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Archive for the ‘Technique/History’ Category

Looking Back- Lakedays

Posted in Early Paintings, Painting, Technique/History, tagged , on December 29, 2012| 7 Comments »

GC Myers- LakedaysI wrote last week about this being the time of year when I examine where  I am at the year’s end on my artistic path.  In order to somehow chart a course forward, I look back at the work of this past year, trying to see what changes have taken place, to see what new paths were followed and where they might take me in the near future.  I am at the same time looking  to  see what paths presented themselves and were passed by and never revisited.

I also go back through the years and look at pieces that also  offered these different directions.  I examine them to see where I might have taken the work further if I had continued the creative thread I was following at that time.  Were these opportunities missed?  Would I want to go back to that juncture in my journey and set off now in that direction?

The piece shown here, Lakedays, a 16″ by 20″ canvas.  is such a painting.  From 2003, it was painted with a bluefor the  underpainting instead of the red oxide that I normally use.  The red gives me a warmth from below the surface that connects the whole piece in  harmony.  Using the blue– a manganese blue, if I’m not mistaken– gave this piece a different feel, one that was cooler  and cleaner.  It has distance, making me feel removed from the scene.  Using the  red shortens that distance, pulls me closer.

That sounds like a criticism of the effect here but it’s not.  The coolness, the remoteness of the distance provided by the blue in this piece, works very well here.  It provides the sense of the airiness one feels when looking over lakes, that feeling of a cool dome of air that encompasses the space.  But despite the cooler temperatures of the blue underneath, there is still a golden warmth and intimacy in the space between the tree and the building, providing a contrast  that gives this simple scene a dramatic tension and a sense of the ethereal moment.

I like it very much and think it is a very strong piece.  But is it a path to revisit?  Or should this remain an anomaly in  the continuum of my body of work?  That’s the type of questions I ask myself at this time of year.  The answers shall be seen in the coming year…

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Looking Back

Posted in Early Paintings, Technique/History, tagged , , on December 20, 2012| 4 Comments »

GC Myers- Pride and Joy 2003At this time of the year I normally take a little time and revisit some of my work from the past.  I am typically beginning to look ahead to the coming year and am looking for inspiration, hoping to find a new path to follow and examine.  By starting with my own work first,  I look for pieces from the past that have a singular look for the time in which they were created.  Perhaps I was doing something at that time, experimenting with color or the manner in which I apply the paint for example, something that was set aside and never revisited.  Perhaps, now would be a good time to revisit this path.

If I can find it.

The painting above is one example of what I’m talking about.  Called Pride and Joy and painted in the first month or so of 2003, it is a 15.5″ by 16″ image on a wood panel.  While it has the elements of the Red Roof series that was emerging at that time, it has a sky that is different from others of that time and not one that I have painted since.  It has a golden glow in it that gives the whole piece a great warmth and shimmer.

I find it really appealing yet am somewhat baffled by how it was achieved.  That’s one of the drawbacks in the way I paint.  Being self-taught, my technique is always shifting, nudging in small degrees one way or the other by new discoveries or ingrained habits.  I don’t have an anchor of taught technique that I work from.  This was especially evident in my early work  where you could see how the technique would sometimes have wide swings throughout a year.

In this case, could I recapture the look, the golden quality of that sky?  I don’t know.  But it does open up a path for me that I may want to follow for a while, hoping that it leads somewhere new and exciting.  Maybe that path that I double back to will be one that I am now more ready to follow than I was a decade ago.

And that’s the purpose of looking back at this time of the year for me.  I have a couple of more examples to show in the next few weeks that illustrate how there are paintings that were the start of paths that I have yet to fully follow. Stay tuned.

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It’s Not What You See…

Posted in Influences, Quote, Technique/History, tagged , , , on November 10, 2012| 3 Comments »

Painting is a blind man’s profession.  He paints not what he sees, but what he feels, what he tells himself about what he has seen.

–Pablo Picasso

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I love this quote.  I think that is what all art really is– an expression of  feeling.  Emotion.  I know my best work, or at least the work that I feel is most directly connected to who I truly am as a human being, is always focused on expressing emotion rather than depicting any one place or person or thing.  At its best, the  piece as a whole becomes a vehicle for expression and the subject is merely a focal point in this expression.  The subject matter becomes irrelevant beyond that.  It could be a the most innocuous object,  a chair or a tree in my case.  It doesn’t  really matter because the painting’s emotion is carried by the painting as a whole-  the colors, the texture, the linework, the brushstrokes, etc.

In other words, it’s not what you see but what you feel.

I think many of  Vincent Van Gogh‘s works are amazing example of this.  They are so filled with emotion that you often don’t even realize how mundane the subject matter really is until you step back to analyze it for a moment.  I’ve described here before what an incredible feeling it was to see one of his paintings  for the first time, how it seemed to vibrate with feeling, seeming almost alive on the wall.  It was a vase of irises.  A few flowers in a pot.  How many hundreds of thousands of such paintings have been created just like that?  But Van Gogh resonates not because of the subject matter, not because of precise depiction of the flowers or the vase.  No, it was a deep expression of his emotion, his wonder at the world he inhabited, inside and out.

I also see this in a lot of music.  It’s not the subject but the way the song is expressed.  How many times have we heard overwrought , schmaltzy ballads that try to create overt emotion and never seem to pull it off?  Then you hear someone interpret a simple song with deep and direct emotion  and the song soars powerfully.  I often use Johnny Cash‘s last recordings, in the last years  and months before his death, as evidence of this.  Many were his  interpretations of well known songs and his voice had, by that time, lost much of the power of his earlier days.  But the emotion, the wonder, in his delivery was palpable.  Moving.

Likewise, here’s Chet Baker from just a few months before his death.  He, too, had lost the power and grace of youth due to a life scarred by the hardship of drug abuse and violence.  But the expression is raw and real.  It makes this interpretation of  Little Girl Blue stand out for me.

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The Waking Moment

Posted in Recent Paintings, Technique/History, tagged , , , on November 9, 2012| 3 Comments »

Normally at this time of the year I am in a winding down sort of mode, easing back from my easel and painting table to take a deep breath.  It is normally when I reassess the year and begin to put together a new direction in which  I might push the work.  But this has been an unusual year and I find myself busier than ever.  My show, Inward Bound,  at the Kada Gallery runs until December 6 and my exhibition at the Fenimore Art Museum, Internal Landscapes,  hangs until December 31.  That would be a full schedule in itself but this year offers yet another opportunity, one that fills my schedule to the brink and has kept me fully engaged in the studio as of late.  I am talking about a solo show of my work, The Waking Moment,  that will be opening December 1 at the Just Looking Gallery in San Luis Obispo in California.

Owner Ralph Gorton and Gallery Director Ken McGavin  first contacted me earlier this year and began showing my work  at the gallery, which opened in 1984, in April.  They have done a fabulous job highlighting my work and it has done very well in their gallery, to the point where we agreed that a show was in order.

I wasn’t sure about it at first.  I was fairly new to their market  and I was also thinking that I wouldn’t be able to build a show for them.  But they have introduced me thoroughly to their  clients and the pace of this year in the studio has had me immersed in a deep groove which made it possible for me to work at a high level without much of a period of buildup.  As a result, I find myself  pretty excited about the work I am producing at this time , which includes the piece shown above, The Prospering Light, a 16″ by 26″ painting on paper.

I am nearly finished with the last few pieces for the show which will soon be on their way to the California coast.  Then I will step back for a moment or two.  At least,  I think I will.  This rhythm I have in the studio at this time feels so right that I am a little hesitant to step away for more than a moment, knowing how difficult it can be to recapture that feeling.  But for now, I am riding this wave in the studio and am excited by each new rush that comes in the work.  I will be showing more of this new work in the coming weeks as the Just Looking Gallery show approaches.

 

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Off to Africa

Posted in Neat Stuff, Recent Paintings, Technique/History, tagged , , , , , on August 31, 2012| 17 Comments »

9GC Myers- Coming to an Understanding

A couple of years ago, back in April of 2010, I wrote here about one of my paintings being selected by the then Ambassador to Nepal,  Scott DeLisi,  for display in his offices at the American Embassy in Kathmandu.  And earlier this year, I wrote again about that painting being part of a intercultural exhibition and gala featuring the art of a number of Nepalese artists and the eight American artists whose work hung at the embassy.  Being chosen by Ambassador DeLisi was a great honor for me, particularly since  there aren’t a lot of chances for an artist to represent their country in any meaningful way.  I almost felt like an Olympian, even if only in a very small way.

Ambassador DeLisi   however had his assignment altered and left that position earlier this year, which meant that the painting in Kathmandu was returned to the gallery.  My Olympic dream seemed to be at an end.

However, Mr. DeLisi was nominated by President Obama to be Ambassador to the African nation of Uganda and was confirmed by the Congress in May.  Yesterday, I was notified by the Principle Gallery that the Ambassador had requested three of my paintings for display at the Embassy in Kampala.

I feel Olympian once again!  I was especially thrilled that it was going to Uganda after having watched the young Ugandan boys who came to Williamsport, PA  in the past few weeks as the first African team to play in the Little League World Series.  It was a great story as the other teams and the crowds there seemed to truly embrace these kids.  Remarkably, they won a game even though most of the kids had only been playing  baseball  (or even known about baseball, for that matter) for about six months.

But I was mostly thrilled at the prospect of my work once again being representative of our country and honored that  Ambassador DeLisi had once again found something in it that enabled his decision.  I hope these paintings serves him well in Uganda.

The pieces chosen are shown above and below.

GC Myers- Pot Luck

GC Myers- Sovereign Solitude

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Back to Work

Posted in Technique/History, tagged , , on June 12, 2012| 3 Comments »

It always takes a day or two after returning from a show to get back into any kind of rhythm in the studio, especially when I’ve been away for several days.  I am definitely a creature of habit, one that needs its set daily routine to keep everything at an even keel.  Without it, I feel out of sorts and a bit on edge.  So getting back in the studio is a relief even though the rhythm is still disrupted.   Eventually, I know that the rhythm of my routine will kick back in.

These  first days after a show  find me slowly sliding into the painting process while I use this break as a time to reset and evaluate the direction of my upcoming work as I run over the details of the show which has just passed.  I am  trying to remember comments made about the work in an effort to ascertain what aspects triggered great response and what pieces drew less enthusiastic reactions.   Some pieces surprise me with the reaction they provoke from the show-goers, some drawing much stronger respnses than I’d anticipated.   These mornings after are just a rehash of all of this info, trying to make it into some form that I can pull from in the future.

A friend, Ted Terrenoire,  took a few photos during the opening including the one at the top of this post, a photo that I really like a lot.  I think it captures what I hope for in my exhibitions, that the show is about people engaging with the work.  I’ve come to the conclusion that a successful show is one where the crowd is facing outward towards the  work on the walls.   I’ve been to crowded shows where everyone is gathered with their backs to the walls, the social aspect of the event far outweighing the work to which barely a glance is given.  I’m pleased that most of my shows are not social events, that most of the shows are spent with people intently looking at the paintings, often lost in their own thoughts.  That makes me feel as though I’m on the right path with my work.

Okay, I have to go.  There is much work to be done here and I feel the rhythm coming back to me…

 

 

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In and Out of Rhythm

Posted in Painting, Technique/History, tagged , , , on May 11, 2012| 4 Comments »

Failure is inevitable. Success is elusive.

–Steven Spielberg

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I’ve written in recent posts about that rhythm that sometimes comes when I am readying work for shows, a deep groove filled with a self-regenerating energy that feeds on itself.  Just a wonderful feeling when I can stop for a moment and relish it.

But sometimes during these grand bouts of this rhythm  there are days when the wheels seem to come off the wagon and everything crashes.  Nothing works and every effort results in frustration and failure.  The rhythm that seemed onmipresent just moments before seems to have suddenly vanished completely and every action feels like I’m trying to move a huge boulder.  That was yesterday.

It started promisingly enough, working on the small detail work that is the grunt work of what I do.  Staining a few frames here.  Varnishing a few paintings there.  Then I worked for a bit on a piece in progress and stiil everything felt good, the synapses still sparking brightly. 

But then later in the morning  I pulled out a decent sized canvas, 2′ by 3′,  to start.  It had been treated with multiple layers of gesso and I felt like stars were aligned for this piece.  By the end of the day I realized I had misread these stars.  They were telling me to run.  Nothing worked at all on this piece.  The color was flat and every effort to bring it to life failed miserably and made the whole thing seem even more drab and lifeless.  Six or seven hours in and I step back to take it in and it is nothing but awful and the lightness that came with the rhythm has been replaced with a frustrating weight that rests heavily on my shoulders as well as in my gut. 

 I am at that moment verging on  screaming in a very primal way, like the character in the Edvard Munch painting.  My scream was replaced by a grab for the  paint and within minutes there is a layer of  black on the canvas, all evidence of my day covered in thick strokes of paint.  Seeing the failure of the day covered in black actually takes the edge off of the frustration I am feeling at the moment.  The flatness is dead and gone and I know that I will no longer be struggling over it, no longer struggling to bring a corpse back to life. 

But the frustration still lingers in the studio and I know that there will be nothing gained by fighting it.  I clean up and end my day, hoping that the new morning will find me refreshed and back in rhythm.

That being said, I have to go.  There’s a rhythm in here someplace and, godammn it, I am going to find it.  Like Darth Vader says above– failure will not be tolerated.

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Beeswing

Posted in Music, Painting, Recent Paintings, Technique/History, Video, tagged , , , , , , on May 9, 2012| 2 Comments »

I wrote the other day about the rhythm I’m looking for when I’m in the studio, that groove where the painting is more instinctual than intellectual.  Everything flowing fast and easy with little thought, each brushload of paint inspiring the next and on and on.  All intuition and reaction with hardly a thought given to subject or meaning.   It’s a great feeling, one that makes me feel as thought I am somehow connected to some sort of better self within, one that can only be reached by letting go of conscious thought.

A rare and delicate thing.

Delicate in the sense that I find myself at points coming out of this groove to examine what I’ve done and I lapse into conventional thought.  At these times I look at the work spread around the studio, in various stages of their journey to completion.  I forget for the moment how the work came about , about  the fact that the work is not about subject or the scene but about capturing emotion and feeling.  All I see is repetition of form, red trees and red roofs set on mounds and plains.

And for that moment, I panic just a bit.  The delicate thing seems almost crushed in that instant.

But then I focus on a painting and the fragility of  how it came about and what it really is doesn’t seem all that delicate after all.  Though there is often repetition of forms, I can see by looking at this individual painting that these elements are only part of the whole, that, while  they often serve as the central focus of the piece, their importance comes from how they play off the other less obvious elements of the painting to create the real feel of it.  People are not moved by the tree but by the sense of feeling that the tree evokes within the painting. 

It’s not subject but the emotion captured that makes each piece unique. 

And with that realization in hand, I feel free once again to go back into the rhythm, that rare and delicate thing.

The painting above is a new one that fits perfectly with this post.  It is a 10″ by 16″ painting on paper that I call Beeswing,  after a line from a Richard Thompson song of the same name that has as its chorus the line, ” she was a rare thing, fine as a bee’s wing…”  There  is a delicacy in this piece, a fineness of form that makes the moment of it seem forever fragile.  When I look at it all I can think of are those incredibly rare moments of absolute happiness, when the outer world is completely forgotten and there is a clarity of joy in myself.  A fleeting feeling, rare and delicate, fine as a bee’s wing.

Here’s the song from Richard Thompson—-

 

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Done!?

Posted in Favorite Things, Painting, Recent Paintings, Technique/History, tagged , , , , , , on March 2, 2012| 9 Comments »

Well, I am finished with the large canvas I started over three weeks ago.  It is the largest piece in size I’ve ever attempted by quite a bit at 54″ by 84″ which I often found intimidating at times, as I freely admitted here.  But that intimidation and fear faded over the weeks as the painting evolved, moving from the darkness in which it began to the vibrant brightness of the finished product.  This shift in tone mirrored my own shift in my feelings for the painting.  I began with a fearful anxiety that began to ease with each new layer of color added.  I began to feel a lightness in myself as the piece began to find its unity and rhythm and a sense of confidence when it began to start taking on a life of its own as it neared completion.

It was interesting  to see how its domination of the studio space changed.  At first, its size and darkness made it seem at times like a big canvas eclipse blocking out and absorbing all incoming light.  But near the end it bagan to have its own glow, seeming to give off more light than it absorbed.  Even after the large floodlight under which I work was turned off, its glow cut through the hazy darkness.  Those moments of seeing that really struck me and gave me a real sense that it was becoming what I hoped for it. 

 As the final strokes went on to the Red Tree that stands above the lake, bringing the piece into a state of completion, it began to move completely into its own realm, its own life.   I felt like a parent watching their child move out of their home and into their own life.  The  influence of the parent is evident but there is a point where the child moves on, no longer dependent on the parent.  It is a moment filled with both the joy of  pride and the sadness of loss. 

 Like this parent, I feel both of these emotions.  I am proud of how this painting has come around and grown into something strong and viable but sad that my time with it has come to an end.   Well, close to an end.  I will spend the next few months with it, making little tweaks here and there.  Nothing large.  Just a tiny  rounding of the edges here and a smoothing of the line there. 

I’m calling this painting The Internal Landscape.  I will discuss this at a later date along with some other observations about it.  But for now, I’m going to simply stand back and take it all in again.

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One Thing Leads to Another

Posted in Influences, Painting, Recent Paintings, Technique/History, tagged , , , , on February 27, 2012| 1 Comment »

Not too long ago, I displayed a Chuck Close quote where he said that work is inspiration in itself, that by simply steadfastly doing  what you do will open up creative avenues to follow.  I frimly believe that and have experienced it on many occasions including just this past week. 

 As I have been documenting, I am working on a large canvas, which is nearing completion, by the way.  I showed, in a post last week, how I would cut the image into sections to weigh the strength of each area of the canvas to make sure that it had its own visual power to contribute to the painting as a whole.  I showed the two section from each edge of the canvas and concluded that both pieces stood up well as strong parts of the overall painting as well as compositions in their own rights. 

 In fact, the section from the far right kept me coming back to it.  I really liked the way it flowed upward with each piece interacting with those around it, creating a lovely harmony that really worked well, for my personal taste, at least.  It gave me a great sense of peace looking at it and I soon began exploring ways to make it work in a separate piece.

I felt a real sense of immediacy in creating something based on this and, searching the studio, realized I didn’t have any prepared surfaces ready in any dimension close to what I was seeing in my head.  There was a painting that was in a later state of completion, one that I had mentioned here recently.  It never really sang for me and had sat in a corner of the studio for quite  a long time, just waiting for me to give it the needed attention.  But every time I looked at it, I was less than inspired.  It just wasn’t working. 

 So, looking at it as a possible new surface to paint, it wasn’t a difficult decision to paint over  the image that had never really taken off for me.  It wasn’t a perfect choice, a bit smaller and narrower than the inspiring image, shown here to the left.  The original is somewhere in the 24″ wide by 54″ range whereas this piece is only 10″ wide by 30″ high, making it a much more condensed space in which to work.

  The resulting image is therefore different, which is as it should be.  It is inspired by, not a copy of, the original image.  For me, it flows in much the same manner and has the same sort of feel and harmony.  It works for me and having said that creates its own new sense of inspiration for other work to come.  Just like Chuck Close said– one thing leads to another.

 

 

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