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What’s Going On

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on November 24, 2024| 2 Comments »

GC Myers- And the River Flows 2024

And the River Flows– At the West End Gallery

Our American character is marked by a more than average delight in accurate perception, which is shown by the currency of the byword, “No mistake.” But the discomfort of unpunctuality, of confusion of thought about facts, of inattention to the wants of to-morrow, is of no nation. The beautiful laws of time and space, once dislocated by our inaptitude, are holes and dens. If the hive be disturbed by rash and stupid hands, instead of honey, it will yield us bees.

–Ralph Waldo Emerson, Prudence (1841)

Just going to share the words of Emerson, the image of a recent painting, and a song that will serve as this week’s Sunday Morning Music. It’s a song that I was surprised to learn was last shared here over ten years ago. I always think that I just recently shared it. Maybe because it so often feels appropriate to the time.

The song is What’s Going On from Marvin Gaye. It is from his 1971 album of the same title that is considered by many as one of the greatest albums of all time. This is a poignant and elegant song of protest that was written by a member of The Four Tops, Renaldo “Obie” Benson, who witnessed a violent confrontation between police and anti-war protesters in Berkeley in April of 1969, while on the band’s tour bus. He couldn’t understand what he was seeing, why the police were brutally beating on those kids, kids much like those being sent every day to fight in Viet Nam. It made no sense to him, and he ended up writing this song based on what he witnessed with Motown songwriter Al Cleveland.

His bandmates vetoed recording the song, saying that they didn’t want to record a protest song. Benson later spoke of his response, saying, “My partners told me it was a protest song. I said ‘No, man, it’s a love song, about love and understanding. I’m not protesting. I want to know what’s going on.’“

It’s a great song, mixing great emotional impact with a cool, rational detachment that seeks a calm response to the question, “Why?”

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Child of the Sun

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on November 23, 2024| Leave a Comment »

GC Myers -Proclaim the Day 2024

Proclaim the Day— At the West End Gallery

By health I mean the power to live a full, adult, living, breathing life in close contact with what I love — the earth and the wonders thereof — the sea — the sun. All that we mean when we speak of the external world. A want to enter into it, to be part of it, to live in it, to learn from it, to lose all that is superficial and acquired in me and to become a conscious direct human being. I want, by understanding myself, to understand others. I want to be all that I am capable of becoming so that I may be (and here I have stopped and waited and waited and it’s no good — there’s only one phrase that will do) a child of the sun. About helping others, about carrying a light and so on, it seems false to say a single word. Let it be at that. A child of the sun.

—Katherine Mansfield (1888- 9 January 1923)

October, 1922, Her final journal entry

About ten years back, I came across this final journal entry from the Modernist writer Katherine Mansfield, who died much too early from tuberculosis at age 35, and employed it for a painting called Proclamation. The feel of that painting very much mirrors that of the painting above, Proclaim the Day, which is at the West End Gallery as part of their Deck the Walls show which opened yesterday. The sense I get from both paintings remind me very much of the emotions expressed by Mansfield.

This is a painting that speaks to me of having come to an understanding of oneself, to be willing to stand strong against the prevailing winds in order to show that true identity. It is at once strong yet fragile, flawed yet beautiful. A strength derived from the challenges it had overcome and a fragility in that it recognizes its limits and mortality. Flawed by the scars of attained wisdom and change. Beautiful because it is honest and authentic, open to the elements and all who look upon it.

In these ways, it has become a source of light in its own right or, to use Mansfield’s term, a child of the sun.

 A child of the sun.

If only we could all see ourselves in that way.

Here’s a song I shared a couple of years back. It often comes back to me in a haunting kind of way. It’s a remake from horn player Takuya Kuroda of the 1976 song, Everybody Loves the Sunshine, from jazz artist Roy Ayers. The original is great, but I personally prefer Kuroda’s remake.  Has more of that child of the sun feel in my opinion. But, hey, that’s just me…

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Someday Somehow

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on November 22, 2024| Leave a Comment »

GC Myers- Someway Somehow

Someway Somehow — At West End Gallery

…Perhaps
The truth depends on a walk around a lake, A composing as the body tires, a stop
To see hepatica, a stop to watch
A definition growing certain and A wait within that certainty, a rest
In the swags of pine-trees bordering the lake.
Perhaps there are times of inherent excellence

–Wallace Stevens, Notes Toward a Supreme Fiction (1942)

This new small painting, Someway Somehow, now showing at the West End Gallery as part of their Deck the Walls holiday exhibit, might well represent finding beauty and color amidst the ashes of the everyday. Much like the lines from Wallace Stevens above.

For me, it has the feel of dreaming for me. Maybe it would be better to say dreams set against reality.

Maybe that’s the same thing as what I derived from Stevens’ lines. Not sure this morning.

The lower part of the image is in tones of gray that symbolize the sometimes grayness and monotony of our everyday existence, that workaday part of our lives when we set aside our hopes and dreams to focus on tasks and responsibilities. The upper part is set in colors that represent for me the rare times we find in order to return to those hopes and dreams.

We often find ourselves living in that area that straddles both gray and color, with the hope that we can find a way to live in the color of our dreams. Getting to that place is sometimes a hard road to follow and too many people give up early on. But those who continue do so withe thought echoing in their mind that someday somehow they will reach that place.

The dream of the dream.

Here’s a tune to go along with it. It’s Follow That Dream from Bruce Springsteen. It’s often referred to as a cover of the Elvis Presley song from his 1962 movie of the same name. Springsteen has often referred to the Elvis song as a favorite and covered it a number of times in early concerts.  I had a bootleg version of his cover that I can’t locate much to my dismay as it was a wonderful performance. The version of Follow My Dream from Springsteen that people might know is a reinvention of the song with altered melody, pace, and lyrics that he began performing in the early 1980’s. Not really the same song except for a few lines and its message.

But still effective. I think it fits well with this painting.

As I noted above, Someway Somehow is at the Deck the Walls show at the West End Gallery that opens today, Friday, November 22, with an opening reception that runs from 5-7 PM.

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Moment of Pride

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on November 21, 2024| Leave a Comment »

GC Myers-- Moment of Pride 2023

Moment of Pride— At West End Gallery

Pictures must be miraculous: the instant one is completed, the intimacy between the creation and the creator is ended.

—Mark Rothko

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 inner self and exposes their totality to the surface. There is a transference of energy and thought 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 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. At completion, the painting takes on its own being and at that point is 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 when the air is still filled with excitement and 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 Moment of Pride– because it sums up the feeling felt when that transference has taken place and the piece stands apart, living and breathing on its own. I certainly felt the feeling depicted when completing this piece.

There was a definite moment of transference when this painting made the leap from being me to being it. It had its own story to tell that was then beyond me, speaking with its own voice, its own meaning that it will someday make known to someone other than me.

And they will hopefully experience their own rare moment….

This is a reworked post from 2016. It seemed to perfectly fit the painting at the top, Moment of Pride, which is now at the West End Gallery as part of their Deck the Walls exhibit, opening tomorrow. I’ve been adding songs to most every post lately and I’ll keep that going today.

Don’t think this song fits the painting here but it has a wistful feel much like that feeling felt when you realize that you’ve lost a closeness with someone or something that you will never be able to recapture, so it might. Whether it does or not, it’s a song that like a lot from an album that I like a lot and that’s good enough for me. It’s the title track from the Anodyne 1993 album, the last album from Uncle Tupelo before splitting up the next year as its members moved on separately to form the bands Son Volt and Wilco.

The tune and lyrics have a weary, disenchanted feel that seems to fit my own lately and probably a lot of others out there:

You threw out the past
When you threw out what was mine
Throughout the years
It was hard to make it last

Anodyne, anodyne

No sign of reconciliation
It’s a quarter past the end
Full moon from on high
Across the board, we lose again

Give a listen if you are so inclined. And don’t slam the door when you leave, okay?

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The Heart Still Beats

Posted in Uncategorized on November 20, 2024| 1 Comment »

GC Myers- The Heart Still Beats

The Heart Still Beats— At West End Gallery

We’re so engaged in doing things to achieve purposes of outer value that we forget the inner value, the rapture that is associated with being alive, is what it is all about.

—Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth

Just wanted to share the small painting above that is headed to the West End Gallery who will be hosting an opening this Friday for their annual Deck the Walls holiday show. This piece is 6″ by 6″ on panel and is titled The Heart Still Beats.

This painting holds a simple message for me. Whenever apparent bleakness seems to engulf us, it is important to hold on to the fact that there is still beauty and wonder to be found so long as we keep our hearts open. So long as we don’t allow the sometime harsh bleakness of the world to harden our hearts.

The opened beating heart– and its accompanying active mind– is forever free to find and to create worlds of beauty and wonder.

I see the Red Tree with its bit of color set against the drab gray of the landscape as that open heart. The sun rising over the horizon, also with a bit of warm color, as that distant thing keeps us moving forward. You might call it hope. You might call it a sense of purpose, that thing– a task, a goal, an obligation– that sustains one as they work toward it.

In short, I see this small piece saying that so long as we continue to think freely and keep a sense of purpose, the heart that sustains us will continue to beat.

And that might be enough. It might have to be.

Okay, here’s a song about the heart from Jackson Browne. This is Love Needs a Heart. from his 1977 album, Running on Empty. Hard to believe this song is that old…

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Biding Time

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , on November 19, 2024| 1 Comment »

GC Myers- Biding Time 2007

Biding Time, 2007

Waiting for the end, boys, waiting for the end.
What is there to be or do?
What’s become of me or you?
Are we kind or are we true?
Sitting two and two, boys, waiting for the end.

–William Empson, Just a Smack at Auden

I feel like we are in a period of waiting right now. I don’t know what exactly, but it feels like we are kind of frozen in place as we wait for something to happen that will put everything into motion, for better or worse. Like we are waiting for someone to push over that first teetering domino.

Maybe it’s just me in feeling this way. Maybe it’s just the time of the year as we enter the holiday season and I am reminded of the intolerable waiting for Christmas’ arrival when I was a kid.  I am not quite so eager for whatever surprise is in store for us to arrive as I was then.

But whatever it is or isn’t, we– or maybe just me– remain somewhat frozen in place, biding our time. Finding a way to get through this waiting period is all we– or I– can do.

That brings me to the painting at the top, an older piece from 2007 that is titled Biding Time. I used to periodically paint pieces like this that were extremely simple and quiet. I viewed them then and now as meditations, as a means to finding stillness amidst the surrounding chaos. I haven’t painted one in quite some time for reasons I can’t determine which is odd because I always found most of them quietly effective., remaining in my mind for long periods of time.

This particular piece has not been shown publicly in many years and I thought it was time for it to make an appearance once again. The time seems right. It is headed to the West End Gallery tomorrow, in time for their annual Deck the Walls holiday show.

FYI– The verse at the top is from William Empson, a friend and colleague of poet W.H. Auden. In the poem Empson both pays homage and pokes a bit of fun at Auden while capturing the anxiety of post-WW II Europe that was struggling to gain its bearings amidst the nuclear threat that had risen.

Let’s have a song to go with such waiting.  Here’s a favorite, Waitin’ Around to Die from the late Townes Van Zandt.  This is from the 1976 documentary Heartworn Highways, a film that captured the beginnings of the alt-country movement of that time.  This clip features Townes singing to his girlfriend and his neighbor Uncle Seymour Washington, a retired blacksmith born to ex-slaves.

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little daily miracles, illuminations, matches struck unexpectedly in the dark…

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on November 18, 2024| Leave a Comment »

GC Myers- Moment Revealed

Moment Revealed — At Principle Gallery

What is the meaning of life? That was all- a simple question; one that tended to close in on one with years, the great revelation had never come. The great revelation perhaps never did come. Instead, there were little daily miracles, illuminations, matches struck unexpectedly in the dark; here was one.

–Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse

little daily miracles, illuminations, matches struck unexpectedly in the dark…

We often look for one singular moment that reveals an ultimate truth, something that answers all our questions. Something that gives structure and meaning to the great riddle that is life. In waiting for that one burst of revelation, we often overlook the tiny clues given to us on a daily basis.

We want it to come all at once, easy and simple. But it comes in dribs and drabs, leaving it up to us to somehow put all these clues, those little daily miracles, illuminations, matches struck unexpectedly in the dark together for ourselves.

How do we do that?

I don’t know. I am still groping around in the dark. But every so often a match flares up and for a brief and glorious moment there is bright light shining on everything. Of course, it doesn’t last long and I am plunged back into darkness with nothing but the quick flashes of what had been illuminated– partial glimpses of odd angles and shadows–running through my mind. It all makes sense for a brief instant in which I am filled with a sense of understanding.

Not happiness, not even contentment. Just understanding.

And within an even briefer instant, it is gone and I am once more groping in the dark. But at least I know there will most likely soon be more little daily miracles, illuminations, matches struck unexpectedly in the dark. 

And for the time being, that is all I can hope for. It might be all I ever get so it will have to be enough.

Here’s a song, Everybody Knows from Leonard Cohen, that probably has little connection it whatever it is I wrote about. It’s just that I woke up with this song in my head and it stayed with me while I was walking to the studio in the darkness way too early this morning. Maybe it is one of those little daily miracles, illuminations, matches struck unexpectedly in the dark?

Maybe. Who knows?

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The Price You Pay

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on November 17, 2024| 2 Comments »

Be Careful What You Wish For- GC Myers 1996

Be Careful What You Wish For — 1996

In this world there are only two tragedies. One is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it. The last is much the worst, the last is the real tragedy.

—Oscar Wilde, Lady Windemere’s Fan (1892)

This is a little piece that I did many years ago, that I call Be Careful What You Wish For. It never made it out of the studio except for a brief showing at a public exhibit of my Exiles pieces a few years back. It was never meant to be shown, actually. It was done solely for me.  I can’t say that it’s a great piece of work or even good. But that doesn’t matter because it’s one of my personal favorites. It’s after the old adage: Be careful what you wish because you may just get it. which is pretty much in line with the oft-quoted line above from Oscar Wilde. George Bernard Shaw is sometimes credited for this passage, having employed this same sentiment in his Man and Superman a decade after Wilde.

To be honest, I don’t care who wrote it first. Whoever wrote, it’s a thought I always bear in mind that every desire, every decision comes with a responsibility, a price to be paid that may not be evident on its surface.

 There are always unconsidered consequences we often fail to ponder when making wishes and decisions.

That’s what this small inconsequential painting from 28 years back is about for me. It’s tells a story much like  Pandora’s Box, where Pandora, the first woman created by order of Zeus, is given a box (or jar, in some versions of the tale) by the god Zeus with the instructions to not open it under any circumstance. Of course, she does. Immediately, all the evils in the world are released and, in her panic, she slams the lid back down, trapping Hope in the box.

Part of me wants to editorialize here about the Pandora’s Box that has been opened in the recent election, about the unintended consequences that those who chose to open the box will soon realize. Unfortunately, these darker consequences, the price that must be paid, will be felt by all. That’s all I will say on that this morning.

Just felt that it was an appropriate image for this particular moment. Now let’s get on to this week’s Sunday Morning Music. This is a version of the Bruce Springsteen song, The Price You Pay, from Emmylou Harris. There’s a verse and chorus in there that goes:

Now they’d come so far and they’d waited so longJust to end up caught in a dream where everything goes wrongWhere the dark of night holds back the light of the dayAnd you’ve gotta stand and fight for the price you pay
 
Woah, the price you pay, oh, the price you payNow you can’t walk away from the price you pay

Seems about right…

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Go Ask Frodo

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on November 16, 2024| 2 Comments »

GC Myers-- Follow the River sm

Follow the River— At Principle Gallery

‘I cannot imagine what information could be more terrifying than your hints and warnings,’ exclaimed Frodo. ‘I knew that danger lay ahead, of course; but I did not expect to meet it in our own Shire. Can’t a hobbit walk from the Water to the River in peace?’

‘But it is not your own Shire,’ said Gildor. ‘Others dwelt here before hobbits were; and others will dwell here again when hobbits are no more. The wide world is all about you; you can fence yourselves in, but you cannot forever fence it out.’

—J. R. R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring

Yeah, I know. Another Tolkien passage in less than a week. I don’t think I’ve ever shared another passage from his books in the 16 years of this blog and now two show up in one week.  Guess that’s the way the Hobbit bounces.

I thought conversation between the hesitant hero Hobbit, Frodo, and the Elf, Gildor, fit with this painting, Follow the River, that’s at the Principle Gallery. The painting has an appealingly safe appearance with its blanket of green and its meandering tranquil river that, with the hills rising from it, feels safely walled in from the outside world. It has the insular warmth and security that I am sure the Hobbits felt in the Shire.

But there is darkness ahead. Part of me wants to see the rising moon in the blackened sky as light against the darkness while another part of me sees it as an ominous eye that surveils our every move.

Maybe it’s a bit of both. I can’t quite tell yet. Time will tell. But the message in this passage–the wide world is all about you; you can fence yourselves in, but you cannot forever fence it out— resonates in this moment. Blissful ignorance will not insulate one from the evils of the world.

Go ask Frodo. He’ll tell you.

Here’s a favorite song from Joni Mitchell that I’ve played a number of times in the past. It has the right vibe for this morning. Here’s her River.

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Welcome to Earth (Again)

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on November 15, 2024| 2 Comments »

Sharing Heart– At West End Gallery

“Hello babies. Welcome to Earth. It’s hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It’s round and wet and crowded. On the outside, babies, you’ve got a hundred years here. There’s only one rule that I know of, babies- “God damn it, you’ve got to be kind.”

― Kurt Vonnegut

The words above are from the book God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater from the late Kurt Vonnegut. They are spoken to the infant twins of a neighbor as part of a baptismal speech from Eliot Rosewater, the book’s protagonist.

It seems like a ridiculous bit of advice to speak over infants at a religious ceremony, but the sentiment is striking in its simplicity and practical application.

In nearly every instance, kindness will make the situation better.

I don’t know why I am writing this today. Maybe it’s the shrill ugliness of our society at the moment, marked by naked tribalism and selfish greed.

Or maybe it’s our attack mentality that has become the norm, one where reason and logic are thrown aside and replaced with insults and slurs.

These negative aspects, the hatred and selfishness we are so often displaying, are not sustainable for us as a society. They are the signs of an undisciplined and unprincipled people.

On the other hand, kindness is a sustainable and enduring principle of guidance. It builds up, not tears down. A hand up, not a push down.

Like I said, I don’t why I am writing this. Maybe the thought was that we– maybe just I– needed a reminder that a little kindness does more for the world that all the ugly words spoken with hatred by one person toward another.

So, this is your reminder. We have a short time on this world. Don’t waste your time here being mean-spirited and vengeful.

Be kind to others. Be kind to yourself.

This made me want to hear a little Otis Redding this morning. Try a Little Tenderness. Doesn’t get much better than that.

Have a good and kind day.

I shared this post back at the beginning of 2020 and it has been one of my more popular posts in the intervening years. Even more so when we seem to be in a period of crisis or hardship. Its popularity has really spiked in the past week so I thought it might be worth rerunning as its message is evergreen. But I want to add a word or two to its message of kindness: Be kind but be strong. Kindness is not weakness– it is strength. Hold tight to those values you know are right. Kindness does not include accepting the intolerance and hatred of others.

Kindness in word and action is the bully’s kryptonite.

Welcome to Earth, babies…

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