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Hot Licks (Again)

December 6, 2016 by redtreetimes

I was talking with a friend recently about old music.  You know, those groups that we used to listen to but  kind of faded to the background through the years for one reason or another.  The subject of Dan Hicks came up and I remembered this post from quite a few years back.  It’s been gnawing at me for days and this morning I wanted to hear some Hot Licks.  So I thought I’d share.

I was thinking of Dan Hicks and His Hot Licks the other day.  I’ve got a couple of  his albums from the early 70’s and periodically some of his songs pop into my mind.  It’s hard to categorize his music but their was always an eccentricity factor with it.  He’s been around for something like 50 years or more but probably achieved his greatest success with his early work and his appearances on popular TV variety shows of the time.

One such appearance was on The Flip Wilson Show in 1972 which I’m showing here.  I was going to show only this clip, given that it’s such a great snapshot of that time in popular culture,  but I thought it would be interesting to also show him a few years later to show the evolution.  Somewhat.

Anyway, here are a couple of Dan Hicks’ songs for your consideration.  The first, By Hook or By Crook,  is from 1972:

The second, I Scare Myself, is from around 1990 from the short-lived late night show Night Music with David Sanborn…

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Waiting on the Light

December 5, 2016 by redtreetimes

GC Myers- Waiting on the Light 2006Waiting is painful. Forgetting is painful. But not knowing which to do is the worst kind of suffering.

 
― Paulo Coelho, By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept

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I was looking at this older painting from years ago this morning.  It was a late entry into my Outlaws series back in 2006 and I think I only showed it for a very short time in one gallery.  It has floated around the studio for the past decade, never really finding a place of its own in which to dwell.

I wouldn’t call it a great piece.  Maybe not even a good piece but it has a lot of meaning for me.  Every so often I pick it up and find myself captured in the moments that I see in it.

I see myself in it, those early mornings when I find myself wide awake at 4 AM with the wheels in my minds spinning furiously.  Sometimes it is a good thing with something positive and creative emerging from this pent up energy.  Other times, it is sheer angst and I find myself much like the figure in this painting, staring out the window waiting for the dark to recede and be replaced by the first dim light of dawn.

On the good days that light is full of high hopes for what is coming.  It’s exciting.  On the not so  good days it is just a painful wait for what seems to be nothing but the possibility of having enough light to wash away the darkness and maybe spark something to move ahead on.  It is a dull and drab ache, a suffering that I am reminded of in the words at the top from author Paulo Coelho.

So you can see that this painting, though it may not be among the finest of my work, has real meaning for me.  So perhaps in a small way, even in a way that only applies to me, it is somehow a good piece.

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Satie on a Sunday Morning

December 4, 2016 by redtreetimes

GC Myers- Possessed in the Light

gnossienne – n. a moment of awareness that someone you’ve known for years still has a private and mysterious inner life, and somewhere in the hallways of their personality is a door locked from the inside, a stairway leading to a wing of the house that you’ve never fully explored—an unfinished attic that will remain maddeningly unknowable to you, because ultimately neither of you has a map, or a master key, or any way of knowing exactly where you stand.

–The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows

I don’t have much to say this morning.  I just wanted to share a little music from the French composer Erik Satie, someone whose work has always spoken to me in its elegant spareness.  It was a great influence on some of my earliest works.  In fact, I even titled an early piece or two after the composer but I can’t locate the images at this point.

I thought I’d share his Gnossienne no. 1 as played in this fine video from the contemporary Italian pianist/composer Alessio Nanni.  The word gnossienne was created by Satie.  He sometimes created new terms or appropriated terms from other fields to describe his compositions.  Gnossienne is generally thought to simply denote a new form although I like the definition at the top from the website The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows.  It seems to fit the composition very well.

Anyway, give a listen to Satie’s beautiful sounds and have a great Sunday.

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It Is Will Durant

December 2, 2016 by redtreetimes

GC Myers- Archaeology- Rising From Blue 2008Civilization exists by geological consent, subject to change without notice.

–Will Durant

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Quotes on the internet have become something like the fake news stories that have infected that same space.  Many of the quotes are completely false and have never been uttered by the people to who they are attributed.

You can sometimes easily pick out the fake ones.  The language is just wrong for the time frame in which the speaker lived, for example.  There’s a good article from The Atlantic from a few years back that examines how a fake quotes grows in stature and how people hold fast and defensively, to it even after it has been made clear that they were not the words of who they thought had spoken the quote originally.  Sounds very much like people reactions to fake news– they believe and hold on to it because they want it to be so,

Anyway, I came across this quote from historian Will Durant, the author (along with his wife Ariel) of the momentous The Story of Civilization,and I really liked it.  I thought it would pair well with an Archaeology painting of mine from several years back.  It was perfect.

Actually it sounded too perfect.

So I decided to run a check to find the source and quickly found several sites that said that it was indeed a fake quote.  I was ready to toss the whole thing aside when at the last moment I stumbled on a site that definitively did source the quote to Durant.  According to the Will Durant Foundation, these words first appeared in print in an article, What is Civilization?, Durant wrote for the Ladies Home Journal in 1946.  They also stated that it was line that he had used in lectures for many years going back to 1933.

So I am pleased to use this quote knowing that it is not part of the awful cycle of misinformation to which we are so often subjected.

Oh, and by the way, when the Earth has decided that it has had enough of our shenanigans, ain’t nothing we can do about it.

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The Great Mystery

December 1, 2016 by redtreetimes

GC Myers-Moon and MoodThe great mystery is not that we should have been thrown down here at random between the profusion of matter and that of the stars; it is that from our very prison we should draw, from our own selves, images powerful enough to deny our nothingness.

–Andre Malraux

 

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Discovery/Joan Miro

November 30, 2016 by redtreetimes

joan-miro-nocturne
In a picture, it should be possible to discover new things every time you see it. But you can look at a picture for a week together and never think of it again. You can also look at a picture for a second and think of it all your life.

–Joan Miro

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The Dark Work/Redux

November 29, 2016 by redtreetimes

I wasn’t planning on featuring another older blog post.   But in recent days I have realized that some of the struggles I am going through in the studio are very similar to those I experienced in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks in late 2001 and through 2002.  My reaction to those attacks and the the current state of the country has been very similar.  

But there are differences between now and then.  How these will come out in the work is still to be seen.  It seemed in 2001 our angst was a matter of simple light and dark.  Right and wrong.  But the situation now is much different.  It is almost Kafkaesque in its absurdity.  Truth has become a matter of perception and belief rather than factual evidence.  We are no longer facing a darkness from some outside force.  

Instead we find ourselves in a tangle of lies, disinformation and misinformation.  Deeply divided visions for our future.  A giant Gordian knot of our own darkness.  And like the Gordian knot, the solution to undoing this tangle may come from an unlikely person or source.  A unique strategy that involves thinking outside of the box.  Or the stroke of a sword.

While I have yet to act on this impulse, I am seeing my coming work,  much like I did in 2001, in darker tones.  Deeper shadows.  And like that earlier “dark work” the focus and strength of the work will not be found in the oppressive nature of the darkness.  No, it’s strength will hopefully arise from the hope found in the light that will be there.

And there will be light.

This is from back in 2008:  

____________________

A Journey BeginsMy work had a dramatic change for a while in the months after 9/11.  Like everyone, my worldview shifted that day and this was reflected in my work.   It became darker in appearance and tone,  a bit more ominous in feel.   A lot of this had to do, technically, with the way the pieces were painted.  I was using a dark base and adding color in layers on top of this base, slowly building up my surface.  Much like painting on black velvet.  Normally I start with a white base and add layers of colors, taking away color as needed to achieve a desire effect.  As I pulled paint off the surface, the light base would come through and give the picture plane a glowing presence.  My normal technique is basically a “reductive” style whereas this new work in 2002 was “additive”.

Being untrained, these are terms I’ve adopted to sort of describe what I see as my technique.  They work for me.

Night TranceThis new work was not nearly so optimistic in feeling as my previous work.  People were a bit slower to embrace it and I wasn’t surprised at a time when our nation was still reeling.  But it was a true expression of how I felt at that time and I remember my time at the easel with these pieces as being very trance-like.  I would start a piece and have a hard time stopping. A virtual intoxication of color.  Or maybe more of a refuge in the scenes.  I don’t know.

Since the public was a bit more lukewarm to this group , which the galleries call “the dark work”, I have several of these pieces still and I am still both excited and calmed when I look at them.  They are rich and bold and very still in nature.  They may be dark but I still think there is hope in these paintings but it’s a wary type of hope.

And in the end, hope is hope…

In the Flow

Posted in Current Events, Early Paintings | Tagged , , | 1 Comment »

Silence Speaking/ Redux

November 28, 2016 by redtreetimes

 

It’s hard to believe that I have been writing this blog for over eight years now.  It’s become part of my process and provides me with a place where I can go into greater detail about the work as well as receive instant feedback.  The post below was written about this time seven years ago when I was still unsure about the value of the blog to my work.  

GC Myers-Graceful Living 2004Silence is as full of potential wisdom and wit as the unshown marble of great sculpture. The silent bear no witness against themselves.

—Aldous Huxley

____________

I’ve been scratching around in the studio for the last few days.  Straightening up a little, putting things in their places.  Taking inventory, as it were.  Seeing what materials I have on hand and what I’m short on.

I do the same with the creative side of my mind.  I take this time, as I’ve noted in the past, to look back at the year and the body of work I’ve created over this period.  What have I done?  What is strong and what needs to improve?

One thing I’ve done in the past year is the continuance of this blog.  It’s done far better than I ever expected as far as readership and it has become a big part of my morning in the studio.  The feedback has been great and  I’ve taken a lot from the comments and e-mails received as a result of this blog.

But I still worry that this provides too much information about a subject, painting, that often communicates best without words.  I still fear that the impact of my words and thoughts will never add up to anything near the sum of my painted work and, as a result, a seed of doubt will be planted.  A doubt that makes the viewer question their own view of the work.  If I speak and write and eventually expose all my flaws and deficiencies, will the work still stand up?

As Huxley said, the silent bear no witness against themselves.  There’s much to be said for that.  Maybe the silent artist allows the narrative surrounding their work to form on its own, to grow beyond what they themselves may be.  I can see that in some cases.

But I’ve found that I’ve always wanted to control the narrative around my work.  To not let it be spun out of my hands.  So I talk and write.

For better or worse…

The inventory goes on.

November, 2016: You can see that I was still debating whether this writing would overexpose my personal flaws and deficiencies to the detriment of my work.  Looking back now, I have reached the conclusion that this hasn’t injured perceptions of the work– my flaws are evident in the work even without my writing about them.  I’m good with that.  And any worries I had about controlling the narrative of the work have also been unfounded.  I can push it in certain directions but ultimately the narrative is formed between the work itself and the viewer’s mind.  

As it should be…

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Won’t Get Fooled Again

November 27, 2016 by redtreetimes

the-who-wont-get-fooled-againI started off this morning at a very different place than where I finished when I began looking for this Sunday morning’s musical selection.  I started watching videos from Long John Baldry which somehow led to Neko Case which even more oddly led me to Oscar Peterson and Count Basie.

It was all good and fine but it just wasn’t right yet and I found myself watching a video of The Who‘s Love Reign O’er Me from Pete Townsend‘s reworking of their classic rock opera Quadrophenia in 2015 with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra at Royal Albert Hall.  It featured British tenor Alfie Boe singing Roger Daltrey‘s part.  It still didn’t quite come up to the original as far as the intangibles– raw emotion and Daltrey’s vocal authenticity– are concerned but it is still very good and musically powerful.  I mean, it’s the Royal Philharmonic– how can you go wrong with that?

But this just made me want more of that fire that The Who just seemed to ooze when they were at their apex.  And one song seemed to fit these times so well and fell perfectly into my own feelings at the moment– Won’t Get Fooled Again.  I don’t think I need to say anymore.  I also threw in the newer version of Love Reign O’er Me below.  Give a listen and have a good day…

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Fragments

November 26, 2016 by redtreetimes

9913217-fragments-sm“All there is, is fragments, because a man, even the loneliest of the species, is divided among several persons, animals, worlds. To know a man more than slightly it would be necessary to gather him together from all those quarters, each last scrap of him, and this done after he is safely dead.”
― Coleman Dowell, Island People

******************************

It’s been hard finding footing lately in the studio.  It’s been hard to just get started on most days.  There are plenty of factors that play in to this, some external and some internal, some that I can control and some I cannot.  But the end result is the same: I am left feeling fragmented, broken into shards that don’t want to reassemble easily in the form of my work.

I am not worried however.  This is not the first time I’ve felt so fragmented nor will it be the last.  I know that I come apart at times and have to bide my time, just continuing to try to put myself back together so that I may uncover what I know is waiting there for me.

It’s there. It may seem an awfully long way away but I can see it and I know that while it may take time and much effort, I shall be together with it again.

The painting above is a piece that has been with me for a while now.  One of the orphans that come home to reside for a bit.  I wrote about it last year when I thought I might change its name to Dimming of the Day but it still remains under its original title, Fragments, in my mind.  And I suspect it will stay that way.

This painting is based very much on this feeling that I am experiencing at this moment and when this feeling emerges, I often think of this painting.  There is darkness and distance here.  The space between the Red Chair and the house has a certain weight that makes me feel as though there is something more than physical distance at play here. The sky, a confetti-like blend of thousands of little fragments of brushstrokes that gave the painting its title originally,  represents, for me at least in this piece, the world falling out of harmony.

Dark, distant and coming apart.

Yet despite that I find this painting very comforting.  I think that goes back to what I said above, that I know this place well from past experience .  I know how to navigate it and know that the distance is not so great nor the darkness too deep.  And I know that the parts are still in place to come together again in the future if I simply exercise patience and don’t give in.

It’s funny how that works.  I walk by this painting several times a day in the studio and it’s often without a thought as my mind is preoccupied with something else.  But every so often I stop before it and suddenly all of these feelings flood back on me when I look closer.  I’m glad it works that way, actually.

Here’s a nice version of the Richard Thompson song whose title, Dimming of the Day,  I was thinking about renaming this painting.  It’s a strong yet tender version from Tom Jones.  Have a good day…

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