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Archive for the ‘Recent Paintings’ Category

Show Night

Posted in Recent Paintings, Technique/History, tagged , on July 22, 2010| 1 Comment »

 

Tonight is the opening at the West End Gallery for my show, New Days.  I’ve talked about my views on openings over the time I’ve been writing this blog, about the certain level of tension that accompanies such things.  A mix of apprehension and nausea-fueled fear that the work won’t live up to the expectations of the gallery or myself.  It’s an odd combination of both reaching a goal and wishing you had not at the same time.

Divining Tree- GC Myers 2010

 I recognize that I’ve been incredibly fortunate that the galleries that represent my work have wanted to showcase it over the years.  I think they know how seriously I take my work and how much the appreciation I have for their efforts on behalf of my work makes me want to bring in the best possible show every time so that I don’t let them down.  I feel I have a real responsibility to the galleries and to the people who come out to the exhibits to give the fullest possible effort in executing my work.  I think that this leads to a consistency in the work that viewers can recognize.

Light Epistles-- GC Myers 2010

But over the years and the many shows, it has become somewhat easier.   There’s still a level of fear and tension but it’s tempered with the knowledge acquired through experience that everything generally will work out in the long run.  So this morning when I woke up, I was not filled with a huge knot in my gut.  I knew I had put in the effort, had not taken anything for granted.  I think this is a really striking group of work.   It hangs together well, by which I mean the pieces play off and complement one another well.  There is a certain continuity that runs through the group that binds it together.
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 So, this morning I feel pretty good.  Oh, sure , there’s apprehension.   Hell, there’s apprehension on mornings when I don’t have a show that night. So, tonight I will go out and talk with folks about the paintings, answer questions and sleep well afterwards, knowing I gave it my best. 
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 Hope to see you there if you’re in the Corning area.

GC Myers- New Clarity 2010

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Roots Show Through

Posted in Biographical, Influences, Neat Stuff, Painting, Recent Paintings, tagged , on July 20, 2010| 2 Comments »

This is a new painting that is also part of the New Days exhibit at the West End Gallery.  Titled Roots Show Through, it’s one of those paintings that, for me, brings to mind an immediate thought.  When I look at this piece I am instantly reminded that we are the products of our past and that our ancestry deeply dictates many of our behaviors.  We may believe that our actions are ours alone and that our forebearers are remote from us in all ways but they show themselves in ways we may never recognize.

I was watching the end of the PBS series Faces of America with Henry Louis Gates (of the infamous arrest and subsequent Beer Summit at the White House) which traces the genealogical background of a number of well known folks, showing how they came to be and how they are interrelated to many others.  I was captivated by how they were able to break down the genetic composition of their subjects, showing how richly we are endowed those things that make us unique by prior generations.  Each one of our direct anscestors made it possible for us to be here in the form, for better or worse, that we are at present.  Take away any of them and we become much different people, if we exist at all.

The roots show through.

Now there are roots that we would like to keep deeply buried.  I know from doing genealogy that there is a tendency to want to see our ancestors in the best possible light, to give them the most positive attributes.  You imagine them to be wise and good and often you can find some evidence that some of your ancestors were .  But sometimes you find things that are less flattering, things you hope haven’t found their way to you through the genetic network.  In doing my own genealogy ( and my guess is that it is similar to a great many people out there) I have found a number of good and learned people who had places of respect in their communities.  But for every one of these folks I found even more who were less accomplished. 

 Going through census records, I find many ancestors in the recent past  who could not read nor write.  Some are listed on these same records in prisons and county poor houses and sanitariums.  Some are found in other records listing their misdeeds.  I have thieves and swindlers in my line.  My favorite was a beaver thief from the late 1600’s up the Hudson Valley.  I have some ancestors who were killed in various battles and massacres and as many who took part in other massacres, including one who was darkly remembered for the lifelong  revenge he took against the Indian tribes who had killed his father.  I have murderers including a great-great grandfather from several generations back who was hung in the town square in Easton, PA  for the murder of his wife. 

You hope some of those roots found a dead-end generations ago.  But they probably found their way through in some form and you ultimately deal with the background that brought you here in ways you hope allow you to live and prosper, with some semblance of wisdom and good.  You hope that the positive traits handed down to you by your ancestors far outweigh the negative ones.

Oddly enough, all of this and more comes to mind when I glimpse this piece.  It has almost become an icon for this particular thought.  How others see it, I cannot guess…

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Galliard

Posted in Painting, Recent Paintings, tagged , on July 19, 2010| 2 Comments »

As I normally do in the weeks before a show, I’m featuring new work from a show in my blog posts.  The show this time is one called New Days that opens Thursday with an opening at the West End Gallery in Corning.  Today’s painting is one called Galliard, a 13″ by 13″ painting on paper.

When I had finished this piece and began to search for a title, I focused on the intertwined trees.  I’ve often used dance terms to describe the way they seem to hold each in these paintings and this piece definitely had the feel of dance for me.  So I began to search for a term that captured this painting. 

I came across the term galliard and, without even knowing what the term meant, immediately felt pulled to the word.  It has a rhythm in its pronunciation that struck me.  It just sounded right.  Looking further, I discover that the galliard was a lively Renaissance dance, said to be a favorite of Elizabeth I.  There is one section of the dance called lavolta that involved the couple in an intimate hold where the woman is lifted in the air as they do about a 3/4 turn.  It was considered pretty scandalous at the time.  The Lambada of the Renaissance, if you will.

It fit though.  There is a sense of intimacy in the two trees.  The open, airy space in which they perform the dance represents a liberation of sorts for me, as though they hold no shame for their dance of devotion for one another.  The red in the trees gives it a feeling of passion set against the fertile lushness of the green in the foreground. 

So, in this case, the sound and meaning of the title worked for me.  Perhaps the title and the painting itself are performing a dance…

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Eastern Influence

Posted in Influences, Painting, Recent Paintings, tagged , , on July 18, 2010| Leave a Comment »

Sometimes a title for a piece is so undeniable that it makes all other attempts at naming it seem utterly futile.  When I completed this 8″ by 16″ painting on paper, I tried to find something in it that reminded me of  something other than  the feeling of  Eastern influence that seemed to drip from the surface.  The bonsai-like tree and the mound from which it sprouts.  The rising sun.  Even the way the sky is segmented and shaded seemed to bring forth thought of a flag from the East.  It all conspired to give the painting a decidedly Eastern Zen flavor.

I was trying to get away from having the viewer see the piece as only a product of influence, as though that might somehow lessen the work.  But isn’t every painting a product of influence somehow?  I can often see the onfluence of others in my work.  A bit of color here borrowed from something I’ve seen in another artist’s work.  I remember doing a piece when I was first showing and I had used a green in the work that had a wonderful rich earthiness to it.  This little bit of my painting so reminded me of the greens that Albrecht Durer had used in some of his lovely paintings of small wildlife such as rabbits and squirrels.  One day, I was in the gallery and the piece was hanging when another artist who also showed his work there saw it.

“That’s Durer’s green!” he exclaimed. 

I was thrilled that he caught it, that he saw the same qualities in it that I saw in Durer’s use of the color even though there was no other similarity in the work.  It provided a real insight into how influence works in how we create and view work.

So, why fight it when an influence shows through even more prominently?  It was influenced by the East as am I.  Even as I sit here now, my desk looks out an east-facing window as I watch the sun’s rays filter through the thick foliage of the trees as it rises from the east.  Every morning that I look into the eastern sky I am influenced by it.  You can’t deny your influences or habits, the things that shape your views.  So to call this piece anything other than Eastern Influence would be like trying to force a square peg into a round hole.

This painting is part of the New Days exhibit of my work at the West End Gallery in Corning, NY  that open this Thursday, July 22.

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Night of the Blue Wish

Posted in Recent Paintings, tagged , on July 15, 2010| 8 Comments »

This is Night of the Blue Wish.  It’s a small painting, only a 4″ by 14″ image on paper, but it has a much bigger feeling.  It’s part of my show, New Days, that opens a week from today, Thursday, Jully 22 at the West End Gallery in Corning.

It’s a very blue piece.  Blue, as I’ve talked about before here, is like an addictive drug for me.  I love using it in the way it is used here, to create a dense color of night, but working with it has a very intoxicating effect.  It makes me want to use this color, this blue, all the time, makes me want to make it the center of my color universe. But I know I must resist and only use it sparingly lest it overwhelm my whole way of expressing myself. So, periodically I cautiously let it emerge and show itself, to satisfy my addiction. 

This piece has a feeling of magical thinking for me, like a fairy tale.  As though the tree, under the cover of this special night of color, comes alive, as we humans slumber in our little boxes, to engage in a dialogue of sorts with the moon.  As though it were beseeching the moon to stay a little longer, to keep it company and enjoy a bit more conversation.  As though the moon’s light gave the tree an ability to speak, to express itself in a way outside its normally slow and stoic way.

Well, that’s how I see it…

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All Is Given

Posted in Painting, Recent Paintings, Technique/History, tagged , on July 13, 2010| 2 Comments »

Another new painting for my show, New Days, that opens next Thursday, Jully 22, at the West End Gallery in Corning.  this piece is titled All Is Given and is 12″ by 12″ on paper.  This piece, for me, is like comfort food.  The color and the way it comes together as a composition has a very soothing effect and there is a real harmony in the deep greens and blues that shines through here.

Even the fact that there is motion in the central figure of the tree doesn’t detract from this peaceful feeling.  The giving of leaves to the wind by the tree seems natural and there is no remorse over the loss.  It is all just part of existing in nature.  Just being and not reacting.  Accepting what is and what cannot be.

It’s one of those pieces where, when done, I feel a great sense of satisfaction.  As though  I’ve hit my mark, reaching some undefined, hazy goal that is known only by reaching it.  That’s hard to explain.  I don’t have specific endpoints when I’m painting.  There is seldom, if ever, a fully realized image in my mind when I start painting.  It’s more of a shifting amorphous mass of color and  with no specific shape or imagery.  I just hope that when I’m painting I can somehow capture the essence of this idea or whatever it is.  Sometimes it is revealed and other times, something different emerges which is a discovery in itself that is quite unlike what I felt in my mind at the beginning of the painting. 

See?  Hard to explain.

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Bent But Not Bowed

Posted in Painting, Recent Paintings, Technique/History, tagged , on July 10, 2010| 4 Comments »

This is the last painting I finished for my show, New Days, that opens in two weeks at the West End Gallery.  The name of this 24″ by 30″ canvas is Bent But Not Bowed and was started several months ago, sitting in various stages just on the periphery of my vision. 

 It started with many layers of gesso that were at first troweled on then finsihed with thick veins that run through the surface in a haphazard, chaotic fashion.  When it was finally prepped it had a definite character before I ever put the first drop of paint to it and as a result, begged for me to put it aside and ponder it.  It had something in it that was there to be revealed with the paint above it, if I could only find it. 

So I set it aside and would consider it as I worked on other paintings, always a bit intimidated by the strength and motion within the surface.  It had to be right or it would fall apart under its own force.

The surface was so rich in texture that over the months I determined that the imagery should be simple and close to the surface, not deep into the picture plane, which is counter to what I normally seek in my work.  The imagery should truly react to such a strong and emotive surface. 

It also needed strong color to accentuate the surface, to bring it even more forward.  More prominent, not understated.  The trick was bringing these elements together in a way that didn’t look too considered, too thought out.  Make each element- the texture, the color and the imagery- play off of one another, bringing the strengths to the forefront in an organic fashion that gives the painting a feeling of it bursting off the canvas on its own. 

This piece certainly has a dynamism is the studio.  It demands the eye.

I feel as though I haven’t squandered the potential that the canvas first held when I first looked on it after the gesso was applied.  It is a piece that has real life, real feel.  A voice that has words of its own, well beyond mine.

In short, it is what I hoped it could be…

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Emerge the Light

Posted in Biographical, Recent Paintings, tagged , on July 8, 2010| 5 Comments »

Very early morning. 

 Gray light just breaking through the trees, birds tweeting and twirping awake in the branches and a haze in the air as the slightly dewy ground gives up the precious moisture to the warm air.

I’m tired, having woke much too early but I’m in the studio now and I’m readying to go to work finishing up a handful of work for my show.  I’m at the end of a creative cycle and I’m usually a bit fatigued and, as a result, more susceptible to worries and concerns about what direction I will next take my work.  The work I’m finishing now is basically done, all creative decisions completed,  so the die is basically cast for this work.  My mind has moved to what comes next and how I will get there. 

I feel now the need to push myself in some way, break from the safety zone of what I know so far as technique and style are concerned and trust my instincts in maneuvering in a new territory.  Maybe it’s a new material or a material used in a different way.  Maybe it’s a new look on the surface– I have a deep seated  desire to let strokes break free from restraint and show their ragged edges and energy.  Slashes. 

Maybe it’s a new subject, a new icon on which to focus my attention, or simply dropping representation and letting the abstract elements take over.

I don’t know.  At the end of one of these cycles, it’s not a matter of how it changes. It only matters that it changes.

I feel fortunate to have my work to express the end and beginning of these cycles of energy that culminate with the need to change, to emerge somehow differently.  Dealing with them in real life, without the use of painted icons to serve as the avatar for the expression my own life’s twists and turns, has not always been smooth sailing.  But transferring the need to transform, in some way, from one’s actual life to a substituted surface of paint has been a blessing for me, if not always an easy one.

With paint, I usually find my way through the shadows and tangle of thought and emerge in light. 

Changed. New.

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The painting at the top is titled Emerge the Light  and is part of my upcoming show, New Days, at the West End Gallery in Corning.  It is a work on paper, a 4″ by 30″ image that is matted and framed out to 10″ by 36″.

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New Days

Posted in Recent Paintings, tagged , on July 6, 2010| 2 Comments »

This is a new painting, New Days, that is the featured title  piece on the invitation for my upcoming show at the West End Gallery in Corning.  The show starts with an opening  reception on Thursday, July 22 and runs through the end of August.

This painting, a 30″ by 30′ canvas, and it and its title  represent what I think is the basis for this whole show.  I’m choosing an upbeat tone for this show this piece evokes a feeling of  an optimistic look  forward.   There is a strength and vitality in the red tree and the light in the sky, formed by thousands of brushstrokes, brings a sense of brightness coming.  Without going into hyper-symbolism here, it just portends better things for the new days ahead.

I know I’ve mentioned this before.  I tend to view most new days as being filled with new opportunities.  New chances to seek and discover, to find something new even if it is the most insignificant of finds.  A chance to recognize that opportunity that might change one’s life, even in a small way.  Even now, when this optimism might be tempered by the news of the day, every morning is usually filled with a positivism for what the day might bring.

Maybe that Pollyanna-ish.  I don’t care.  We get to choose how we view the world and that is my choice.  Some days, most days, don’t live up to what I desire for them but I know that the next day, the new day, is waiting with the next dawn, filled with possibility. 

I only have to recognize the possibility…

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Waiting For the Cool

Posted in Favorite Things, Recent Paintings, tagged , on June 30, 2010| 4 Comments »

Sustenance-- GC Myers

Maybe it’s the gray paintings that I’ve been working on lately.  Or maybe it’s just the unseasonably cool morning with the temperatures in the mid-40’s.  Or maybe it’s a somewhat contrarian nature.  Whatever the case, I find myself this morning longing for cold weather and gray skies and flecks of snow gathering on the grass that has lost much of its green.  The feel of a sharp wind  on the cheek like a reviving slap.  The harsh bones of the leafless trees in silhouette against the slate sky.  The absolute quiet of the forest, save the creak of the trees swaying in the cold breeze.

I know that for many this sounds absurd.  Most want to bask in the summer heat.  Most want to feel the adolescent charm of days spent shoeless under a relentless sun. 

 Easy days.

Not so for winter.  Maybe that’s what I like.  Winter gives you nothing.  No warmth. No sustenance. No cover.  What you take from winter is a hard fought victory and that makes it all the sweeter.  Anyone can  feel the carefree lure of summer.  But winter drives off those unwilling to endure its own special charms. 

Cold, refreshing charms…

Here’s a wonderful version of  the Winter section from Vivaldi’s Four Seasons by violinist Gil Shaham to get you into the winter mood…

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