2 Comments »

GC Myers-Unpuzzled 2015January is always a month of feeling out in the studio, trying to find a rhythm, a strand that I can grab onto and follow into the rest of the year.   Getting  a group of small pieces ready for the Little Gems show at the West End Gallery (which opened last night) is part of this feeling out process, sometimes acting as a preview as to where the work may ultimately lead me.

This year found that group with clear and glowing transparent color that was very gem-like.  The pieces felt like pieces of jewelry as much as paintings to me which is something I might be able to carry forward.

But now it is February and I am beginning to just let things flow as they come out, emotionally based and free of too much forethought.  Just let it happen and not try to direct it too much.  The first piece after the Little Gems  and in this February frame of mind was the piece shown here at the top, an 18″ by 18″ canvas that is called  Unpuzzled.  This is as much a piece for myself  alone as anything I might do, meant to only satisfy my own need to see it.

I wanted to see a harmony of patterns, rhythms and color that was as much non-objective as objective, which is how I could describe just about any of those pieces which most deeply satisfy me personally.  As this piece does.  It’s one of those pieces about which I don’t care what others might think– it works for me.  And maybe just for me but it doesn’t matter.  It just clicks an internal switch for me.

Sitting here at the moment, looking at this painting, makes me want to translate something like it to a much larger format, maybe 4′ by 4′, where the impact of the forms and colors would resonate with the grander scale.

Maybe…

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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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Born to be Blue

Posted in At the Movies, Favorite Things, Music, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , , , , , on February 1, 2015| 2 Comments »

GC Myers The Blue Cool This is another small painting that is part of  the Little Gems exhibit opening this coming Friday at the West End Gallery.  This is a little 3″ by 5″ piece on paper that I call The Blue Cool.  I guess that it arose from the current frigid temps that we are in here in the Northeast.  The sky here is in three blocks of an aqua blue color that has a transparency that makes them seem like thin slabs of ice.  I don’t know if this quality shows up on the computer screen  but when this piece was in the studio I always felt like holding it up to the light to see light shine through the ice that I felt like I was seeing.

It’s a simple meditative piece, what I like to typically see in these small works.  The small scale lends itself to simplicity.  Maybe this built-in restraint is one of the reasons why I enjoy painting these small pieces and why I feel they often work so well.

I don’t know for sure.  And I think that uncertainty or puzzlement  is sometimes a good thing.  It creates a sense of wonder and surprise and that is always a good thing.

I thought for this week’s Sunday music I would stick with the Blue theme and some blue cool jazz from one of my favorites, the late great Chet Baker.  The song is Born to be Blue which is also the title of a film currently in production about Baker’s life with Ethan Hawke portraying the gifted but tragic trumpeter.  His story reads like a screenplay– Golden Boy of jazz with movie-star looks loses everything to drug addiction and violence and tries to find redemption.  I’ve thought for years that it was meant to be a film and now it is, hopefully one that does the story justice.

When I listen to Baker’s music, I hear it with that same sense of uncertainty and puzzlement I alluded to above.  There’s just something natural and right in it that can’t be, or shouldn’t be, defined.  It just is.  Give a listen and have a great Sunday.

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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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The Outlier’s Home

Posted in Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , , on January 26, 2015| 2 Comments »

GC Myers - The Outlier's Home 1200- 72Yesterday on the blog, I showed one of my small pieces from this year’s Little Gems show at the West End Gallery, which opens February 6.  I thought I might show another today, this one a little 4″ by 6″ painting called The Outlier’s Home.

It’s a simply constructed piece that features the intense color of the foreground set against the placid blue gradation of the sky with a red-roofed homestead alongside a Red Tree set between the two contrasting forces.  It has a feeling of distance and separation but without anxiety or fear.

Maybe that is where the title originated, in this separation.  I like the idea of the outlier, that thing or being that is apart from the normal set.  An aberration, something slightly outside the norm in one way or another.  I think that is why I envision the Red Tree standing alone apart from other trees in many of the paintings.

I like the idea here of  a place outside the normal that seems peaceful and accepting of itself, not caring what the world  that looks at them from across that purple field  thinks.  I think that’s what we all hope for in this world– an acceptance for ourselves as we are without having to put on a mask to fit into the crowd.

It’s a lot to see in a simple, little piece.  But that’s my take.

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The Storms Are On the Ocean

Posted in Favorite Things, Music, Painting, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , , , , , on January 25, 2015| 8 Comments »

GC Myers- Storms Are on the OceanI’ve been working recently on some very small pieces for the upcoming Little Gems show at the West End Gallery in Corning.  I’ve mentioned here before that this particular show is always  a sentimental favorite of mine as it was in this show that I first publicly showed my work twenty years ago.  It represents the first step on to the path that I now follow and that makes it special for me.  Plus I enjoy working in the smaller scale for a bit.  It allows for easily easing back into older themes and forward into newer ones.

One of these pieces that just finished yesterday is shown here at the top.  It’s a 4″ by 6″ painting that I call Storms Are on the Ocean.  I haven’t done a boat painting in some time and thought the smaller format would be the perfect opportunity to re-visit the theme.  I am always drawn to the motion in these pieces and the billow of the sail.  It reminds me of a fable or a dream in some way that I find appealing.

I thought this would be the perfect match for this week’s Sunday morning music which is the song after which this painting is titled.  It’s The Storms Are on the Ocean, a song first done by the legendary Carter Family back in the late 20’s.  This version is from June Carter Cash‘s last album, Wildwood Flower, which was released in the year, 2003, after her death.  Like the final recordings of her husband, the great Johnny Cash, this album shows her in a fragile state of health which adds greatly to the emotional impact of the songs.

It definitely comes through on this lovely song with its haunting chorus:
The storms are on the ocean
The heavens may cease to be
This world may lose its motion, love
If I prove false to thee

Enjoy and have a great Sunday.

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In the Time of Dreaming

Posted in Influences, Painting, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , , , , , on January 19, 2015| 3 Comments »

GC Myers In the Time of DreamingI’ve been looking for a while at this new painting, a 24″ by 30″ canvas.  It has a calming effect for myself.  Maybe it’s the placid blues and violets or the softness of the moon’s light–I don’t know yet.  I just find myself letting go and being pulled into the central geometry of this piece, that triangle formed by the moon, the Red Tree and the group of Red Roofed houses atop the rise.  There’s a sense of mystery in it from which I can’t look away.

I call this piece In the Time of Dreaming.  Maybe it’s the mystery aspect that brings the title to mind, in way we sometimes find our own dreams– puzzling but somehow pointing to something that we just can’t quite put a finger on.

I also thought of the Australian Aborigines’ Dreamtime when the title came to mind.  Their Dreamtime is the basis for their entire belief system, the eternal time in which creation occurred and where the individual exists before and after their worldly life.  It is the time where their ancestry exists as one resulting in their belief that they accumulate worldly knowledge through the wisdom gained by their ancestors.

This results in a knowledge of the world that is passed down through word and song.  They can travel great distances through their lands guided by the Songlines,  paths that are traveled while singing specific songs that point out direction and landmarks.  It’s a beautiful system that very much ties the Aborigines to their ancestry and the land in which they live.  The late Bruce Chatwin wrote an interesting book, The Songlines, in the 80’s that gave a great account of this culture and belief system.

But whatever the reasoning, conscious and unconscious, behind it, I find myself continuing to look at this piece.  And dreaming.

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Seeking Warmth

Posted in Painting, Recent Paintings, tagged , , on January 14, 2015| 9 Comments »

GC Myers Heat of the Dance 2015-13° F overnight here.  So this morning I decide I need to show something to counter that frigid temperature.  Something with a little warmth.

That being said, here’s a new piece, a 12″ by 36″ canvas that shows a lot of heat here in the studio.  It has great saturation in the warm reds and yellows and even the purple at the bottom has a warmer quality. This is one of those pieces where the image flattens a bit when being photographed and doesn’t show the complete depth in the colors so I hope this quality comes off well on your screens.

To look at this painting then shift my gaze to the iced world outside my windows is a study in contrasts.  While I like the snow and cold as a rule, the temperatures today make this piece even more attractive to me this morning.

I am still up in the air as to what to call this painting. It is tentatively titled Heat of the Dance but that is just off the cuff and I am not sure that I am completely sold on it.  The curves and rhythms of the two tree entwined tree trunks suggest an embracing dance and the heat is definitely there but there seems to be something beyond this obvious title.  Maybe about a search for something with the path that leads towards a beckoning sun?  Perhaps with the two trees are seeking some sort of emotional warmth as well?

Maybe it should be simply Seeking Warmth.

I’ll have to just keep looking at it and try to figure this out.  On a morning like this, that is not a chore at all.

Oh, and if you have any suggestions for a title, feel free to let me know.

 

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