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Harmonium

July 18, 2021 by redtreetimes

"Harmonium" - GC Myers 2021

“Harmonium” – At the West End Gallery

If there is righteousness in the heart, there will be beauty in the character.
If there is beauty in the character, there will be harmony in the home.
If there is harmony in the home, there will be order in the nations.
When there is order in the nations, there will peace in the world.

― Confucius

A little peace in this world seems so simple when you break down the chain of conditions as Confucius did so long ago.

If we can somehow find righteousness in ourselves, pushing down our fears and prejudices, we will emerge as caring and accepting individuals. The beauty in the character to which he referred.

With this newfound graceful character, we become less contentious and judgmental, easier to live with. Maybe even content with our lot in life. The harmony in the home.

Nations filled with citizens who are satisfied and leading purposeful lives seldom, if ever, feel the need to wage war. In fact they desire widespread peace so that the balance of their own unity and harmony is not affected or upset. So the  peaceful nations try to help other nations reach this same balance.

And with that done–voilà!— there’s peace in the world.

I realize that you might read this and feel that I am being cynical or mocking.

I am not. It really is that simple.

And difficult.

Harmony is just that– simple and difficult. We want it for ourselves but we fight a constant battle with our own fears and prejudices that sometimes strain the beauty of our characters which throws off the harmony of our homes which leads us to feel dissatisfied and angry. That leads to a nation divided by fear and manipulation which means that the things that need to be done never get done which leads to more and more disharmony. And this spills over onto the world stage which upsets the whole applecart.

Bottom line: No peace in the world.

But I remain hopeful.

Maybe that’s naive. I don’t know and I don’t care.

Maybe I need a bit of naive hope in order to push back my own cynicism so that I can begin to forge that first link in the chain of Confucius- righteousness in my heart. And that has to happen before any of the other connecting links in this chain can be made. We have to start at the bottom and find harmony in ourselves before we can build the rest.

Is it possible? I don’t know. But I do know that if I can do my part, my home will be more harmonious and happy. And if that is all that comes from this, that the rest of the country and the world refuses to forge their adjoining links, I still have  the harmony I have created.

And there ain’t nothing wrong with that.

The painting at the top is titled Harmonium and represents my own simple hopes for my part in this chain. It’s part of my current show at the West End Gallery. Hope you get in to see it.

Now for Sunday’s morning musical selection let’s play a song I haven’t heard in years. Maybe I am wrong but it feels like it’s one of those songs whose popularity in its own era didn’t really carry through the decades that followed. I heard it yesterday for the first time in I don’t know how many years. A lot. But I think that it works for today’s blog and this painting, outside of maybe a little too much synthesizer at its end. The song is Lucky Man from Emerson, Lake and Palmer. What the heck, I’ll throw in From the Beginning, another song from them that I hadn’t heard in what seems like ages. Nice mellow feel for this rainy upstate Sunday morning.

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After the Show, Again

July 17, 2021 by redtreetimes

GC Myers- The Declaration sm

“The Declaration“- Now at the West End Gallery

Well, another opening is in the books, this one for my current show at the West End Gallery. Wasn’t sure this going to happen given the last couple of years and, like I wrote yesterday, was unsure how it would feel to be in that situation again. It was around September of 2019 that I had last been with any kind of group of folks with my work and I was more than a little nervous that I had lost my ability to properly interact with living and breathing people.

Fortunately, much like riding a bike, muscle memory kicked in and it didn’t take long to get back into some kind of rhythm, albeit a sometime shaky one. The crowd size was just about right, not too large or too small at any one time so it was never really troubling as far as any viral concerns. For this show at this time and place, it was a perfect crowd, as far as I am concerned.

It allowed for a bit longer time with people, more than I often can spend at openings in more normal times. And that was really appreciated as I was able to meet a couple of longtime collectors for the first time as well as a number of folks new to my work. And it was great to once again see the friends and acquaintances who I haven’t seen in close to two years. It was good to just catch up even if for a few minutes.

The biggest takeaway from last night was how much I had missed getting live feedback from talking to people and watching their reactions to the work in person. It’s different than getting a reaction to the work online mainly because the work inevitably has more dimension and impact in person. The computer screen doesn’t fully capture the depth or size or surface of the work. Plus there is something about seeing some pieces from a distance or at different angles, something that sometimes shows the real strength of a painting.

In short, it felt good to get live in time feedback. It is so encouraging. I have written before about how sometimes without this feedback, I begin to doubt myself, begin to think I might be heading down paths that are too narrowly defined, that might not reach out to others.

But the affirmation and warmth I received made me realize I was truly missing that aspect. And why wouldn’t you miss that? We all want to have some sort of affirmation and appreciation.

And I definitely received that yesterday. I hope that those who I spoke with received the same warmth and appreciation in return.

To all that came out, thank you for taking some time to spend with us at the gallery. It almost felt normal which is a pretty good thing these days. And to Jesse and Linda Gardner, thank you for taking the great care that you do in making the West End Gallery the safe space it remains, both physically and mentally.

Thanks to all!

Through the Trees is now open and hanging at the West End Gallery through the end of August.

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Showtime

July 16, 2021 by redtreetimes

GC Myers Exhibit 2021 WEG b

To have all your life’s work and to have them along the wall, it’s like walking in with no clothes on. It’s terrible.

-Andrew Wyeth

I have shared the quote above from Andrew Wyeth before and it has added resonance for me this year.

GC Myers- Livelong Day sm

“Livelong Day”

My annual solo show at the West End Gallery, this year called Through the Trees, opens today with an opening reception from 4-7 PM. I am going to be there and am a bit nervous. It’ll be the first time in at close to two years since I have been in a gallery with all of my work on the walls and people in that same space.

You might think that this shouldn’t be any big deal and maybe you’re right. After all, I’ve done somewhere around 60 solo exhibitions around the country including tonight’s 21st at the West End Gallery. I should be an old hand by now.

But every show is new in some way, sometimes revealing new things in the work, new directions. But almost always, a new exposing of one’s inner self to others. You never get used to it, really.

As Wyeth says, it’s like standing there without clothes. And as I said, I haven’t stood naked in front of strangers for a couple of years now.

But for all the anxiety and self-conscious shuddering, I am perhaps looking forward to this opening more than most, mainly because it will be good to see some folks again after such a long time. And it will be good to see any reaction to the work. I have missed that kind of feedback.

So, with both apprehension and anticipation, I plan to lay low and wait out the day until the reception.  Maybe think of something to say that doesn’t sound like the babblings of a mad man.

I don’t think there’s enough time in the day…

GC Myers Exhibit 2021 WEG a1

  GC Myers/ Through the Trees at the West End Gallery July 2021

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Exultation

July 15, 2021 by redtreetimes

GC Myers- Exultation 2021

“Exultation“- Hanging Now at the West End Gallery

Say you could view a time-lapse film of our planet: what would you see? Transparent images moving through light, “an infinite storm of beauty.”

The beginning is swaddled in mists, blasted by random blinding flashes. Lava pours and cools; seas boil and flood. Clouds materialize and shift; now you can see the earth’s face through only random patches of clarity. The land shudders and splits, like pack ice rent by a widening lead. Mountains burst up, jutting and dull and soften before your eyes, clothed in forests like felt. The ice rolls up, grinding green land under water forever; the ice rolls back. Forests erupt and disappear like fairy rings. The ice rolls up-mountains are mowed into lakes, land rises wet from the sea like a surfacing whale- the ice rolls back.

A blue-green streaks the highest ridges, a yellow-green spreads from the south like a wave up a strand. A red dye seems to leak from the north down the ridges and into the valleys, seeping south; a white follows the red, then yellow-green washes north, then red spreads again, then white, over and over, making patterns of color too swift and intricate to follow. Slow the film. You see dust storms, locusts, floods, in dizzying flash frames.

Zero in on a well-watered shore and see smoke from fires drifting. Stone cities rise, spread, and then crumble, like patches of alpine blossoms that flourish for a day an inch above the permafrost, that iced earth no root can suck, and wither in a hour. New cities appear, and rivers sift silt onto their rooftops; more cities emerge and spread in lobes like lichen on rock. The great human figures of history, those intricate, spirited tissues that roamed the earth’s surface, are a wavering blur whose split second in the light was too brief an exposure to yield any images. The great herds of caribou pour into the valleys and trickle back, and pour, a brown fluid.

Slow it down more, come closer still. A dot appears, like a flesh-flake. It swells like a balloon; it moves, circles, slows, and vanishes. This is your life.

― Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

I’ve been wanting to share this passage from Annie Dillard for some time. When looking for something to partner with the new painting at the top, Exultation, it came to mind.

I see this painting as being about the appreciation for the wonder of the moment in this place. Our whole existence as a species has been a miracle of sorts, taking eons and ages for the conditions of this planet to adjust to a point where we might survive and even thrive.

It is a precious and precarious existence.

As Annie Dillard makes clear, the mark made by humans is but a blip in the time-lapse film of this planet’s history. And each of us, from the greatest figures in history to the most humble among us, is no more than a fleck of dust whirling as background noise.

Our time was always going to be limited in the grand scheme of things. It took, as I say, a miraculous concoction of conditions to create the delicate environment required to sustain us. But that environment is equally as fragile. We may well be shortening our own screen time in that film of this planet’s lifetime.

But in our best of times, as few as they may have been or will be, it has been place of great beauty and abundance. A place that allows us at those moments to sense a seeming harmony between the earth, sea, sky, and all that is beyond this world.

Perhaps our tenuous existence on this planet’s timeline makes those rare days even more precious. Times to exult.

Exultation is a 24″ by 36″ painting on canvas now hanging at the West End Gallery. It is included in my solo show there, Through the Trees, which opens tomorrow, Friday, July 16. There is an opening reception from 4-7 PM Friday at the gallery.

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New World Passage

July 14, 2021 by redtreetimes

"New World Passage"-- At the West End Gallery

We don’t receive wisdom we must discover it for ourselves.

― Marcel Proust

This painting, New World Passage, was one of those paintings that started as an idea quite some time ago. Late last autumn, in fact.

It was started with forest trees and dark rolls of land that dominate the foreground, creating almost a fence through which one would look forward. I loved the first efforts on it with the rich blues and magenta having a gemlike feel. The process at that point was all about painting the negative space, trying to balance colors and forms in the narrow slots between the trees to create something more than mere background.

It was at this stage that I ran out of steam. Actually, it was more fear than fatigue. I felt this was a deserving piece, one that was filled with some great unknown and still unseen potential at that point. I just didn’t feel up to moving forward on it out of the fear that my desire to see it finished would cause me to be hasty in my decisions which could easily drain it of all possibility.

It could sink dully back to earth instead of following the life arc I imagined for it. My thinking was that by not trying to finish it, its potential would always be there. Unfulfilled, of course. But there.

So, it sat for months and months. I kept telling myself that I would just finish it one of these days  and would count it among the pieces allotted for my annual show at the Principle Gallery. I missed that deadline, putting it off and saying that it was okay, I would just move it to the West End show. But as the months passed and the West End Gallery show came into form, this painting still sat unfinished in the studio. Its presence was almost aggravating because it served as a reminder of my cowardice and uncertainty.

It taunted me up until the final day that I had allotted for painting before moving on to final touches and framing for this show. I felt time constrained and anxious but made the decision that on that day, this painting would either live or die. I still wasn’t sure where it was going behind that fence line of trees but I dove in.

At first, the small amount of sky was going to be pale to let the deep tones shine off of the lighter background. But after doing a bit, I hated the look. It actually felt like it was sapping away the vibrance of the trees’ colors. I amped up the color, going to the Indian Yellow with hints of red and orange through it that has been my friend and companion for decades now. 

It felt right. It pushed the blues and purples and magentas up further. I added the house as destination, an end point to which the path headed.

Then I added the sun.

I wanted it there as compositional balance but the pale light one that I began with did nothing for the painting. It made the whole thing, even with the vibrant colors, feel bland. I wanted something that made it feel like this was path leading to something unknown, a trail to a strange new place.

Thus, the red sun.

It felt right immediately. No warming up to its presence was needed. It made everything come together. It felt like passing through the common known– just a few trees, fields and hills– to suddenly find yourself in a world you don’t completely recognize or understand. It looks familiar but it feels different., like you are sensing things at a higher level of awareness or comprehension.

I liked it. I liked it a lot. It has the life I had felt it might possess. I was glad that I waited because I don’t think this end point was yet there when I first thought about finishing it. It– and I– wasn’t ready to move on to a new world yet.

New World Passage is an 18″ by 24″ painting on panel that is part of Through the Trees, my new solo exhibit at the West End Gallery in Corning, NY. The show opens this Friday, July 16, with an opening reception from 4-7 PM but you can see it beforehand. 

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Moment Revealed

July 13, 2021 by redtreetimes

GC Myers- Moment RevealedNothing in this world is hidden forever. The gold which has lain for centuries unsuspected in the ground, reveals itself one day on the surface. Sand turns traitor, and betrays the footstep that has passed over it; water gives back to the tell-tale surface the body that has been drowned. Fire itself leaves the confession, in ashes, of the substance consumed in it. Hate breaks its prison-secrecy in the thoughts, through the doorway of the eyes; and Love finds the Judas who betrayed it by a kiss. Look where we will, the inevitable law of revelation is one of the laws of nature: the lasting preservation of a secret is a miracle which the world has never yet seen.

― Wilkie Collins, No Name

This is another new painting from my solo show at the West End Gallery that opens Friday, July 16. It is 10″ by 20″ on aluminum panel and is titled Moment Revealed.

It’s not the biggest piece but it has a lot of power, at least for me.

In the eyes of Wilkie Collins‘ narrator in his 1862 novel, No Name, the inevitable law of revelation is one of the immutable laws of nature. I believe that as well, though I think there are instances of personal secrets remaining hidden during the lifetimes of those folks involved. But in the long term, I believe that all secrets are subject to revelation if there is someone interested enough to do the detective work.

That sounds like I am talking solely about personal  indiscretions and crimes but it also applies on a grander scale, to the big secrets and questions that the universe poses for us simple humans. They seem like unsolvable riddles to us now but given enough time and interest, the revelation of their truth and answers will become clear to us.

Will that happen soon? In my lifetime or in the lifetime of some reader out there?

Unlikely. However, maybe only one or two secrets coming to light– if we can survive long enough as a species– will change all of our perspectives on our existence.

That certainly happens on a smaller, more personal scale. Sometimes, a simple revelation can change everything in your world. Sometimes for the better and sometimes not so much. I would like to think that this painting refers to one such moment, one where the truth is suddenly right there in front of you. So much that seemed cloudy with uncertainty becomes crystal clear in that moment and the path forward is sharply defined.

One’s purpose and place in the world seems to make sense in that moment.

And that is a good moment, no doubt.

Moment Revealed is part of my new annual exhibit, Through the Trees, opening Friday, July 16, at the West End Gallery in Corning, NY. There is an opening reception that I will be attending from 4-7 PM Friday. The show is currently hanging and available for previews. Thank you!

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The Center Found

July 12, 2021 by redtreetimes

9921088 The Center Found sm

“The Center Found“- Now at the West End Gallery

Imagination sees the complete reality, – it is where past, present and future meet… Imagination is limited neither to the reality which is apparent – nor to one place. It lives everywhere. It is at a centre and feels the vibrations of all the circles within which east and west are virtually included. Imagination is the life of mental freedom. It realizes what everything is in its many aspects… Imagination does not uplift: we don’t want to be uplifted, we want to be more completely aware.

― Kahlil Gibran

I came across the passage above from writer Kahlil Gibran (1883-1931) and felt it matched up well with my interpretation of the new painting at the top, The Center Found. I see it as it being about the Red Tree’s awareness of the many worlds surrounding it and its place and purpose within those intersecting worlds.

As Gibran points, out, that comes with the mental freedom of imagination which allows the Red Tree here to see the possibility of these worlds existing.

So perhaps the Red Tree in some of its many iterations could be a symbol for ones imagination. I can see that being true in this piece and in many others and could easily live with that interpretation since it links imagination with awareness.

Gibran is certainly right that we want to be more completely aware. I am not sure that I completely agree that we don’t want to be uplifted in a spiritual sense. I might be taking liberties here but I think he means we don’t want to be uplifted by others, that our uplifting is dependent on our own actions and understandings.

But I understand his point that without awareness, there is little possibility of being truly uplifted. And I would like to think that in this painting the Red Tree has found that center of awareness, that it feels the intersections of all the worlds around it.

And is then uplifted.

The Center Found is part of my new annual exhibit, Through the Trees, which opens Friday, July 16, at the West End Gallery in Corning, NY. There is an opening reception from 4-7 PM Friday. The show is currently hanging and available for previews. Thank you!

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Nocte Bleu

July 11, 2021 by redtreetimes

GC Myers- Nocte Bleu sm

“Nocte Bleu” – At the West End Gallery

Almost without exception, blue refers to the domain of abstraction and immateriality.

–Wassily Kandinsky

Though the Red Tree and the color red play a large part in my body of work, I am a confessed addict of the color blue. I have written in the past about instances of painting with blue where I almost feel an intoxication after hours of having my face inches from it for several hours at a time. I often have to consciously refrain from using the color at times for fear I will fall into an uncontrollable spiral where all my work is nothing but blue.

That might not be so bad, now that I think about it.

But I do let my addiction off the leash periodically, especially for my shows where there is generally at least a handful of what I would call blue pieces. The piece shown here, Nocte Bleu, is an example. It’s a new 10″ by 20″ painting on aluminum panel that is included in Through the Trees, my annual solo show at the West End Gallery that opens this coming Friday.

I almost felt guilty painting this piece, it gave me such pleasure. And it continued even after the process was done. It was one of those pieces that kept me peeking at it while it was in the studio. Just something in it that satisfied a need within me.

I understand that this doesn’t describe the painting or process or help you understand it in any way. But that’s the way it is with us addicts. Sometimes you just got to have the good stuff, the real blue.

For this Sunday morning music I am going to a favorite piece, a sort of obscure song from jazz horn player Richard Boulger and his 2008 LP Blues Twilight. Blues– see? He knows. The song is Miss Sarah, one that I have played here awhile back. I think it’s a great song to kick off a Sunday morning. Try it on for size.

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Day Reborn

July 10, 2021 by redtreetimes

GC Myers- Day Reborn sm

“Day Reborn“– Now at the West End Gallery, Corning, NY

I am dead because I lack desire,
I lack desire because I think I possess,
I think I possess because I do not try to give,
In trying to give, you see that you have nothing,
Seeing that you have nothing, you try to give of yourself,
Trying to give of yourself, you see that you are nothing,
Seeing that you are nothing, you desire to become,
In desiring to become, you begin to live.

― Rene Daumal

In desiring to become, you begin to live…

I wasn’t sure what to put up with the new painting at the top, Day Reborn, now hanging at the West End Gallery as part of my solo show opening there this coming Friday, July 16. I came across the poem above from Rene Daumal who was a French poet and a “spiritual para-surrealist“– I don’t know what that means either– who died from tuberculosis in 1944 at the age of 36. This poem was part of his last letter to his wife just before his death, saying that it summed up what he wished to convey to those who had worked with him.

It has a nice circular pattern that matches well with the circular nature of this painting as I see it, with every night passing into the rebirth of a new day. In that new day there is the potential for living and becoming something more, the possibility to gain a bit of wisdom and to give of yourself to the world.

Every new rising of the sun is a small miracle, illuminating the many gifts this world has to offer. It is sometimes difficult to recognize these gifts when we lose ourselves in negative actions and reactions, falling prey to envy, greed, prejudice and so many more of the other darker traits. 

There’s a tone in this painting that I think expresses the sense of possibility that accompanies the new day. It is forward looking but content to exist in the moment, to simply be alive in the moment.

Not desiring more from this world but desiring to be here.

That’s my take, anyway. It makes sense at 6 AM. We’ll see how it holds up at 6 PM.

Through the Trees is currently hanging and ready to be seen. The show officially opens Friday, July 16, with an opening reception that runs from 4-7 PM at the West End Gallery on historic Market Street in Corning, NY. Unless something changes, I plan on being in attendance.

The painting shown at the top, Day Reborn, is 24″ by 24″ and is painted on an aluminum panel.

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Dispersing Darkness

July 9, 2021 by redtreetimes

9921042 Dispersing Darkness sm

“Dispersing Darkness“- At West End Gallery

People will do anything, no matter how absurd, in order to avoid facing their own souls. One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.

― Carl Jung, Psychology and Alchemy

Well, the show is out at the West End Gallery and will be fully hung today well in advance of next Friday’s opening reception, which runs from 4-7 PM.

There is, as always, a sense of relief in having the show out of the studio but this relief is forever accompanied by a feeling of anxiety in how the work might be perceived.

I know what I see in the work, what feelings and meanings I derive from it. It is created to satisfy and reflect my emotional needs. But how others experience it is always a crapshoot because one never knows what others are seeing of themselves in the work or what they desire to see.

Some folks want things I cannot offer and I have always been okay with that. I do what I do and put it out there, warts and all.

Some folks want nothing but optimism and light. While I understand this desire and attempt to keep my work optimistic and forward looking, I have always embraced a darker undertone in my work. I think it’s because I believe we are all delicately balanced between the opposing forces of dark and light.

The world is also balanced in this way in my opinion. It’s in that area of equilibrium between the two forces that harmony and beauty appear.

I think this is what I am seeing in the new painting above, Dispersing Darkness. We sometimes get out of balance and darkness becomes dominant. The key at these moments comes in knowing that this is only a temporary condition and  patiently waiting it out until light once more comes to push away the excess darkness.

Like the crow on the peak of the roof in this piece.

I see this piece in an optimistic, hopeful way but, as always, that is just my take. You will see what you need to see in it, no doubt.

As it should be.

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