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Posts Tagged ‘GC Myers’

Summerdream

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on January 18, 2025| 5 Comments »

I do not know whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly dreaming I am a man.

–Zhuang Zhou

I love this famous anecdote above from the great Daoist philosopher Zhuang Zhou, who was born sometime in the 4th century BCE. Like most things worth thinking about, it has no answers for us, only questions. In this case, the question being how we discern what is reality and what is a dream.

I am not going to get into a philosophical argument here this morning on that question. I only mention it because it reminded me of the painting above and the feeling I take away from it.

It is an early piece of mine from thirty years ago, back in 1995, that I call Summerdream. I’ve been looking at it a lot recently as I prep it to be part of the upcoming annual Little Gems show at the West End Gallery.

It’s a small piece that has always resonated with me. I love its forms and simplicity. But more than that, it has a sense of solidity in the way it is painted with deep saturated watercolor while still giving me a dreamy, ethereal sense of floating. I like this dichotomy, its appearance of earthly solidity alongside a diaphanous airiness in its felt atmosphere.

Like Zhuang Zhou, I find myself asking which is real and which is the dream here.

I don’t know for sure. Perhaps I am actually a butterfly dreaming that I am a man wondering such a thing? Or maybe both I and my butterfly alter ego are just a tiny part of a dream dreamt by a tiny being that dwells forty dimensions of time and space from where I sit? 

Maybe or maybe not. We will most likely never know and that, in itself, might be the only correct answer. We deal with the reality in which we find ourselves at any given moment.

Right now, I am a guy sitting in the dark of a winter morning. That’s my reality right now. But later, I might look at this painting and find myself as a floating butterfly.

And that will be an acceptable reality then.

Here’s a well-worn song, from the Cranberries and the late Dolores O’Riordan, Dreams.

Summer dream is a 5″ by 7″ watercolor on paper, framed at 11″ by 14″. It will be available at the West End Gallery as part of their annual Little Gems show, which opens February 7. This painting and a group of new small paintings will arrive at the gallery later this week. The gallery is currently on a short winter break and will reopen this coming Tuesday, January 21.

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Completeness

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on January 16, 2025| 4 Comments »

Completeness— Coming to West End Gallery

With a secret smile, not unlike that of a healthy child, he walked along, peacefully, quietly. He wore his gown and walked along exactly like the other monks, but his face and his step, his peaceful downward glance, his peaceful downward-hanging hand, and every finger of his hand spoke of peace, spoke of completeness, sought nothing, imitated nothing, reflected a continuous quiet, an unfading light, an invulnerable peace.

― Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha

Welcome back. It’s been about ten or eleven days since I last welcomed you here. Good to be here and good to have you back. I don’t know that I needed a break from this part of what I do but I needed a little extra time to get back in the swing of things on the bigger part of what I do, which is painting.

Did I get back into the swing of things, find a groove?

Hard to say.  But I was very productive. More than expected, to be honest. That’s the advantage of getting to work on the small pieces for the Little Gems as a reentry point. Smaller work obviously takes less time to complete than much larger works so rhythm builds quickly as I move from one piece to the next. There’s little time between them to lose the new spark or the new thought. Momentum is easily maintained.

This allows me to examine new spaces as well as new or enhanced takes on the normal themes of my work. Some work takes me forward and some is a reexamination of the past.

Some will surprise you. Hopefully in a good way but maybe not. I might like it but it might not be your cup of tea. And that’s okay. Nobody is required to like anything I do here, though I guess one might wonder why you’re here if that is the case.

Will this momentum or new ideas be carried into the following several months of work? I can’t tell at this point but generally the answer leans toward yes based on past decades of going through this. My own first reaction on this work is strong, creating the excitement that I was seeking so I am hoping it does take hold for me. 

That being said, I will be showing this new work in the coming weeks leading up to the February 7th opening of the Little Gems show at the West End Gallery.

The first piece I am showing is an 8″ by 6″ canvas piece titled Completeness. It was one of the first pieces I worked on and, while I am not sure it breaks new ground within the body of my work, it really provided a big jolt of energy for me, doing just what I hoped it might which was to set a pretty high bar for where the work that followed in its wake might go. 

I also thought this was good piece to show first since it represented a central theme in my work, which is finding a sense of wholeness within myself. This painting felt whole, as though the broken shards of the sky had been finally reassembled to reflect down on the fully formed and complete Red Tree. 

It just felt right.

Here’s a song that kind of goes with this piece. It’s Love You To from the Beatles classic Revolver album. George’s sitar playing links well with the passage from Siddhartha and I could imagine the lyrics resonating with the Red Tree here:

Each day just goes so fastI turn around, it’s passedYou don’t get time to hang a sign on me
Love me while you canBefore I’m a dead old man
 
A lifetime is so shortA new one can’t be boughtBut what you’ve got means such a lot to me

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Downtime

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on January 5, 2025| Leave a Comment »

Niche— At Principle Gallery, Alexandria

Downtime is where we become ourselves, looking into the middle distance, kicking at the curb, lying on the grass or sitting on the stoop and staring at the tedious blue of the summer sky. I don’t believe you can write poetry, or compose music, or become an actor without downtime, and plenty of it, a hiatus that passes for boredom but is really the quiet moving of the wheels inside that fuel creativity.

–Anna Quindlen, Loud and Clear

As I hinted yesterday, I am going on a short hiatus from the blog. I don’t know how long it will last, maybe a week or so. Whenever I have taken a break here in the past it usually ends up shorted that I initially intended so I imagine this will be the same.

This isn’t really going to be downtime in the way Anna Quindlen describes above. I have already had an ample amount of downtime but it wasn’t the kind that refreshes. The emphasis recently was more on the down part of downtime. 

No, this hiatus is more about reestablishing the better parts of my work habit and getting back into a creative groove, the kind that becomes a motor that propels everything forward.

Besides, I build downtime into my day as a rule. It’s time to idle and think, time to look up things that pique my interest, time spent listening to music or reading, or time just looking out the window or laying on the floor with the cats. 

 No, this hiatus is not downtime. It’s a return to dedicated work because work is the answer to what ails me. It is the answer to all my questions. And the question to all my answers. It is the alpha and the omega, a beginning and an end.

I always go to a piece of advice that the late artist Chuck Close gave in an interview as advice to young artists:

The advice I like to give young artists, or really anybody who’ll listen to me, is not to wait around for inspiration. Inspiration is for amateurs; the rest of us just show up and get to work. If you wait around for the clouds to part and a bolt of lightning to strike you in the brain, you are not going to make an awful lot of work. All the best ideas come out of the process; they come out of the… work itself. Things occur to you. If you’re sitting around trying to dream up a great art idea, you can sit there a long time before anything happens. But if you just get to work, something will occur to you and something else will occur to you and something else that you reject will push you in another direction. Inspiration is absolutely unnecessary and somehow deceptive. You feel like you need this great idea before you can get down to work, and I find that’s almost never the case.

That pretty much describes the motor that work provides for me. Work begets work.

And I am ready to get back to work.

For this Sunday Morning Music, here’s a song that I’ve played here before, Work Song. It was written by the brother of jazz great Cannonball Adderley, who originally performed the song as an upbeat  jazz piece. But it has been interpreted by a number of artists over the years, including great performances from Nina Simone and Tennessee Ernie Ford, whose version I played here only six months ago. I don’t like to replay a song so quickly but this version from a little know group called The Big Beats has its own funky feel that separates it a bit, give it a whole different flavor. The singer here is  Arlin Harmon. I don’t have a lot of info on either him or the Big Beats though from what I can glean Harmon was a highly regarded performer out in the Northwest in the early 1960’s. This is a solid rocking performance of a great song.

Gets my motor running. And that’s just what the doctor ordered.

I’ll be back in a week or so. Hope you will be back, as well.

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Breaktime?

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on January 4, 2025| 2 Comments »

In the Rhythm of the World– At West End Gallery

Our minds must have relaxation: rested, they will rise up better and keener. Just as we must not force fertile fields (for uninterrupted production will quickly exhaust them), so continual labor will break the power of our minds. They will recover their strength, however, after they have had a little freedom and relaxation.

–Seneca the Younger, On Tranquility of the Mind

Just a reminder that today is the last day to visit the West End Gallery in Corning, NY before they go on a short winter break from January 5 through January 20.

Everyone needs a little break, as Seneca pointed out in the passage above from about two thousand years ago, in order to recharge one’s batteries and regain some vigor. I have kind of been on a hiatus myself for the last couple of months, barely lifting a brush during that time. I had been feeling a bit beaten down and had lost a bit of pep in my step.

Just a feeling of blah. I don’t know if blah itself is a real thing but if you’ve felt it, you know what I mean.

But I believe I am emerging slowly from it. I have just finished some of a group of small pieces for the upcoming Little Gems show that opens on February 7 at the West End Gallery. It was awkward at first, but momentum grew with each small painting. The urge to pick up the brushes and see paint on a surface has returned and seems to grow with each passing day. 

It has been very beneficial to me that the Little Gems show has always fallen at this time of the year when I am ebbing low. The small scale of the paintings allows me to work on things that I might otherwise put off, to explore new themes and possibilities. To learn and attempt new things. To sometimes fail then take the lesson learned from failing and make something better.

Though it is work, it is most invigorating, not depleting at all. Like priming a pump. 

Or fertilizing a field– maybe that’s the more apt description?

I don’t know about that, but it feels good to feel the giddiness of creating something new again, to feel that there is something ready to come out once again. It has been absent for the last month or two and has been sorely missed. From going through this cycle many times before, I knew it would come eventually. It seemed to take a little longer this year and the wait became excruciating.

But it is close to being back in full and I am excited.

I may be taking a short break here on the blog for the next couple of weeks to more deeply reengage with this newly recovered rhythm. While I was on my short hiatus from painting my work here on the blog continued and it might be that I need a break. Might need to fertilize the field?

Maybe. We’ll see how it goes.

If you get a chance today, stop into the West End Gallery before they go on break. Hope they can fully recharge their batteries.

Here’s an absolute favorite Beatles song. I don’t know when I last shared it but it feels like it needs to go with this post. This is Tomorrow Never Knows.

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Building Treasures

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on January 2, 2025| 4 Comments »

Hermitage— At the West End Gallery

I have just three things to teach: simplicity, patience, compassion. These three are your greatest treasures.
—Lao Tzu

Trying to get the new year kicked off in the right way with the words above from Lao Tzu, the Chinese philosopher and father of Taoism. I am not a big fan of resolutions but do believe in reminders. It never hurts to be nudged to the fact that those three things– simplicity, patience and compassion— are the basis for a satisfying and peaceful life. All three are critical in maintaining our balance amidst the machinations of the outer world.

I tend to believe that the three are inextricably connected, each providing sustenance and direction for the other two.

But like all great treasures, they are sometimes difficult to obtain and keep. I know that I sometimes feel like I am close to that mother lode of all three virtues, only to find that I have lost most of it.

Lost my patience with everything and everyone.

Lost any sense of simplicity through overthinking and overcomplicating things.

And worst of all, lost most of my compassion for others.

In such moments, I am penniless in the spiritual sense. And I can feel the darkness of this. 

But if even a tiny iota of these three things remains, if my pocketbook for them is not totally empty, then there is hope. It seems that this is a treasure that builds quickly through an odd quirk: not through hoarding but through being generous in sharing this wealth with others.

Expending all three compounds their value in a way that would make the greediest hedge fund manager envious. 

Well, maybe not that guy.

Anyway, after what felt like a bleak end to the last year, I find myself a bit short on all three things. A bit spiritually impoverished. What better time to begin to rebuild one’s treasure with the clean slate of a new year?

I’m game. What do I have to lose?

Here’s song that feels like it might fit the theme here. It’s about seeking simplicity, about cutting out all the detritus and clutter and finding one’s own little nirvana. This has been a favorite for over 50 years. Here’s the late John Prine and his Spanish Pipedream.

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They Can’t Take That Away From Me

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on December 28, 2024| 3 Comments »

Too Many Moons
At Principle Gallery

We may never never meet again, on that bumpy road to love
Still I’ll always, always keep the memory of

The way you hold your knife
The way we danced until three
The way you changed my life
No, no they can’t take that away from me
No, they can’t take that away from me

–George and Ira Gershwin, They Can’t Take That Away From Me, 1937

Coming to the end of the year. As with most every year, there are some things that beg to be forgotten– it seems like there are more of these than normal this year. Not my favorite year in many ways.

But even so, there are always things that I want to remember, things that I want to hold onto that mark this year. Some are bigger memories and some are tiny but everlasting– an impression of a smile or glance from another. A kind word from a stranger or a friend.

Things that remain with you through thick and thin. Things that stay when all else is lost.

Things that can’t be taken away.

Like the old Gershwin song says.

The song, They Can’t Take That Away From Me, was written by the George and Ira Gershwin and first performed by Fred Astaire in the 1937 movie Shall We Dance. George Gershwin died two months after the film’s release. Since that time the song has become one of the great entries to the American songbook, performed by a seemingly endless list of jazz and pop singers. There are so many great versions of this song by some of the greatest vocalists of all time that it’s hard to pick one that might stand out for everybody.

For myself, I always come back to the Billie Holiday versions of the song which she started performing in 1937. I like her early performances but the one below from 1957 is a favorite. It’s a great version that is a clean and bright production with top notch players–Ben Webster on sax and Barney Kessel on guitar– backing her.

Give a listen. And pay heed to those deep memories that no one can take away from you.

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Holiday Touchstones

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , on December 24, 2024| 4 Comments »

gc-myers-archaeology-happy-holidays-2011-sm

We’re so caught up in our everyday lives that events of the past, like ancient stars that have burned out, are no longer in orbit around our minds. There are just too many things we have to think about every day, too many new things we have to learn. New styles, new information, new technology, new terminology … But still, no matter how much time passes, no matter what takes place in the interim, there are some things we can never assign to oblivion, memories we can never rub away. They remain with us forever, like a touchstone.

― Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the Shore

I certainly agree with the paragraph above from Murakami’s acclaimed novel. Over the years my ability to learn– or at least remember what I have attempted to learn– has diminished. I often read or see something new now and consciously try to register it into my memory. But once done, it seems to dilute and run into all the other factoids and processes and thises and thats that have been put there in recent times. It all becomes a dull blob from which I can discern barely anything.

Maybe that blob is the oblivion to which Murakami refers. Data goes in, nothing comes out.

But ask me about a Christmas 50 or 60 years ago and I can recall it well, often with details of aroma and sound and texture. The taste of a holiday goodie. The smell of the tree and the warm feeling from its light in the evening.

Maybe the occasion or the underlying feeling made it a touchstone for me. I don’t know. Memory is a funny thing. You can never tell what will imprint deeply on it, what will remain vivid many years later.

It is sometimes a gift, sometimes a curse. I tend to view those deep memories from holiday season past as a gift.

I hope you do as well. Or will make new memories that press themselves deep into your memory bank. New touchstones.

Have a good holiday. Here’s song that I played ten or eleven years back. It is a holiday song but one most likely not played on your local radio station this time of the year. It’s a beautiful version of the traditional A Child is Born done by the late jazz trumpet player Thad Jones with the Mel Lewis Jazz Orchestra.

A lovely and sumptuous song to slow down the moment so that maybe you can remember it later. Let that be a gift to you.

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The Things We Dare Not Tell

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on December 23, 2024| Leave a Comment »

GC Myers- Archaeology- Déjà Vu sm

Archaeology: Déjà Vu— At Principle Gallery, Alexandria, VA

The fields are fair in autumn yet, and the sun’s still shining there,
But we bow our heads and we brood and fret, because of the masks we wear;
Or we nod and smile the social while, and we say we’re doing well,
But we break our hearts, oh, we break our hearts! for the things we must not tell

— The Things We Dare Not Tell, Henry Lawson (1867-1922)

A video for this poem popped up in my YouTube feed for some algorithmic reason I can’t comprehend. I am glad it did.

I first encountered the Australian writer Henry Lawson (1867-1922) a few years back when I stumbled across a poem of his, The Wander-Light, that I shared here. It has been a pretty popular post, receiving a number of views on a daily basis. Doing some research back then, I found that Lawson is an Australian icon, considered to be perhaps the country’s greatest poet and short story writer.  He was a brilliant writer and storyteller but struggled with alcoholism and mental illness for much of his life until dying at the relatively young age of 55 from a cerebral hemorrhage.

Watching the reading of the poem below, I began to think about the secrets we all carry. Oh, we may claim or attempt to be transparent, but we all maintain words and deeds and beliefs that we share with no one. Some we don’t share because, to be honest, they are things nobody would care to hear. Some are too shameful or painful or embarrassing to release from our grip.

I probably share too much here and in my talks. More than most. Mainly because I believe that transparency has a liberating effect. But even so, there are things that will no doubt go unshared to my grave. Well, that is, if I ever decide to die. If I don’t, I might break my silence in a couple of hundred years or so.

It makes me wonder what secret things others will carry to their graves, the good and the bad. Will they ever reveal themselves to some future archaeologist or researcher? Are they hidden somewhere, like one of the artifacts in the Archaeology piece at the top, waiting to be unearthed then put together like a strange and wonderful jigsaw puzzle? Small bits that together tell a bigger story?

The other thing that comes to mind is the one line in Lawson’s poem that resonated most with me:

Oh, the world would be such a kindly world if all men’s hearts lay bare!

I believe it but wonder if that is true. Do secrets keep us apart? Would revelation of all things hidden somehow bring us together?

I don’t know the answer. My lack of answers is no secret, that’s for sure.

Maybe we need those secret things just to maintain that feeling of mystery that comes with not knowing everything about everyone. 

Might that mystery be the thing that drives all types of creativity?

Could be. I don’t really know.

Okay, got to run. I have secrets waiting to be buried as well as some to be shared. It’s the sorting out that counts.

Here’s the poem from Henry Lawson along with the whole poem below it.

The Things We Dare Not Tell

The fields are fair in autumn yet, and the sun’s still shining there,
But we bow our heads and we brood and fret, because of the masks we wear;
Or we nod and smile the social while, and we say we’re doing well,
But we break our hearts, oh, we break our hearts! for the things we must not tell.

There’s the old love wronged ere the new was won, there’s the light of long ago;
There’s the cruel lie that we suffer for, and the public must not know.
So we go through life with a ghastly mask, and we’re doing fairly well,
While they break our hearts, oh, they kill our hearts! do the things we must not tell.

We see but pride in a selfish breast, while a heart is breaking there;
Oh, the world would be such a kindly world if all men’s hearts lay bare!
We live and share the living lie, we are doing very well,
While they eat our hearts as the years go by, do the things we dare not tell.

We bow us down to a dusty shrine, or a temple in the East,
Or we stand and drink to the world-old creed, with the coffins at the feast;
We fight it down, and we live it down, or we bear it bravely well,
But the best men die of a broken heart for the things they cannot tell.

— Henry Lawson

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Affirming Silence

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on December 22, 2024| 2 Comments »

GC Myers- Affirmation 2024

Affirmation— Now at Principle Gallery

Take refuge in silence. You can be here or there or anywhere. Fixed in silence, established in the inner ‘I’, you can be as you are. The world will never perturb you if you are well founded upon the tranquility within. Gather your thoughts within. Find out the thought centre and discover your Self-equipoise. In storm and turmoil be calm and silent. Watch the events around as a witness. The world is a drama. Be a witness, inturned and introspective.

– Ramana Maharshi

This time of year is one of stress for many, especially for those who are a bit withdrawn. There’s a lot of motion and sound surrounding the tension that comes with the obligation in trying to please others. The calming effect of silence is absent. Thinking about this brought me to the post below from back in 2013, one that I have never revisited. It seems to speak, in a way, to the need for that bit of quiet that might be missing in the season. 

Since this is the time for Sunday Morning Music and since it is the holiday season, I thought I’d share a Christmas song that is as calming as they come. It’s the late great Vince Guaraldi and his Christmastime is Here. This is the instrumental version without the chorus of kids. It’s a good listen anytime of the year.

[From 2013]

I often speak of seeking quiet, even absolute silence. I all too often come up short in my search, usually the victim of my own fears and shortcomings which cause me to fill the void around me with sound and chaos.

Silence is pushed aside.

It is only in those times when I allow myself to be pulled completely into my work that I feel the silence slowly creeping back in, stilling the fears and doubts that seem to wail around me like sirens at times. It is at these moments while painting that I feel in a small way as though I am like a witness that the great guru Ramana Maharsi advises us to be in the passage above.

I am then calm and silent. I watch and gather my inner thoughts as I feel myself melding with the colors and forms before me. It is absolute peace as I go deeper into this inner realm.

That’s as close as I can describe in words the feeling I have when I lose myself to painting. The painting shown here is an example of this feeling. It is a different painting than the one shown in the 2013 post. But like that painting, the one shown, Affirmation, is simple and quiet yet richly harmonious and full.

It feels outside of time, always in the present. It is both inward and outward looking, a silent witness that is not fearful of the future or regretful of the past. It is just as it is– quiet and placid.

All that I seek.

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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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