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Posts Tagged ‘Aldous Huxley’

Absorbing Quiet

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on December 21, 2024| 4 Comments »

GC Myers- Absorbing Quiet

Absorbing Quiet— At West End Gallery

A world where beauty and logic, painting and analytic geometry, had become one.

–Aldous Huxley, After Many a Summer Dies the Swan, 1939

I am relatively sure that my use and interpretation of this passage from a novel by Aldous Huxley is a departure from its original context. The novel, which is considered by some to be the inspiration for Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane script, concerns an ultrawealthy movie mogul who lives with a Hollywood starlet in a vast estate where he displays the products– rare art, for example– of his unquenchable acquisitiveness.

The novel is mainly concerned with his desire to acquire the one thing he can’t have–immortality. The title of the novel is a line from Tithonus, a poem from Alfred Tennyson. which is about a king who asks the gods for immortality.  It is granted but the king has overlooked asking for eternal youth. As he ages, he grows ever physically older and frailer. His immortality becomes a horrible and never-ending burden.

The painting here, Absorbing Quiet, obviously has nothing to do with either novel or the poem. However, I felt that the line from Huxley above captured what I was seeing in this piece– beauty and geometry and maybe a little logic all coming together to create a moment of stillness. And the Red Tree at the center of this stillness, contentedly taking it all in.

Satisfied with what ii contained in that moment, not craving more. Not immortality nor youth. Not fame nor fortune.

Just content in its place in the geometry and beauty of the moment.

An immortal moment.

True wealth. 

You’ve probably had enough Christmas music at this point of the season so here’s a song to go along with the thought. It’s Baby You’re a Rich Man from the Beatles. It beats hearing Last Christmas for the umpteenth time from Wham! or the seemingly endless string of singers who have covered it.

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Let It Go

Posted in Event, Quote, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , , , on September 19, 2019| 4 Comments »

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One third, more or less, of all the sorrow that the person I think I am must endure is unavoidable. It is the sorrow inherent in the human condition, the price we must pay for being sentient and self-conscious organisms, aspirants to liberation, but subject to the laws of nature and under orders to keep on marching, through irreversible time, through a world wholly indifferent to our well-being, toward decrepitude and the certainty of death. The remaining two thirds of all sorrow is homemade and, so far as the universe is concerned, unnecessary.

—Aldous Huxley

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The painting at the top is yet another new piece, a 10″ x 30″ canvas that is titled Let It Go. It is part of he group of new work that I am bringing with me on Saturday when I head to the Principle Gallery for my annual Gallery Talk there, which begins at 1 PM.  More details on that later in this post.

The words above from Aldous Huxley are from his book, fittingly titled Island. Little known, it was his final book, written in 1962, and presented a utopian alternative to his Brave New World.

I really don’t know the book myself so I can’t honestly depict what it has to say but the small bit above aligns with my own observations on our lives here. We are all subject to the sorrow of simply being alive. We experience pain and loss of abilities as we age and suffer the loss of others along the way before our own life comes to an end. That is simply part of the deal and is to be expected, unpleasant as that may seem.

But much of what makes life sometimes miserable is, for the most part, avoidable. It is our reaction to the vagaries, missteps, mistreatment and insults that life has in store for us that is the culprit here. We have a choice in how we react to these things. We can choose to hold on to these things, to allow them to make us angry or anxious or fearful, or we can see that they are, in the greater scheme of things, inconsequential.

We don’t have to hold on to these things. They can be let go.

That’s what I see in this painting. I know it sounds funny coming from a guy who regularly displays his own anger, anxiety and fears here on this page. I guess even though you sometimes know what the problem is, it takes practice to overcome it.

And I am trying to release those things that I can’t control. Or let go of those things that only do me harm in my holding on to them. Anger and hatred, regret and fear. Just let it go.

I’m trying.

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Speaking of fear and anxiety, my annual Gallery Talk is this Saturday, September 21, beginning at 1 PM at the Principle Gallery in beautiful Old Town Alexandria. This is my 17th annual Gallery Talk there and I think this could be a good one. There’s a lot to talk about and I have some interesting giveaways including at least one original painting! Plus I may even demonstrate my ability to read minds! Or maybe guess your weight. Who knows?

One thing is guaranteed, as I have pointed out in the past:  It will not be the worst hour of your life.

Good conversation, some prizes and a no pain guarantee. How can you resist an offer like that?

Get there early to grab a seat and maybe we can chat a bit beforehand.

See ya’ there Saturday!

 

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Distant Memory/ Redux

Posted in Personal Mythology, Quote, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , , on July 28, 2015| 1 Comment »

GC Myers- Release the Past smEvery man’s memory is his private literature.
—Aldous Huxley
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The painting shown above, Release the Past, is a 20″ by 24″ canvas that is part of my current show at the West End Gallery.  I was recently thinking about it, trying to discern exactly what it was that I was seeing in this piece, when I pulled up an earlier blogpost that featured the Huxley quote above.  It very much was in line with how I aligned this painting, with the figure in the mid-ground seemingly lost in thoughts of the past,  with my own experience.

Here’s what I wrote:

I like this quote from Huxley.  I have often felt that all of our personal lives fit into some sort of mythic template on which all literature is based and that we often fail to see the connections between the tales of our own lives and those stories which have come down through history in the form of myth and legend.  We all live lives that are often filled with tragedy , comedy and drama.  Heroic, even.  But we seldom perceive them as such, instead thinking of our personal memories as being merely mundane. 
 
And that’s probably as it should be.  Life is spent, for the most part, moving forward in small, day-to-day steps with little time left to see the larger pattern of our lives.  Who has the time to reflect backwards, to see how our lives fit into the templates of eternity?  Very few of us, to be sure.  But what if we could take that time to look back fully and see the patterns set in history and to see that our lives own patterns mesh into that pattern, that we are all indeed connected to and part of the same fabric?
 
Would it make a bit of difference?  Would it make us appreciate the fragility and rareness of  each individual’s place in this world. make us understand that our own history is the history of all and that our memory binds us to the fabric of history?
 
I don’t know.  But it’s something to think about.

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Memory Way

Posted in Influences, Personal Mythology, Quote, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , , on February 4, 2014| 4 Comments »

GC Myers-Memory Way smEvery man’s memory is his private literature.

-Aldous Huxley

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As I have stated in the past here, the Red Chair, an icon that often appears in my work, is a symbol to me of people and places and experiences from the past.  In short, my memory.  In this new piece, Memory Way, that is most certainly the case.  This little painting, 2″ by 5″ on paper, is another of my pieces from the Little Gems exhibit which opens Friday at the West End Gallery.

The road here represents to me the continuum of time.  The landscape is almost idyllic, perhaps representing my tendency to block out the worst parts of memory.  At least, to downplay them and keep them in the background and to put what good there was there in the best possible light.  I like to revisit the past occasionally and I have to make it a place where I am comfortable.  A past filled with nothing but dark and fear-filled memories is no place to venture on a regular basis.

Anyway, this little piece makes me happy and fills my mind with a feeling of good memories.  As Huxley said  above, our memory is our own private literature, filled with the memories of our lives and the lives of our ancestors.  I sometimes edit, embellish and redact my life’s literature, all to make it an interesting read for myself.

That’s what I see in this little guy.

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Distant Memory

Posted in Biographical, Quote, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , on May 24, 2012| 3 Comments »

Every man’s memory is his private literature.

—Aldous Huxley
 
 
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I like this quote from Huxley.  I have often felt that all of our personal lives fit into some sort of mythic template on which all literature is based and that we often fail to see the connections between the tales of our own lives and those stories which have come down through history in the form of myth and legend.  We all live lifes that are often filled with tragedy , comedy and drama.  Heroic, even.  But we seldom perceive them as such, instead thinking of our personal memories as being merely mundane. 
 
And that’s probably as it should be.  Life is spent, for the most part, moving forward in small, day-to-day steps with little time left to see the larger pattern of our lives.  Who has the time to reflect backwards, to see how our lives fit into the templates of eternity?  Very few of us, to be sure.  But what if we could take that time to look back fully and see the patterns set in history and to see that our lives own patterns mesh into that pattern, that we are all indeed connected to and part of the same fabric?
 
Would it make a bit of difference?  Would it make us appreciate the fragility and rareness of  each individual’s place in this world. make us understand that our own history is the history of all and that our memory binds us to the fabric of history?
 
I don’t know.  But it’s something to think about.
 
Funny how the mind works.  I meant to write about the painting above, a new piece  called Distant Memory (  10″ by 16″ on paper) set for my Principle Gallery show early next month and suddenly find myself off on a theoretical journey.  Maybe its the way the foreground of the painting, with the converging rows of the field,  relates to the house and tree across the water in the upper half of the painting.  I get a sense of looking back from the present, taking a pause from the labor of the moment,  which is represented in the rows,  to a personal past set around that house that reminds me very much of the farmhouses of my youth, often taking me back to different points of my own life, my own connections to templates of time.  Even the overall color of this piece sets that tone of memory for me.  There is  something in that green that reminds me of the ferns that my mother dug up many years ago from the hillside above the Chemung River and planted in the shade of the old farmhouse that we lived in for much of my childhood.  That green often brings back that memory, one filled with an air of  coolness and the smell of damp, rich soil.  A good memory.
 
Okay. Enough for now.  Work and the present calls.  I have my own fields to tend to now.
 
 

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Silence Speaking

Posted in Opinion, Painting, Quote, tagged , , on November 25, 2009| Leave a Comment »

Silence is as full of potential wisdom and wit as the unshown marble of great sculpture. The silent bear no witness against themselves.

—Aldous Huxley

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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, 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 as an art, 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 many 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.

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