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Posts Tagged ‘Harper Lee’

Toward Home

Posted in Quote, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , , on August 1, 2017| Leave a Comment »

“Mr. Fred shook hands with her, said he was glad to see her, drew out a wet Coke from the machine, wiped it on his apron, and gave it to her.

This is one good thing about life that never changes, she thought. As long as he lived, as long as she returned, Mr. Fred would be here with his…simple welcome. What was that? Alice? Brer Rabbit? It was Mole. Mole, when he returned from some long journey, desperately tired, had found the familiar waiting for him with its simple welcome.”

― Harper Lee, Go Set a Watchman

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This is a new piece, a little painting just a bit over 2″ by 3″ that I call Toward Home. It’s going with me this coming Saturday for my Gallery Talk at 1 PM at the West End Gallery in Corning. I generally try to bring a few very new pieces to my talks to complement the works on hand.

I thought the words of Harper Lee above fit this piece. It has a sense of going home about it, about returning to the familiar. That’s something I understand.

I always look for the familiar and am attracted to those places and people that give me that feeling of having encountered them before. A natural sense of comfort that comes with knowing the landscape, instinctively sensing the rhythm of the place or person.

The Red Tree in this little piece reminds of those things that we set for ourselves as landmarks, those spots on our journey home that let us know we are in a place we call home. I know when I am returning from a road trip there are spots that, once I have passed them, I feel that I am home. Knowing that I am of that area, my mind and body eases as I finish the journey home.

It may be a small painting but it is full, at least for me.

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GALLERY TALK

SATURDAY, AUGUST 5, 2017 beginning at 1 PM

WEST END GALLERY, CORNING, NY

There will be a drawing for an original painting and other surprises, so try to make it to the West End Gallery this Saturday!

 

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Watchman

Posted in Influences, Painting, Quote, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , , , , , on September 13, 2016| Leave a Comment »

GC Myers- WatchmanFor thus hath the Lord said unto me, Go, set a watchman, let him declare what he seeth.

—Isaiah 21:6

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The biblical verse above is of course the one which was the basis for the title for Harper Lee‘s sequel, to her classic To Kill A Mockingbird.  In the books, Scout regarded her father, Atticus Finch, as such a watchman, a moral and righteous sentinel looking out for injustice and evil.

And that is kind of how I see the central figure of this new painting, the lone Red Tree set high on rocky outcropping in what seems to be an endless sea.  Maybe it is the red of the sky that sets such a tone.  I don’t know.

I’ve been fascinated by small islands in my work lately.  The isolation of them gives these pieces a brooding quality and reminds me a bit of working as an artist.  I’ve often felt that the job of an artist is to act as a sort of watchman.

It is very much a job of isolation, one that is often formed in the solitariness of youth when one always felt like an outsider, observing the world quietly and mostly unseen from the edges of life.  The work itself is done and grows in isolation but is very much influenced by one’s observations of the world around them.  And much of the work, if it reaches the level of art, is based on a sensitivity to what that artist has observed and felt.

And maybe that is the real purpose of artists, to act as a watcher, looking to warn us of our own straying from reason and to keep our humanity intact.  Maybe that is what I see in this painting.

gc-myers-defiant-heart-smThis painting is 8″ by 24″ on canvas and is titled, of course, Watchman.  It is coming with me to the Principle Gallery this Saturday, September 17, when I give my Gallery Talk there beginning at 1 PM.  There will be a group of new paintings including this piece as well as a group of selected pieces from my studio that will only be available for that day.  And there is, of course, the drawing at the end of the talk for the painting, Defiant Heart.

Should be a good time and I hope you can make it to the Principle Gallery this Saturday!

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