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We Know the Breed…



Over all things certain, this is sure indeed,
Suffer not the old King: for we know the breed.

–Rudyard Kipling, The Old Issue 1899



I recently came across a poem, The Old Issue, from Rudyard Kipling. It was written in 1899 before the outbreak of the Boer War between Great Britain and the two states of South Africa. I am not getting into the issues of that war or how this poem applies to them.

Instead, I am going to point out how the poem warns of a nation allowing any one person to rise to the level of king or dictator.  Famed Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson, best known for overseeing the Nuremberg Trials in the aftermath of WWII, invoked the passage below in his opening statement at those proceedings:

All we have of freedom, all we use or know–
This our fathers bought for us long and long ago.

Ancient Right unnoticed as the breath we draw–
Leave to live by no man’s leave, underneath the Law.

Lance and torch and tumult, steel and grey-goose wing
Wrenched it, inch and ell and all, slowly from the king.

Till our fathers ‘stablished,, after bloody years,
How our King is one with us, first among his peers.

So they bought us freedom-not at little cost–
Wherefore must we watch the King, lest our gain be lost.

Over all things certain, this is sure indeed,
Suffer not the old King: for we know the breed.

Leave to live by no man’s leave, underneath the Law— Do not allow yourself to be ruled by any person who makes their word alone the law while placing themself above all laws. 

Wise words.

 I was struck by how this poem, in laying out the inherent dangers of a king or dictator, echoes what we are seeing in this nation. There are certain traits that anyone aspiring to total control of any nations will possess that will spur them to engage in similar patterns of behavior. You might call it the Despots’ Playbook.

Below is Kipling’s warning: 

Howso’ great their clamour, whatsoe’er their claim,
Suffer not the old King under any name!

Here is naught unproven—here is naught to learn.
It is written what shall fall if the King return.

He shall mark our goings, question whence we came,
Set his guards about us, as in Freedom’s name.

He shall take a tribute, toll of all our ware;
He shall change our gold for arms—arms we may not bear.

He shall break his judges if they cross his word;
He shall rule above the Law calling on the Lord.

He shall peep and mutter; and the night shall bring
Watchers ’neath our window, lest we mock the King—

Hate and all division; hosts of hurrying spies;
Money poured in secret, carrion breeding flies.

Strangers of his counsel, hirelings of his pay,
These shall deal our Justice: sell—deny—delay.

We shall drink dishonour, we shall eat abuse
For the Land we look to—for the Tongue we use.

We shall take our station, dirt beneath his feet,
While his hired captains jeer us in the street.

Cruel in the shadow, crafty in the sun,
Far beyond his borders shall his teachings run.

Sloven, sullen, savage, secret, uncontrolled,
Laying on a new land evil of the old—

Long-forgotten bondage, dwarfing heart and brain—
All our fathers died to loose he shall bind again.

It’s all there: the surveillance state; tariffs for us and corrupt tributes paid to him; a huge rise in militarization; the intimidation of judges; retribution against any and all who criticize or mock him; the sowing of hate and division; secret money pouring in; teams of lawyers intent on distorting, denying, and delaying justice; our reputation as a nation destroyed with longtime allies turning their backs on us; hired guns on our streets, harassing and belittling the citizens; constant deceit and lying and new alliances with other foreign despots; and all that was gained in the long struggle  for this country– the freedoms and rights we took for granted– lost.

It’s a haunting poem given where we are now. It’s like an echo from the past that has been slowly and imperceptibly rumbling through the deep dark canyons of time and now thunders out into the open, new to us now but just as ugly and dangerous as it was when it has sounded in its past incarnations.

The question is: What are we willing to do to still the blare of this echo of awfulness?



You call me a misanthrope because I avoid society. You err; I love society. Yet in order not to hate people, I must avoid their company.



I have cited the quote above from 19th century artist Caspar David Frederich a number of times when speaking before groups as an explanation for my reclusiveness.

It is said in a tongue-in-cheek manner but there is some truth in it. Actually, a lot of truth.

But we’re not going into that today. Instead, I thought I would share a blog entry from ten years ago featuring Frederich’s work. I have added a few more images to the original post. This is only a tiny sampling from his impressive body of work. 





A picture must not be devised but perceived. Close your bodily eye, that you may see your picture first with the eye of the spirit. Then bring to light what you have seen in the darkness, that its effect may work back,  from without to within.

–Caspar David Frederich



I often find myself identifying strongly with the words and work of the 19th century German painter Caspar David Frederich (1774-1840).  His work often takes a symbolic stance with expansive landscapes that overwhelm the human presence in them and much of it moves toward the metaphysical. He, along with his British contemporary JMW Turner, were at the forefront of the movement from Classicism to paintings that reflected the inner emotional reaction of the individual to the world around them.

It was said of Frederich that he was “a man who has discovered the tragedy of Landscape.” I see this in his often moody and contemplative work. It is not painting of only a place or scene– it is more a painting of emotion, of some inner vibration triggered by what is before the painter. His brilliance is in capturing that inner element and revealing it to the viewer. It’s a rare thing, one that I think most painters aspire to obtain in their own work. I know that I do.

Caspar_David_Friedrich_-_Wanderer_above_the_sea_of_fogFrederich’s work fell from favor in the latter stages of his life but the coming of modern art movements, comprised of many painters were greatly influenced by Frederich, brought him back to greater recognition through the first few decades of the 20th century. Unfortunately for Frederich, in the 1930’s his work was associated with the Nazis who mistakenly saw his work as being nationalistic in its symbolism. I know that the piece shown here on the right, Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog, is often associated with Friedrich Nietzsche’s idea of the Übermensch or Superman. Even though Frederich died years before Nietzsche was born and almost a century before the Nazis usurped his art, it took several decades before his work regained the stature it lost due to this association.

But the inner message of his landscapes persevered, and his paintings still resonate with the potency of their timeless qualities today. As they should.

Caspar David Friedrich- Monk by the Sea

Caspar David Friedrich- Monk by the Sea






Asking Questions

Harmony in Blue and Green— At Principle Gallery



What did the tree learn from the earth
to be able to talk with the sky?

Pablo Neruda, The Book of Questions



Since we’re asking questions:

Does the tree know it is a tree when it talks to the sky?

Does the sky see any difference between the tree and you or me?

When animals– other than us– talk with the sky, do they speak with words? For that matter, do we speak to the sky with words? 

When the sky and the tree talk, do they discuss ponderous subjects like eternity and the meaning of life or do they just chit-chat about things like the weather?

Do the tree and the sky ever sing together, rather than talk?

I don’t know the answer to any of these questions, of course. I would like to think that the tree and sky do harmonize in song together. That actually seems plausible.

Is the sound of leaves rustling in the breeze part of the chorus of their song?

That brings me to this week’s Sunday Morning Music. I have picked Sky Full of Song from Florence + The Machine. Seems to fit.

Before I go, another question: Why doesn’t the sky return my calls?

Does it have a problem with me? Did it say anything to you? Does it think I’m asking too many questions?



Hold On

The Durable Will– GC Myers



Not only during the ascent, but also during the descent my willpower is dulled. The longer I climb the less important the goal seems to me, the more indifferent I become to myself. My attention has diminished, my memory is weakened. My mental fatigue is now greater than the bodily. It is so pleasant to sit doing nothing–and therefore so dangerous. Death through exhaustion is like death through freezing–a pleasant one.

–Reinhold Messner, Moving Mountains: Lessons on Life and Leadership (2001)



I was going to write about the painting at the top, The Durable Will. It’s another orphan that lives here in the studio. The fact that it still lives here is a bit of a headscratcher for me since it has such a strong presence in the spaces where it now hangs. It’s a dynamic piece in both color and stance which combined with its size, 28″ by 28″, seems to make it practically demand attention when I enter the room.

While looking for some words to accompany this painting I came across the words from famed mountaineer Reinhold Messner. He describes how the exhaustion that occurs during a long and rugged climb slowly saps his willpower, bringing on the mental fatigue that begs him to stop moving, to just sit and rest for a spell. 

That might not sound too bad a suggestion under normal circumstances. After all, we all need to rest at some point. But when you’re climbing a mountain where conditions are dire, a lapse of focus might cause a misstep which could send you plummeting to your death. Or the fatigue might convince you that you can stop to take a short break which ends up being the ultimate snooze as some future mountaineer comes across your icy corpse with a peaceful look on its frozen face.

I feel like we’re at that point in this country. We’re on some frozen, windswept mountain, struggling to move upward and, more importantly, to simply survive.  The conditions are horrible and continue to worsen without end. The winds rage endlessly. The snow mounts up and ice coats the trail ahead, which steepens more and more as it rises.

It feels as though we’ve been battling this bastard of a mountain for years and years. Exhaustion is setting in while the mountain is most treacherous for us. Our minds are telling us to take a break, to tune it all out, to step off the trail for a quick catnap. 

That is a recipe for death, pleasant as it might feel in the moment.

We’re on that mountain now, standing on the edge of the precipice of a totalitarian future and a police state that will oversee our every move.  So many who backed this regime did so in the name of freedom, fearing an intrusive and overreaching government. That is ironic because that is exactly what they have enabled in this administration– a government that demands Big Brother-like control over its citizens. 

What do we choose? Do we sleep a peaceful death?  Or do we struggle upward, fighting back against our exhaustion and fatigue and trying to hold on against all odds?

As tired as I am, I choose to keep moving. I believe I have the will to endure. My belief in my ability to hold on might be my only belief at this point.

You have to make that choice for yourself. And remember, it’s not just for yourself.

Here’s Tom Wait with his song Hold On.



The Seeker

Under the Compass– Now at Principle Gallery



“I have no right to call myself one who knows. I was one who seeks, and I still am, but I no longer seek in the stars or in books; I’m beginning to hear the teachings of my blood pulsing within me. My story isn’t pleasant, it’s not sweet and harmonious like the invented stories; it tastes of folly and bewilderment, of madness and dream, like the life of all people who no longer want to lie to themselves.”

― Hermann Hesse, Demian



I have a new painting on the easel waiting for me this morning. I thought it was complete when I finished up yesterday but just as I was leaving, I saw that it needed a small but critical adjustment. I didn’t have the time then to complete it, so it’s been nagging at me all night.  Therefore, I will be short this morning even though the subject deserves much more time and effort than I can give it at the moment.

Today is a triad of word, image, and song centering around the seeker. By that I mean the seeker of inner discovery, of the self. I am including a passage from a Hermann Hesse book, Demian, that was very influential in my life. It came to me at a time when I was struggling mightily and it helped me rethink what my life was and could be. It allowed me to recognize that I was exhausted from the lies I told not only to others but mainly to myself.

Without coming across this book, I doubt I would be painting or writing at this moment. God only knows what, if anything, I might be doing.

I am accompanying the passage with a painting that is very much about seeking, Under the Compass. For me, I see it as being about the inner search though it might also apply to the seeker who still looks for outer validation of their existence. I a also sharing a performance from The Who of their song The Seeker. It first came out in 1970 and this is how Pete Townshend described it in a Rolling Stone interview at the time:

Quite loosely, “The Seeker” was just a thing about what I call Divine Desperation, or just Desperation. And what it does to people. It just kind of covers a whole area where the guy’s being fantastically tough and ruthlessly nasty and he’s being incredibly selfish and he’s hurting people, wrecking people’s homes, abusing his heroes, he’s accusing everyone of doing nothing for him and yet at the same time he’s making a fairly valid statement, he’s getting nowhere, he’s doing nothing and the only thing he really can’t be sure of is his death, and that at least dead, he’s going to get what he wants. He thinks!.

Divine desperation. Maybe that is the unifying bond here, the driving force behind the Seeker.



Natural Selection

 The Heights, circa 1994


Evolution advances, not by a priori design, but by the selection of what works best out of whatever choices offer. We are the products of editing, rather than of authorship.

–George Wald,The Origin of Optical Activity  (1957)



I came across the quote above from George Wald (1906-1997) who was a Nobel Prize winning a scientist whose work focused on retinal pigmentation. I don’t know much about that, but his words made me think about how evolution occurs in whatever we do, how we try new things in order to hopefully make our lives better. We keep those that work best for whatever reason and discard those that don’t, mirroring the process of Natural Selection.

This thought made me think of how this has worked in the evolution of my own work. It has been a constant trial of new techniques and materials. There have been small and large changes, some that have stuck with me and are now built into my artistic DNA. Others lingered for but a short time and were soon took their place in my personal annals as examples of a failed past, like looking in a book of natural history describing species like the Dodo that lost out to Natural Selection.

Thought I’d take this opportunity to share a post on some of my earliest work, sort of like pages from my book of extinct species. Some are gone forever as a result of the editing of natural selection, but some live on in certain traits that have been passed down from them. And as I point out in the post below from 2014, the styles and techniques shown below, unlike the Dodo, can always be reborn by me in some manner in the future. 



GC Myers 1994 Early ReductiveWork6I have been spending a lot of time in the studio in the last few weeks painting in a more traditional manner, what I call an additive style, meaning that layers of paint are continually added, normally building from dark to light. I’ve painted this way for many years and most likely that’s the style you know. But much of my work through the years, especially in the early years of my career, has been painted in a much different manner, one where a lot of very wet paint is applied to a surface, usually paper. I then take off much of this paint, revealing the lightness of the underlying surface. That’s a very simplified explanation of the process, one that has evolved and refined over the years. I refer to it as being my reductive style.

When you’re self-taught, you can call things whatever you please. I’m thinking of calling my paint brushes hairsticks from now on. Or maybe twizzlers. Maybe I will call my paints something like colory goop?

This reductive process is what continually prodded me ahead early on when I was just learning to express myself visually. I went back recently and came across a very early group of these pieces, among the very first where I employed this process. I am still attracted to these pieces, partly because of the nostalgia of once again seeing those things that opened other doors for me. Pieces that set me on a continuing journey. 

But there was also a unity and continuity in the work that I found very appealing. Each piece, while not very refined or tremendously strong alone, strengthened the group as a whole. I would have been hesitant to show most of these alone but together they feel so much more unified and complete.

This has made me look at these pieces in a different light, one where I found new respect for them. I think they are really symbolic of some of what I consider strengths in my work, this sense of continuum and relativity from piece to piece. It also brings me back to that early path and makes me consider if I should backtrack and walk that path again, now armed with twenty years of experience. Something to consider.



GC Myers 1994 Early ReductiveWork 1GC Myers 1994 Early ReductiveWork 5GC Myers 1994 Early ReductiveWork 2GC Myers 1994 Early ReductiveWork 4

Can’t Complain





This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one ; the being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap heap ; the being a force of Nature instead of a feverish selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy. And also the only real tragedy in life is the being used by personally minded men for purposes which you recognize to be base. All the rest is at worst mere misfortune or mortality: this alone is misery, slavery, hell on earth.

–George Bernard Shaw, dedication to Man and Superman (1903)



I’d like to think that I don’t complain much. I bet most people who complain all the time feel they don’t complain much so I might be wrong about that. I’ve been wrong so many times when I thought I was right that I am never surprised when I say something that is immediately proven wrong.

All I can do is take the loss and move on. No complaints.

I’d also like to think that all my losses are mine, caused by me alone. And here I don’t think I am wrong. Any losses or misfortunes I’ve suffered were the result of poor decisions and actions.  

And again, all I can do is take the loss and move on. No complaints.

For me, the only acceptable complaining is when it is on behalf of others when trying to correct injustices or imbalances.  

I guess then I would be called a complainer. We should all be complainers so that we might right the real wrongs of this world that are overwhelmingly being caused by people of incredible privilege parading as victims, endlessly complaining and blaming others for the imagined offenses they have suffered.  

Was that complaint? Could be. I might be a complainer or maybe not. Could be both. Like Uncle Walt Whitman says in Song of Myself:

Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)

In the end, we are probably more of everything we think we’re not and less of what we think we are.

Here’s a couple of songs from singer/songwriter Todd Snider. The first is a song Can’t Complain which pertains here for obvious reasons. Snider is a wonderful storyteller with a droll and goofy delivery that appears in both his lyrics and the monologues that often accompany them. The second, If Tomorrow Never Comes, is great example of this. The painting above, Deep Right Field, actually has some relevance if you listen to the second song.  I found myself laughing at the second song because his don’t-bug-me-and-just-let-me-do-my-own-thing attitude was so familiar to me. Both songs were recorded at a House Concert in Boulder, CO.





Wherever the Wind Takes Me – At Principle Gallery



The worst sin that can be committed against the artist is to take him at his word, to see in his work a fulfillment instead of a horizon.

–Henry Miller, The Cosmological Eye (1939)



Love these words from Henry Miller. I think most people, artists included, look at a piece of art and see it as an endpoint rather than a jumping off point. I would like to think that my work serves both as an invitation and starting point for the viewer. My hope is that my little world as I present it is welcoming enough that they easily enter and feel comfortable. Once there, my wish is that they begin to explore both the space in which they are and the self they see in it. To start an inner journey of some sort, one that might last only for a few moments or for a lifetime.

That’s asking a lot, I know. And it’s not fully in my mind when I am at work because at that point I am fully engaged in my own inner journey. It’s only after I step back and try to view a piece with a more dispassionate eye that I begin to recognize if a piece has that potential in it.

A horizon to pursue.

A starting point of a journey.

Some do. Some don’t. And maybe some that I think do, don’t. And vice versa.

One never knows for sure. And that is the beauty of art. Some see totality and some see endless potentiality.

That’s all the time I have this morning. I see a horizon forming and need to get moving towards it.

Here’s a song from Michael Nesmith, best known as one of the Monkees. This is his take on Beyond the Blue Horizon, a song that was first performed by Jeanette MacDonald in 1930. It’s quirky but still works for me this morning.



Advice: Hard Work

gc-myers-1994

GC Myers- Early Work, 1994



He was justifying his existence, than which life can do no greater; for life achieves its summit when it does to the uttermost that which it was equipped to do.

–Jack London, White Fang



From 2011:

I had a nice email from a gentleman who sent me the image of painting done by his 16-year-old daughter, telling me about a prize it had been recently awarded in a scholastic competition.

I took a look at the piece, and it was indeed a very well-done painting, nicely composed with strong lines and color. It was certainly far ahead of anything I was doing at that age, especially by the virtue that it was complete. It was obvious that this young person had talent, and I could see this young person doing more with it in the future. I wrote him back and told him this but with my standard warning, one that I have written about here before: Potential must be actively pursued with constant efforts and a consistent pushing of one’s abilities.

In other words: Talent is great but doesn’t mean much if it’s not constantly practiced

I wrote him to tell him this, to let him know about some of the young talents I have seen come and go because they felt their talent was something that was innately within them and could be turned on and off with the flip of a switch.

I told him to tell her to look at the work required in the way a musician looks at rehearsals. Perhaps even look at their talents as being like those of a musician, talents that need constant exercise in order to stay sharp and strong. For instance, even if you have great innate talent, you can’t expect to play the violin like Itzhak Perlman if you don’t devote your talents in the same way as he does. As it is with many great musicians, the greater part of his life is spent in nurturing his abilities.

I always feel like a sourpuss when I’m giving this advice. Nobody wants to hear that in order to reach their potential they need to work harder or that they might have to sacrifice time that might be spent elsewhere doing other things. Everyone wants to think that they have this great talent born within them and it will flow like a spigot whenever they so desire.

If only that were true.

I think you will find that those who succeed at the highest levels in any field are those who understand this need to constantly push and work their talents. I’m sure there are exceptions, but none come immediately to mind. I wrote about this in a blog post when I first started this, two years back, in 2009. I wrote about something author John Irving had said about his work habits.

He saw himself competing as a writer in the same way as he did in his time competing as a wrestler. Irving felt that reaching one’s fullest potential as writer required putting in the same levels of intense effort as those needed to compete as a wrestler or any other athlete on the Olympic level. 

Hard work– it’s not glamorous especially in this world of instant gratification but it is a proven entity.

I’m showing the piece above to highlight this. It’s a small painting that I did before I was showing in any galleries, in 1994. At the time, it pleased me very much, though I am not sure I felt it was the best thing I had done to that point. However, it felt complete and self-contained. I could have very easily kept painting in that style and been satisfied in some ways without much effort.

But I also recognized that it was limited in many ways. It began to say what I was feeling but didn’t fully express it. There was more beyond this. I just knew there had to be. A little voice kept urging me to push ahead and work harder, to dig deeper to uncover what I could accomplish with greater effort.

This little painting soon was not an endpoint but a steppingstone on a much longer path.

 I hope this man’s daughter also sees her painting as a steppingstone. She may think now that it is the best thing she has ever done. She might be right– to this point. But if she is willing to push ahead and put in the effort, she will look at it someday as a very fine first step in a journey to reach her true potential.



I think the last time I shared this was ten years ago. Nothing has really changed. Around the time I painted the piece at the top, I read about John Irving comparing his work schedule to that of an Olympic athlete. That really connected with me. By then, I knew that I possessed an ability to work hard. It might even be my only true talent. If for once I was to apply this talent towards doing something that truly excited me, who knew where it might lead? And even if it was short path to nowhere, the time was well spent since I was doing something that had meaning and fulfillment for myself.

I don’t regret taking that path or a single minute spent toiling at whatever hard work there is in doing what I do. Like they say, it’s not hard work if you’re doing that which you enjoy. The hardest work I ever did was working at jobs I hated, jobs where was little pay, fulfillment, or joy. 

My worst day in the studio is better than most of the best days at those other jobs. But making that happen took a lot of time, effort and blood, sweat and tearsthe definition of hard work.

Maybe it is also, as Jack London put it at the top, the justification for our existence.

Maybe…

 

 

I Got a Feeling

NightFlare– At Principle Gallery


I say in speeches that a plausible mission of artists is to make people appreciate being alive at least a little bit. I am then asked if I know of any artists who pulled that off. I reply, ‘The Beatles did’.

— Kurt Vonnegut, Timequake (1997)



To make someone else appreciate the fact that they are alive is an admirable goal for any artist– or any person, for that matter.

I can’t say that it was my mission when I first began painting. I don’t know that I actually had a mission other than trying to find something that would release the pent-up feelings within me. It began as a selfish act, for me alone.

There was never a consideration of its effect on other people. Actually, I doubted that it would have any effect on others. At the time, I didn’t have a lot of faith in my ability to do much of anything, let alone make others appreciate the fact they were alive. I wasn’t sure that I was that thrilled about being alive so who was I to make others feel that way?

But as time passed, the work I was doing, after first being an expression of self for myself alone, became a way of reaching out to people, many who recognized their own feelings in that work. I have been blessed to have heard from so many people over the years that tell me how the work has affected them. 

The effect this has had on me is immeasurable. I can’t say that it measures up to Vonnegut’s mission aim of making people appreciate being alive.  But I can unequivocally say that the reactions these folks pass on to me make me glad I am alive.

Maybe that should be a corollary to Vonnegut’s words, that the mission for the artist should also be to find a gladness for their own life in making others realize their appreciation for being alive.

If so, mission accomplished.

Here’s a favorite song and performance by those very same Beatles. This is from their legendary concert that took place in January of 1969 from the rooftop of their Apple Corps headquarters in London. It was their last public performance. I am not going to try to explain the effect that the Beatles had on everything in their short lifespan, not just on music. There are no contemporary comparisons, nor have there been any since, to make someone who came of age after they were around understand their influence and reach since the world had already changed by then. The shortest way I can describe it as the world was in black-and-white before the Beatles and in full, vivid color afterwards.

I love this performance of I Got a Feeling, particularly that of Paul McCartney, though everyone shines, including Billy Preston on keyboards, though you only get brief glimpses of him.

Makes me glad to be alive. 

Mission accomplished.