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Archive for the ‘Video’ Category

I Will Dare

Posted in Favorite Things, Music, Video, tagged , , , , on November 3, 2013| 5 Comments »

GC Myers-The Song We Carry smAs I have noted way too many times lately, I am in the midst of getting work ready for a solo show, Alchemy,  at the Kada Gallery in Erie that opens in two weeks, on November 16th.  With just a week to go before I deliver the work to the gallery there is still a lot to do.  I am finishing up photography on the paintings, matting the pieces on paper, varnishing those on canvas and staining frames.

It’s tedious and takes me away from painting so it’s one part of my job that I don’t really enjoy too much, outside of that moment when I see a painting for the first time fully presented.  Especially those pieces on paper.  There’s something quite magical about the transformation from the image itself on a bare sheet of watercolor paper to seeing it in its mat and frame.  It’s the difference between seeing a gem stone on a tray or in a beautiful setting.  The gem is still lovely outside of the setting but the setting focuses it, holds it up for the world to see.

So, tedious as it may be, it has to be done and I am off to stain and varnish this morning.  By the way, the painting at the top is The Song We Carry and is headed to this show as well.

I thought this would be a good day to hear from one of my favorites from back in the day,  The Replacements from the early 80’s.  This Minneapolis band was tremendously influential on the music of the 90’s, especially the sounds that came to be known as grunge or alternative rock.  This song, I Will Dare, is from their 1984 album, Let It Be.  Good sounds to start a working Sunday…

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Led to Gold

Posted in Favorite Things, Music, Video, tagged , , , , on October 30, 2013| Leave a Comment »

Michael Mattice hand and strings from videoI’ve written several times here over the summer about my friend Michael Mattice‘s  debut album,  Comin’ Home.  It has been really well received here and abroad,  drawing great reviews from a number of different venues. Below is the first video from the album of the song, Led to Gold, a favorite of mine from the album as it really highlights his abilities on the guitar.  The video has a few DC landmarks recognizable to most as well as the lesser known but  no less spectacular Great Falls, just above DC on the Potomac.  It’s a really well done video to a strong song.

It’s been interesting watching Mike’s creative arc over the past several months.  In September, we spoke at length about the ebb and flow that comes with creativity, especially in how the public reacts to it–overnight success is seldom as quickly gained as it appears on the surface,  I advised that he not be too swept up in this waxing and waning in the short-term and we both agreed that  patience and trust in your own abilities and vision are key to maintaining your course.  If you stay true to your vision, people will come around eventually.   And in Mike’s case, I believe this absolutely true.

Hope you’ll enjoy this!

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Long Live Lou

Posted in Favorite Things, Influences, Music, Video, tagged , , , on October 28, 2013| 2 Comments »

lou-reed-transformer-imageLou Reed died yesterday at the age of 71.

Lou always found his way into my listening life.  I wrote about Lou a few years back on this blog, recounting how I played his album Rock N Roll Animal all day one Christmas when I was an early teen, filling the house with the strains of Heroin and Sweet Jane.  A few years later, one of my prize finds from scouring the bargain bins at the local Newberrys store were a couple of early Velvet Underground recordings– on eight-track tapes.  I still chuckle at the idea of Lou and the Velvets  on one of those big clunky tapes.  I remember driving with a shoe box filled with tapes to play in the car.  I think there were maybe ten tapes.

But Lou was there, on one of those huge dinosaur cartridges.  It was as unpolished as anything I had heard.  Bad recordings and Lou’s flat vocals which sounded even more strained on these recordings.  But there was something there that transcended the sound quality or even Lou’s voice.  It was real expression.  Not raw emotion, but  restrained expressions of deeper feelings.  The sensation I got is similar to that which I get now from looking at great Outsider art.  It is  work that somewhat takes the form of more traditional art  but is less concerned with the technical aspects and more centered on getting across the feeling and the individual voice of the artist behind the picture.  They can appear crude but sometimes there is a pure beauty in them, one that speaks across the wider range.  Real art.

That’s what I heard in Lou’s songs for many years.  Sorry to see him go.

There are many songs from Lou that I could play here but I want to hear Perfect Day.  It’s a song that I forget at times but when I come across it, find it sticking in my mind for weeks. Hope yours is a perfect day…

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Stranger in a Strange Land

Posted in Biographical, Early Paintings, Favorite Things, Influences, Music, Personal Mythology, Video, tagged , , , , , , , on October 20, 2013| 3 Comments »

GC Myers Stranger (In a Strange Land) -I featured an older piece here on the blog last month, a painting that was considered my Dark Work from around 2002.   The piece shown above is another of these paintings and is one that I have always considered solely mine.  I very seldom consider a painting being for myself only but this one has always felt as though it should stay with me.  It is titled  Stranger (In a Strange Land) which is derived from the title of Robert Heinlein’s famous sci-fi novel which in turn  was derived from the words of Moses in Exodus 2:22.

The landscape in this piece has an eerie, alien feel to it under that ominous sky.  When I look at it I am instantly reminded of the feeling of that sense of not belonging that I have often felt throughout my life, as though I was that stranger in that strange land.  The rolling field rows in the foreground remind me just a bit of the Levite cloth that adorned Moses when he was discovered in the Nile as an infant, a symbol of origin and heritage that acts as a comforting element here, almost like a swaddling blanket for the stranger as he views the landscape before him.

As I said, it is one of those rare pieces that I feel is for me alone, that has only personal meaning, even though I am sure there are others who will recognize that same feeling in this .  For me  this painting symbolizes so much that feeling of alienation that I have experienced for much of my life, that same feeling  from which my other more optimistic and hopeful work sprung as a reaction to it.  Perhaps this is where I found myself and the more hopeful work was where I aspired to be.

Anyway, that’s enough for my five-cent psychology  lesson for today.  In short, this is a piece that I see as elemental to who I am and where I am going.  This one stays put .

Here’s a little of the great ( and I think underappreciated) Leon Russell  from way back in 1971 singing, appropriately,  Stranger in a Stranger Land…

 

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Shadowsong

Posted in Biographical, Favorite Things, Music, Video, tagged , , , , , on October 15, 2013| 2 Comments »

GC Myers- Shadowsong smWe are shaped by our thoughts; we become what we think. When the mind is pure, joy follows like a shadow that never leaves.

–Buddha

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It’s an idea that we all too often forget,  that our thoughts can form who we are.  I know for myself, the thought  that I was an artist was the most crucial step I made in becoming one.  Once I had made that decision that, yes, I was an artist, every decision  after that that contributed to me being an artist came much easier.  This was the road I was going to follow and any action that occurred would take place based on that fact.

But it took a long time to reach that point where I determined that I was indeed an artist.  In fact, for quite some time i was embarrassed to say it  when someone would ask what I did.  It just sounded too presumptuous to state it aloud even though in my mind it had become fact.  So I would say I was painter.  It sounded safer.

But inevitably, the person asking the question would determine that what I meant by painter was that I was a house painter and ask what it would cost to get their living room painted.  I guess I looked more  Sherwin Williams than Salvador Dali.  So I decided that I better just say that I was an artist.  Just less confusion and besides, that is what my mind  had already patterned itself in the shape of that word.

And, like Buddha said, joy followed.  Hopefully, it will stay with me like that shadow.

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The painting at the top is titled Shadowsong.  It’s a new piece, 6″ by 8″ on paper,  that is headed to Erie for my November show, Alchemy,  at the Kada Gallery.  Usually when I have an image of a musician, I will follow on the blog with a video.  So, in keeping with habit, here is The Train From Kansas City by Neko Case, a favorite of mine.  Plus , it has lots of film of trains.  have a great day.

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So What

Posted in Music, Opinion, Video, tagged , , , , , , on October 10, 2013| Leave a Comment »

empathyAfter reading a recent Op-Ed piece in the NY Times from psychologist Daniel Goleman provocatively titled Rich People Just Care Less, which puts forward a theory that some of the problems caused by the growing inequality between the upper and lower classes may be the result of a lack of empathy by those in power, I was going to write once again about the the apparent empathy deficit in this world.  But this as far as I can go with it today.  It seems obvious to me that no amount of logic or evidence or words of shame can sway the actions of those lacking in empathy.  Need we  look any further for evidence than the current stalemate in Washington or the case now before the Supreme Court that will effectively take off all limits on campaign donations, further squelching the voice of the least powerful and most vulnerable?

No, I am not in the mood to go on with this today.  I throw up my hands and say “So what!”

Let’s listen to some music that fits the title.  Here’s one of my favorites, the great Chet Baker from 1964 with his version of the Miles Davis classic, So What.  Good music to chill to.

 

 

 

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Tomorrow Never Knows

Posted in Early Paintings, Favorite Things, Television, Video, tagged , , , , , on October 3, 2013| 3 Comments »

GC Myers--Fausts Guitar Popular music has played a huge part in storytelling in films and television in recent years.  For example, this past weekend saw the end of the television series Breaking Bad with the final scene of the series having the song Baby Blue from Badfinger playing as it panned up from Walt’s body.  It was an effective use of the song, neatly tying up the series’ theme of the obsession that overwhelmed Walt’s life.  Some have felt that it was even too spot on but I’m not here to debate that.   It just reminded me of some other songs that have been used  to great effect in this  ( Crystal Blue Persuasion will  be  forever linked in my mind to a montage of meth production from  this show) and  other series.

In the Sopranos, which almost always was brilliant in its choice of accompanying music, one of my favorite endings came when Tony Soprano was particularly cruel to his sister, leaving her home and walking down the street as I’m Not Like Everybody Else from the Kinks played.  It just perfectly summed up the scene and Tony’s self-justification for his often horrible behavior.  Just a great scene.

But I think my favorite came in Mad Men, when ad man Don Draper could not understand why his clients, in 1967, so wanted the music of the Beatles for their ads.  It was all just music to him and he felt that any musician could easily put together something similar to the Beatles sound.  The episode ended with Don settling in at home with a drink after putting on the Beatles’ Revolver album on his hi-fi.  The song Tomorrow Never Knows comes up and the  eras suddenly converge for Don, a revelation that the world he knew is changing, moving beyond his control.  It is a beautiful summation of generational change.

Here’s the song with a film that Neil Aspinall put together in developing a third Beatles movie in 1967, which never came about.  The film would have made a wonderful juxtaposition to Don in the show.  The painting at the top is an older piece of mine, Faust’s Guitar.  I did a few versions of this image years ago and it remains a favorite of mine.

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The Animation of Lotte Reiniger/ Redux

Posted in Favorite Things, Video, tagged , , , on September 30, 2013| Leave a Comment »

The Adventures of Prince Achmed aired again recently on TCM and it made me look up a post that I had written on it and its creator, Lotte Reiniger back in early 2010.  I am so enthralled by her mastery of her medium, which is silhouette animation and think her work should be better known than it is that I thought I would run this post again today along with an added biographical video.  Hopefully, if  you enjoy her wonderful work you will be inspired to look further into her art.

The Adventures of Prince Achmed (1926)I first saw a film, The Adventures of Prince Achmed, from Lotte Reiniger several years ago in a series about early silent films. It was made in 1926 Germany and was one of the first animated films made. It’s a form of animation that Reiniger pioneered and mastered, based on Eastern shadow theatre. Using silhouette figures, each is painstakingly cut and hinged then filmed in small movements with time lapse photography to produce motion in the film. This film took three years to complete. 

lotte-reiniger-11In this telling of the Arabian Nights stories, I was immediately struck by the beauty and movement of the colors in the film. Each cell was tinted by hand to produce intense bursts of color that gave the film a gorgeous surreal quality. The movements of the figures in the film are smooth and natural, very subtle. I found myself so taken with watching the movements and changes that I found myself not following the story. But I didn’t care. It was beautiful to see and sparked the imagination. 

Lotte Reiniger (1899-1981), born in Germany and living most of her post-WW II life in Britain, left quite a body of work from a career that spanned over 50 years, including one of the first film versions of Hugh Lofting’s Doctor Dolittle. She’s pretty much unknown in popular culture which is a great shame. Her work is marvelous and deserves to be seen. 

Here’s a small clip of Prince Achmed along with a biographical film:

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Coincidence

Posted in Music, Personal Mythology, Television, Video, tagged , , , , , , , on September 24, 2013| 9 Comments »

Triple SpiralThe rational part of my brain always wants to shrug off coincidence as mere matters of probability but I still am excited in a way when I experience it, even when the coincidences are seemingly  mundane, not appearing as some sort of cosmic omen or example of the universe’s synchronicity.

Take this past weekend.  I had one of those weird moments when I was singing a song to myself and just a short time later it pops up on the car radio.  Now, that doesn’t seem like too much of a coincidence.  I mean, I’m sure most of us have had this experience, especially when a song is popular and regularly played on our favorite station.  I know this used to happen to me all the time as a kid, when I would be humming a song and would flip on the radio and there it was, almost synchronized in its timing.  But this recent time was with a song from 1967 that was not a classic song but a novelty hit, Judy in Disguise (With Glasses),   from what was considered a bubblegum band of the time, John Fred and the Playboys.

I shrugged it off with a smile.  It is an infectious song, after all.  Besides, who wants to think that their destiny is somehow entwined with this song?

Then on Sunday evening, we were watching the Martin Scorsese produced Boardwalk Empire on HBO.    A few days before this, I had written a post for this blog that was titled Acres of Diamonds, about the famed inspirational speech from Temple University founder Russell Conwell.  The episode this night was also titled Acres of Diamonds and briefly played  a recording of the speech performed by Conwell.

This coincidence gave me more of a pause than Judy in Disguise.  It just struck me as odd that I had chosen to write about this story on just the weekend that it was also referenced on the TV show.  It was a somewhat famous speech in its time but is pretty obscure today.

Coincidence or omen , a symbol of deeper meaning?  Some view coincidence as evidence of a universal consciousness or of God’s directing hand at work.  I don’t know that we can ever know with any certainty of such things.   I know that I would like to believe that these pop culture coincidences somehow demonstrate that I am closer to the center of the labyrinth that is life, but, as I said, the rational part of me tells me to take it easy– if it’s a symbol, it will reveal itself in due time.  If not, it’s just a fun coincidence.

What do you think this is trying to tell me?  Maybe the message was a warning about buying those pants. Message received…

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Alexander Hogue: An American Visionary

Posted in Favorite Things, Influences, Video, tagged , , , , , , on September 23, 2013| 5 Comments »

Alexander Hogue- The Crucified Land 1939

Alexander Hogue- The Crucified Land 1939

Several years ago, I wrote a post about the work of Alexander Hogue, an American Regionalist painter whose work I felt was at the same level as that of Grant Wood and Thomas Hart Benton, though he never achieved the wider fame of these two.  I know I knew nothing of his work before stumbling across his name on the site of a gallery that I was associated with at the time in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where Hogue had spent the last half of his long life, dying in 1994 at the age of 96.

Alexander Hogue- Mother Earth Laid Bare

Alexander Hogue- Mother Earth Laid Bare

His work was a stunning find for me.   The imagery is bold and powerful.  His color palette was strong and unique, with deep saturated colors often alongside ethereal, wispy colors .  His depictions of the southwestern landscape possess a profound sense of place and spirit, filling what might seem like an otherwise desolate scene with a quality of humanity.  His dust bowl scenes from the 30’s are spectacular visions.

Alexander Hogue --Eroded Lava Badlands Alpine 1982

Alexander Hogue –Eroded Lava Badlands Alpine 1982

So, I was thrilled when I read that the exhibit, Alexander Hogue: An American Visionary was opening this week at the Rockwell Museum of Western Art in nearby Corning.  The Rockwell is an unexpected gem for the visitor to this region, a treasure trove of the largest collection of Western art east of the Mississippi where Hogue’s wonderful work will feel at home, although I feel his work is powerful enough to stand among any painter from the last century.  This exhibit displays work from across the many years of his long career, with works from the 1920’s up to near the end of his life.  Hogue worked until his death, which I find reassuring.

Here’s a video from  the show’s curator, Susan Kalil. I love how she describes the attachment of the owners of Hogue’s paintings to the work. I really urge you, if you are in the Corning area this fall, to stop into the Rockwell to see this show.

 

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