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Posts Tagged ‘Dreams’

If I Can Dream

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on August 31, 2025| Leave a Comment »

Lux Templi-At the West End Gallery

I dream’d in a dream, I saw a city invincible to the attacks of the
whole of the rest of the earth;
I dream’d that was the new City of Friends;
Nothing was greater there than the quality of robust love—it led the
rest;
It was seen every hour in the actions of the men of that city,
And in all their looks and words.

— Walt Whitman, I Dream’d in a Dream (1855)

Keeping it simple this morning since it is a Labor Day weekend. The theme today is dreaming of a better world and though it might seem that has little to do with the work or labor that is celebrated by this holiday, there is a connection.

After all, why do we work?

To provide a better life for ourselves.

Though it might seem like we toil simply to survive at times, we all still maintain a dream of a better world for ourselves in some form.

I would like to think that it is not asking too much that we extend that dream of betterment to all others. Wouldn’t our personal world be enriched and made better by the fulfillment of such a dream?

That’s all I have to say this morning. I have work to do. It might not better my life or anyone else’s in any way, but I am still going to make the effort. It’s all we can do– make an effort.

Here’s a bit of Sunday Morning Music. I went with two biggies today, two American icons– Walt Whitman and Elvis Presley. The song is If I Can Dream from Elvis’ legendary Comeback Special in 1968. I remember watching this as a kid with my dad and even then, being impressed with how hard this guy was working for our approval. You may or not be an Elvis fan, but there is no denying that the man is working hard here.

Dreams take that kind of effort.

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The Weight of Dreams…

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on August 6, 2025| Leave a Comment »

Night’s Dream— At Principle Gallery

“As I thought of these things, I drew aside the curtains and looked out into the darkness, and it seemed to my troubled fancy that all those little points of light filling the sky were the furnaces of innumerable divine alchemists, who labour continually, turning lead into gold, weariness into ecstasy, bodies into souls, the darkness into God; and at their perfect labour my mortality grew heavy, and I cried out, as so many dreamers and men of letters in our age have cried, for the birth of that elaborate spiritual beauty which could alone uplift souls weighted with so many dreams.”

—W.B. Yeats, Rosa Alchemica (1896)

It seems like each new day sees us bearing witness to yet another outrage, often greater than that of the day before which was greater than the day before it. This downward and backward spiral goes on and on to a point not so long ago when those with darkest and most amoral souls were vilified and ostracized, not idolized and elevated before the public in the way we are currently experiencing.

Those days, though not so long ago, seem like ancient history now as the behavior of the worst of us grows at an alarming geometric pace. To those of us who wish to lead a simple, quiet, and peaceful life that sees us doing no harm to others and others doing no harm to us, these days feel like we are being beaten down with a bag of oranges, each blow hurting a bit more until we are in a state of numb submission.

The dreams and aspirations of so many that once seemed to be within reach now feel even further removed, distant like the stars in the sky. It is a time when dreams fall by the wayside. It begs the question that the poet Langston Hughes asked in his poem Harlem:

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore—
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over—
like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

What will happen with the dreams of so many being not only deferred, but destroyed?

I don’t know. It certainly feels that is must be sagging like heavy load for many folks at this point. Or like they are furiously treading water just trying to stay afloat.

The question remains: How does one keep their dreams alive in times such as these?

Maybe that is one purpose of the spiritual element of art in all its many forms–to lift our vision and our spirit, to inspire creative thought and action that will transcend the horror that stalks the present moment. To stave off the drying up, the festering, the stinking rot, and crusting over so that dreams may be kept alive. 

Maybe.

And if it explodes? Maybe art then provides guidance and unity through the explosion as well as a reminder of who we are and the values we hold dear.  And in the aftermath of the explosion it may serve as a template to follow in our rebuilding so that the errors that brought us to this point are not repeated. 

Well, until time and a new darkness clouds our memories once more and we begin a similar downward spiral.

My dream is that we don’t forget, that we are lifted up and dreams continue to be both dreamed and realized by many folks, not just those privileged few who dream of hoarding everything for themselves.

Here’s a little-known song from Bruce Springsteen that I am pretty sure has not been shared here before. It’s called Dream Baby Dream. I saw him perform this once during a solo show in 2005 that featured only him and his guitar, his piano, and for this song, a pump organ. It is a spare, simple song and its sound mounted throughout so that it became almost mantra.

Very powerful. A mantra for our times, perhaps.

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You Dream Too Much

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on October 6, 2024| Leave a Comment »

GC Myers- Night's Dream

Night’s Dream–At Principle Gallery

If a little day-dreaming is dangerous, the cure for it is not to dream less but to dream more, to dream all the time.

–Marcel Proust, Within a Budding Grove (1919)

Time for some Sunday Morning Music. And that’s all. I have too much dreaming ahead of me this morning to spend much time here. Feel like I might be in a dream deficit. I would explain but I have said too much already.

Let’s just leave it with a line from Proust, a painting of mine from the Principle Gallery, and a song from a longtime favorite album by Richard Thompson. This is You Dream Too Much from his 1991 Rumor and Sigh album.

Do what you will with this triad then hit the road, folks– you’re standing on my dreams…

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Chain of Fools

Posted in Current Events, Music, tagged , , , on March 6, 2018| 2 Comments »

Don’t like to mention my dreams too often here but I woke up this morning from one where I had just put on an album on an old record player and the first song was Frank Sinatra singing the Aretha Franklin classic Chain of Fools, a song I am pretty sure Sinatra never covered. He did a pretty good job with it in my dream.

I didn’t have to think too much about where this dream originated.  Watching the craziness that goes along with this completely dysfunctional White House and everything that is related to it, especially the ongoing Russian investigation, is mind-boggling.  The ineptitude, greediness and sheer ignorance  that reveals itself on a daily basis is totally nuts, especially yesterday’s manic meltdown on national television by Sam Nunberg, a former aide to the person some folks still consider to be the president of these United States.

You can see it all beginning to crumble and fall apart before your eyes. It’s like sitting in a huge stadium where the entire field is filled with standing dominoes. As you watch nothing seems to be happening for the longest time. Nothing is moving. Then at the edge you notice a tiny shift and suddenly dominoes are falling in what seems to be large chunks in every direction.

As all of this is happening, the obnoxious stadium announcer is yelling over and over, “Fake News!”

And in the blink of an eye, it is over.

I have a feeling that is what we are watching at the moment. The tiny shift at the edge of the pattern has taken place.

The dominoes are tumbling.

So, first thing this morning, I  get into the studio and find a version of Aretha’s Chain of Fools with the lyrics shown.  As it plays, I am struck how the words of the song could apply to the people who thought this was a good idea in the first place, those folks who voted to turn this country into the world’s largest dumpster fire. Fools backing a fool and a liar.

The chain of fools- and I think I am being kind to say that they are just fools- has been broken.

Couldn’t find a Sinatra version so give a listen to Aretha and pay attention to the lyrics.

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In the Dreamlight

Posted in Biographical, Quote, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , , , , on March 29, 2016| 4 Comments »

GC Myers- In the DreamlightI’ve dreamt in my life dreams that have stayed with me ever after, and changed my ideas: they’ve gone through and through me, like wine through water, and altered the colour of my mind.

—Emily Bronte, Wuthering Heights

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

This is another new painting that is slated for my annual show, Part of the Pattern, at the Principle Gallery which opens June 3.  I call this piece, a 36″ by 12″ canvas, In the Dreamlight.  It has, at least to my eye, a contrasting feeling of vague dreaminess along with one of ultra-clarity.  Kind of like the feeling of those dreams that I have had that linger with me for years afterward.

I think we may have all had those dreams, those visions that reveal some mystery and spark some sort of inner questioning.  I still vividly remember several dreams from my childhood and, much like Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights character Catherine’s words shown above, they have altered the color of my mind.

Often, I find myself flashing back to those dreams, rerunning and experiencing once again portions of them in my present mind.  They are often enigmatic and filled with a mystery that begs to be answered.  And my mind believes they are answerable if I look long and hard enough.

In some ways I believe that is the purpose of my work– to somehow uncover the answers to these dreamed questions.  If the dreams are symbolic, might not the answer be found in a like symbolism?

As it is with all so  many things, I don’t know the answer.  But this painting reminds me of that feeling, that sense of being so near to the center of the mystery yet never quite being able to truly know the answer.

But maybe if I look once more, I will see what I’m seeking…

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Dreaming

Posted in Biographical, Personal Mythology, tagged on October 5, 2010| Leave a Comment »

Woke up late this morning, tired from a night filled with irritating dreams.  Not horrifying.  Not filled with tension.  Just irritating.  Many, many fast-paced scenarios of things that just bugged me but were of no consequence, like trying to rake leaves with a rake whose handle keeps coming loose.   I woke once after one such episode and was angry for having been disturbed from my sleep for such an irksome little nothing.

As a result, I find myself here this morning with little to say but still a little peeved about my dreams of last night.  I wish I had experienced better dreams, even scary ones, so my mind would be at least somewhat sparked.  I’ve had some great dreams over the years but I can’t share them.  Too personal and in some cases, too startling  and a bit disturbing.

The one dream that still lingers in my memory is one that occurred many years ago when I was a child, perhaps 8 or 9 years old.  It was an odd dream, very calm and quiet but filled with a tension I couldn’t identify.  It was a short scene that took place in a very narrow space, perhaps only 4 foot wide,  with a wall on the right hand side from the viewpoint I had in the dream and  windows with sheer curtains on the left that let in bright, almost white sunlight.  In this little space there was a small girl, bathed pale in the white light, who looked at me curiously but without fright.  At this point, my viewpoint in the dream shifted from the person looking at the girl to that of the girl looking at me.  From her viewpoint I saw myself as a Nazi soldier with that distinct helmet and winter coat.  There was a feeling that I, now the girl, had been discovered in my hiding place but that the soldier was not the threat.

It was an odd dream and one that has haunted me for several decades.  I wonder if I was indeed the girl or the soldier and what the circumstances were meant to signify.   I had the dream at a point when I didn’t have a tremendous store of knowledge about World War II or Nazis or the ways that Jewish families hid in the war so as time passed the dream evolved from one of pure scene and feeling to one filled with more symbology.  Yet, I still wonder about that Nazi soldier and see that light-filled space as clearly I did over forty years ago.

I doubt that I will remember any of last night’s pain-in-the -ass dreams forty minutes from now.

Dreams!

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Into the Vortex

Posted in Biographical, Recent Paintings, tagged , on August 18, 2009| Leave a Comment »

Vortex GC MyersThis is a new piece that I just finished.  I really don’t have a title for it as of yet and am still in the process of deciphering it for myself.

In the studio, this is a very striking painting but is probably a piece that won’t show up as well on the screen as it does in person, which is often the case with a lot of my work.  My photography of the work often doesn’t capture the sense of depth into the piece that I think is an important aspect of my paintings.  There is sometimes a flattening of the surface that just doesn’t translate the real feel of every piece.

One comment I hear quite often at openings is that the work is so much more impressive in person than in print or on a computer screen.  I don’t know if that is the result of of my capabilities as a photographer or if it has anything to do with the appearance of the work itself but it something I try to improve on an ongoing basis.

As for this painting, I am very much reminded by it of a dream I had about twelve years back that was both disturbing and exhilarating at once, one that is still vivid in memory.  It took place in a darkened space in what appeared to be a museum of some sort.  At a certain point I came to a  doorway at the center of the space.  I was warned not to enter it.  The person who warned me, who I couldn’t make out, called it the Van Gogh Spiral. As I entered, there were these bursts of rich colors that all came together in the form of a downward spiral, and I descended the spiral as one might go down a large spiral staircase.   As I came around the bend in each new layer, imagery would flash before my eyes becoming stranger and stranger the further I went, a sort of symbolic descent into some sort of madness, some nether region.   Without disclosing every detail of it, I can only say that it was a powerful dream which still lingers with me and I see parts of it in the  sky of  this painting.

That said, it makes my objectivity on this piece somewhat suspect.  I’ll probably spend a lot of time over the next few weeks with it visible to me in the studio, trying to determine if it works on its own for me or if it works only because of the personal information I see in it.  Maybe it doesn’t matter.

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