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Archive for the ‘Recent Paintings’ Category

In Rhythm

Posted in Recent Paintings, tagged , on June 25, 2012| 1 Comment »

I am now in the midst of preparations for my annual show at the West End Gallery in Corning, NY.  It opens July 20 running through August 31 and is titled In Rhythm, the same title as the painting shown here, a 24″ by 36″ piece on canvas.  I often talk of rhythm here on this blog, most often about the rhythm of the composition’s elements, how they play off the energy of each other to create harmony.  I feel that this painting captures that aspect  of rhythm well and would be a great piece to set the direction for this show.

But I also speak of rhythm in terms of the process, about being immersed in the act of painting.  This annual midyear show comes always while I am deeply entrenched in my painting and I felt that the term in rhythm fit in this aspect as well.

Below is another piece from the show, Simplex, a 10″ by 30″ canvas.  It has its own rhythm, a very direct one that is crisp and clean.

 

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Clarification

Posted in Recent Paintings, tagged , on June 22, 2012| 2 Comments »

We don’t know what we don’t know.

That’s a term I’ve heard several times recently and I can’t quite remember what the context has been, whether it was in some historical or scientific matter.  Doesn’t really matter.  The words speak volumes without context.

This not knowing what we don’t know always lingers in my mind when I think on most subjects, tempering my own certainty and making me question the supposed certainty of others. I am generally suspicious of those with absolute certainty, remembering that there are very few things in this world of which we have absolute knowledge or absolute truth.  We can only truly know how we react to and see our own little slice of the world.

And that thought is at the heart of this painting, Clarification, a 16″ by 26″ piece on paper that is part of my ongoing Principle Gallery show.

I see this piece as being about the clarity that comes from recognizing your own truth, who and what you really are, for that is the extent of our real knowledge.  Knowing that is all that that we know lets us put aside judgments of others or focusing  on events that we cannot know or control.  This clarity allows us to focus on the moment that we’re personally in at the present time because that ultimately is all that we can fully know and appreciate.  It’s something we don’t do enough in our lives— appreciate the now.

That is the message I see here…

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Deluge

Posted in Biographical, Personal Mythology, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , on June 18, 2012| 2 Comments »

Forty years ago this week, the region where I reside,  the Chemung River Valley, was visited by Hurricane Agnes , a storm that caused devastating flooding  throughout the area, including  the cities of Elmira and Corning.  It’s a study in contrasts in how these two cities responded in the aftermath  of the flood.  Corning, with a unified vision of how it would proceed,  rebounded and has relatively prospered while Elmira suffered missteps and missed opportunities and never really recovered.  There’s a new exhibit that opens this Friday at the Community Arts of Elmira called Agnes at 40: Personal Perspectives that features artists from the area looking back on that time with their work.

My contribution is a painting that I call Deluge.  It’s obviously not a true depiction of the events with its bright orange sky and aqua water.  People who experienced the flood recall all too well the murky brown color of the water and the mud it left in its wake, colors that stained many local buildings for some time after the flood.  My piece is more symbolic than purely representative of my own experience of the flood.  We lived on a country road that ran parallel to the Chemung River and  I remember that Friday evening  from 40 years ago very well.   Going home, we passed through the village of Wellsburg which was perched on the  banks of the river which was lapping menacingly at the lip.  We lived maybe three miles or so from the village and getting home, we decided we might want to shoot back into Wellsburg to grab some extra milk and bread at the store there.  In the several minutes it took to go home and then  go back to the village, the river topped the bank and what looked to be knee-deep water surged across the main drag.

The way our road was situated left us and our neighbors on the road isolated for several days as the three exits from it were under water.  We were islanders suddenly.  We would gather at the Chemung Bridge and watch the water and debris rush by.  Periodically, you could hear large  trees along the riverbank tumble over with a huge crash into the water as they broke loose from their roots.  The sight of the huge trees racing effortlessly in the rapid water still sticks with me.  The other thing that really sticks in my memory is how the bright shine of the water’s surface seemed to go on forever as we would look across the valley, especially when the sky was bright and almost colorless.  The water seemed to run to and merge with the sky.  It was quite beautiful and horrible at once.

We were pretty lucky as we lived well above the flooding so we didn’t feel the personal  losses that so many others experienced.  For that I am grateful.  There are, of course, many other memories and stories  that I could recount but it was that sudden isolation that the flood of  ’72 brought that I chose for my painting.

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Havana Moon

Posted in Favorite Things, Music, Recent Paintings, Video, tagged , on June 16, 2012| Leave a Comment »

I was going to write a bit this morning about this painting, Moonrise Kingdom, which is part of my show currently hanging at the Principle Gallery.  But as I sat here looking at the image my mind went kind of blank and all I could think of was a song from Chuck Berry called Havana Moon.  I’m not sure what this song has to do with this painting except that there is a moon in each but that song  just won’t shake loose. 

It’s actually a pretty good song for 6 in the morning, a bit different than standard Chuck Berry rockers.  Spare and atmospheric.  Rhythmic.  Even though I love all of Berry’s old classics, this song remains one of my favorites from his songbook.  And it sounds good when I look at this painting.  Win win.

Enjoy your weekend…

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Golden Windows

Posted in Recent Paintings, tagged on June 7, 2012| 4 Comments »

Golden Windows Tryptych– GC Myers

I’m getting ready to head out later this morning for Alexandria for tomorrow night’s opening of my show, A Place to Stand,  at the Principle Gallery there.  This is my fifteenth annual exhibition there, the last thirteen of them solo shows, so I kind of know how things will go.  Unfortunately, that doesn’t make it any easier or take away my anxiety.  But simply knowing the terrain from the past keeps  the inner tension from getting the best of me. 

  I have often written about how one of the purposes of my work is for it’s calming effect on myself, how it often acts as an inner counterbalance to the less than calm feelings I often experience in the outer world.   Sometimes I forget this but sitting here at this moment, about 6 AM,  looking at the image above, Golden Windows, a trypych on paper from the show, really brings that point home. 

 I find myself easily transformed when I allow myself to stop and really take it in. 

The tension in my shoulders that started the moment I opened my eyes in bed seems to ease and a calmness comes over me.  I am for a minute there, at once both the tree and a placid onlooker soaking in the rich yellow of the sky and the  stark simplicity and ease of its composition.  It seems to help and I think I will keep this image in my mind today, trying to come back to it whenever I feel the anxiety building.

So, image set in my mind, I get ready to soon head out. 

 

 

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A Singular Journey

Posted in Recent Paintings, tagged , on June 4, 2012| Leave a Comment »

Well, I delivered my work  to the Principle Gallery on Saturday for the show, A Place to Stand, which opens this coming Friday evening.  There is always a feeling of great relief after a show is delivered, a momentary sense of elation in knowing that I’ve done all that I could and the fate of the show is out of my hands.  The elation, of course, turns to anxiety for those same reasons– I’ve done all that I could and the fate of the show is out of my hands.  There is a certain level of autonomy, of control,  in the studio that is lost once the work goes out the studio door.

 For those of you who have followed this blog for any time at all, this anxiety of which I speak is familiar ground.  I have come to terms with this over the years after around 30 solo shows of feeling this awful knot of tension build as I hand over control of my work to others.  I  know that things inevitably work out with time, especially if I have truly done my best in the studio.  But that knowledge doesn’t completely erase the tension I feel at this point. 

I may not be able to completely explain this feeling.  My situation is my own and I place certain levels of importance to things that may not mean much to many others so that if might be difficult to completely understand.  Like many situations in life, we all travel a singular journey that only we can fully understand and appreciate.

That term, A Singular Journey, is one that I chose for the painting shown above, a large 20″ by 60″ canvas that is one of the centerpieces of the Principle Gallery show.  I had finished this painting and had been studying it in the studio for a few days, trying to ascertain a title.  At the same time, I had been following the progress of a friend who is coping with the devastating illness suffered by his wife of many years.  Offered many words of encouragement and advice from a multitude of friends, he had written online that he truly appreciated what his friends were trying to do but had come to the realization that ultimately his wife and he were alone in this situation.  And that, at that moment, felt almost unbearable.

But he’s right.  We all ultimately walk our path alone, through the hard times as well as the good.  No one can fully appreciate our private journeys  because they can never truly know all of the dynamics that influence our perspectives.  We would like to think that everyone will react in certain situations in much the same manner as ourself but that is seldom the case.  We all handle tragedy, and happiness,  in our own individual way. 

Now that seems like a daunting prospect, this seemingly lonely journey of one.  But in this piece I choose to try to look at it from the perspective that while there is a starkness in being alone in our journey, there is also a certain grace, a beauty that only the person on that journey can appreciate.  Everything that we experience on this path is ours alone to savor and  to partake of the lessons it has to offer.  Even the tragedy of my friend may offer a sort of grace that in the long run may he may see as a gift.  He certainly may not see it now nor would I ask him to look for it.  I couldn’t.  It’s his journey and his grace, his treaure,  to discover.

It’s a funny thing how a painting can have layers of meaning beneath a seemingly bright and cheerful surface.  There are hints of these layers in this painting.  It has deep and dramatic textures and there is a certain roughness and darkness  in the linework that belies its optimistic surface.  As though that Red Tree had seen darker times before it felt the warmth of this moment.  But that is something we may never know…

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Satellites

Posted in Painting, Recent Paintings, tagged , on June 1, 2012| 1 Comment »

A Place to Stand, my solo show that opens next Friday at the Principle Gallery, has a theme of self-sovereignty running through it.  The idea of the individual realizing that their life is their own kingdom and that they alone have rule over it is a powerful one.  This new painting, a 30″ by 30″ canvas that is titled Satellites, reinforces that theme while also pointing out that our lives also inevitably revolve around greater concepts.

It puts our sovereignty into perspective, pointing out that, while we may rule our own lives, we all are ultimately parts of larger pictures and that our sovereign lives often revolve around those.  It may be our work, our family or our faith.  It may be in our duty to others, our compassion, that moves our worlds.  It can be any number of things but what it  boils down to is that there is a motivating concept around which our individual lives revolve.

I believe that if we could identify that thing, that motivating factor that makes our individual world turn, we would all have a better chance at satisfaction with our lives.  A purpose is needed in this life and it sometimes seems that many of us stumble along without a hint of one.

I guess the question that comes from this is:  What is this motivator in your own life?

That being said, this painting is a pretty interesting one from a visual aspect.  It has great contrasts, texture and bright yet subtle colors that make it an eye-catcher.  For me, the painting’s strength is in the stability of the triangle formed by the Red Tree, the Red Chair and the moon.  It really gives the whole piece a feeling of sturdiness and assurance, at least in my eyes.  This sturdiness is supported by the solidness of the patchwork fields on which the triangle sits and plays off.

It will be interesting to see the response to this painting.  It;s one of those pieces about which I have no idea as to how people will see it.  We shall soon see…

 

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Liebestraum

Posted in Music, Painting, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , , , , on May 31, 2012| Leave a Comment »

I call this new painting,  18″ by 26″ on paper,   Liebestraum after the title of the famous piano piece from  composer Franz Liszt.  Liebestraum translates as dream of love and there is a dreamlike qualityto this piece, in the way the two trees intertwine to become almost one beneath a warm dusky sky and in the way the thin white ribbon of a path winds rhythmically through the landscape in a way that seems to mimic the graceful weaving of the musical composition’s melody. 

Looking just now, I notice that the two fields in the center, one orange and the other yellow, seem to form a divided heart shape, like one of those pairs of lovers’ pendants where each contains a half of a heart.  Interesting that this evaded my eye before.

Yhe Hungarian-born Franz Liszt is an interesting character.  He was a phenomenon of his time, a womanizing piano virtuoso whose playing caused  an incredibly frenzied response from his adoring female fans.  There was such a hysteria over his performances that a term, Lisztomania, was coined by the physicians who studied the effects at the time.  We don’t often think of classical  performers, particularly of the mid 1800’s, as having the public persona of an Elvis but Liszt may have been the prototype for the modern rock star.  For you film buffs, you no doubt recognize Lisztomania as the title of the Ken Russell film from the 1970’s that featured The Who’s Roger Daltrey as the pianist in a slightly twisted telling of his tale.

The painting, Liebestraum, is part of my show which opnes next Friday at the Principle Gallery in Alexandria, VA.

Although it is primarily a piano piece, I do like this guitar version.  Enjoy.

 

 

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Archaeology: Future Past

Posted in Painting, Recent Paintings, tagged , , on May 29, 2012| 1 Comment »

I am in the final days of preparations for my show, A Place to Stand, which opens next Friday, June 8th, at the Principle Gallery in Alexandria.  This always seems to be  the most tedious part of my job, at least while I’m in the midst of it.  The painting is set aside and long days are spent staining and sanding frames, cutting  mats and putting it all together to make what I hope is a great show. 

 But near the end of the tedium and  the angst which comes as the deadline appoaches, it begins to become exciting again as the paintings, which have been strewn around the studio in various stages of completion and without any sort of framing or final finish, begin to come to life for me.  It’s like the final presentation suddenly clicks some deeply hidden switch and what seemed like only potential before now becomes a separate entity before my eyes, complete and self-contained in its message and meaning.  

It’s at this point that I get to really look with focus for what may be the last time at much of this work.  During the process a painting may be completed and set aside, only to get an occasional glimpse or passing glance.  But now I get to take a last long look and see what is really there.  I am seldom disappointed at this stage.  Paintings that would do that don’t make it this far.  But sometimes I am simply satisfied,  the painting being just as I had expected.  But once in a while it all comes together and a piece meets every aspiration I have for it, making it feel like more than the sum of its parts.

That is how I feel about this new painting.  It is titled Archaeology: Future Past and is a 12″ by 24″ canvas.  It does just what I wanted the Archaeology pieces to do which is to to have an immediate and strong look, an instant identity  that the viewer takes it in and gets a sense of   from a distance.  The subterranean deris field reveals itself as the viewer nears and has its own rhythm and narrative, contained in yet separate from the strong presence  of the scene above.  Even the ribbons of strata that separate the two parts here have a strong rhythmic presence that adds greatly to the whole. 

That may be the operable word here– whole.  It has a feeling of completeness that I am always excited by in any piece of art .  It doesn’t need any explanation including my words here. Simply strong and unmistakable. 

All I could hope for…

 

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Distant Memory

Posted in Biographical, Quote, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , on May 24, 2012| 3 Comments »

Every man’s memory is his private literature.

—Aldous Huxley
 
 
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I like this quote from Huxley.  I have often felt that all of our personal lives fit into some sort of mythic template on which all literature is based and that we often fail to see the connections between the tales of our own lives and those stories which have come down through history in the form of myth and legend.  We all live lifes that are often filled with tragedy , comedy and drama.  Heroic, even.  But we seldom perceive them as such, instead thinking of our personal memories as being merely mundane. 
 
And that’s probably as it should be.  Life is spent, for the most part, moving forward in small, day-to-day steps with little time left to see the larger pattern of our lives.  Who has the time to reflect backwards, to see how our lives fit into the templates of eternity?  Very few of us, to be sure.  But what if we could take that time to look back fully and see the patterns set in history and to see that our lives own patterns mesh into that pattern, that we are all indeed connected to and part of the same fabric?
 
Would it make a bit of difference?  Would it make us appreciate the fragility and rareness of  each individual’s place in this world. make us understand that our own history is the history of all and that our memory binds us to the fabric of history?
 
I don’t know.  But it’s something to think about.
 
Funny how the mind works.  I meant to write about the painting above, a new piece  called Distant Memory (  10″ by 16″ on paper) set for my Principle Gallery show early next month and suddenly find myself off on a theoretical journey.  Maybe its the way the foreground of the painting, with the converging rows of the field,  relates to the house and tree across the water in the upper half of the painting.  I get a sense of looking back from the present, taking a pause from the labor of the moment,  which is represented in the rows,  to a personal past set around that house that reminds me very much of the farmhouses of my youth, often taking me back to different points of my own life, my own connections to templates of time.  Even the overall color of this piece sets that tone of memory for me.  There is  something in that green that reminds me of the ferns that my mother dug up many years ago from the hillside above the Chemung River and planted in the shade of the old farmhouse that we lived in for much of my childhood.  That green often brings back that memory, one filled with an air of  coolness and the smell of damp, rich soil.  A good memory.
 
Okay. Enough for now.  Work and the present calls.  I have my own fields to tend to now.
 
 

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