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Posts Tagged ‘John Prine’

Oh, The Places You’ll Go!: Spanish Edition

Posted in Favorite Things, Motivation, Music, Video, tagged , , , , , , on August 23, 2015| 2 Comments »

GC Myers-Archaeology- Rooted in the Past smOne of the interesting aspects of doing what I do is seeing where the images eventually finds their way. They have ended up in American Embassies in several countries, in magazines and on book covers here and abroad as well as on several CD covers.  One was even included in a recent history text book.  They have found their way to most corners of the globe, making them much more well traveled than their maker.  And in 2016 a couple of images from my Archaeology and Strata series will be part of the annual calendar for the Spanish Society of Soil Science. 

GC Myers- On the Shoulders of Time smIt’s gratifying for me to see the work spread out as it has.  You hope, as an artist, that your work has a wider appeal, that there is some common denominator in it that speaks across geographic and cultural boundaries.  You never know when you are in front of the easel if your work will be anything more than a blob of pigment on a bit of canvas destined for the trash or will take on a life of its own and move on.  So to see it move around the globe in some small way is a form of validation for the work, making the next crisis of confidence easier to fight through.  And that is no small thing.

Being Sunday it’s time for a little music and I thought I would play a song that kind of jibes with the soil theme of the work here.  It’s one of my favorite songs to sing along with from one of my all-time favorites, John Prine.  It’s called Please Don’t Bury Me and it’s about as upbeat a song on the subject of dying as you’ll ever hear.  Give a listen (and sing along if you know the words!) and have a great Sunday!

 

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In Heaven Now…

Posted in Favorite Things, Motivation, Music, tagged , , , , on August 15, 2015| 2 Comments »

GC Myers- Raised Up Practice kindness all day to everybody and you will realize you’re already in heaven now.

—Jack Kerouac

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I am not sure what to do with these words from Jack Kerouac but I do like them and think they deserve to be passed along.  I am a firm believer of kindness in all forms and believe that it is a pathway to a better life here in this world.

When I was waiting tables I found that my own attitude and demeanor often dictated how others responded to me.  If I smiled and acted congenially, more often than not the person I was dealing with responded in the same manner.  We are reactionary creatures and we instinctively respond according to the tone we encounter– rudeness with rudeness and anger with anger.

And kindness with kindness.

It’s our choice.  If we can fight against our reactionary nature and choose to act and react with kindness, we can shape our world and then perhaps realize that a form of heaven might be within our grasp.

I have never had the faith or certainty of those who believe that there is an actual heaven waiting beyond this world.  I would like to but I just don’t have it within me.  So, for me, if there is to be a heaven it is something to be sought in the here and now.  By that, I mean creating an environment that is honest, kind and gentle.  A life that is peaceful and quiet–that would be heaven to me.

So, when you’re out there today and face rudeness and anger, make the choice to react in a gentler manner and be kind.  Your world might be one small step closer to heaven.

This quote reminded me of a song from one of my favorites, John Prine.  The title pretty much sums it up: He Was In Heaven Before He Died.

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Pipedream

Posted in Music, Recent Paintings, Video, tagged , , , , , on May 28, 2014| Leave a Comment »

Blow up your TV , throw away your paper
Go to the country, build you a home
Plant a little garden, eat a lot of peaches
Try and find Jesus on your own

–John Prine, Spanish Pipedream

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GC Myers- Pipedream smThis is a small new painting  that is about 6″ by 11″ on paper.  I call it Pipedream after the old John Prine song, Spanish Pipedream.   I say old but it ‘s one of those songs that never feels old to me despite the fact that it came out back in 1971, forty three years ago.  It is old.  One hint of its age is at the beginning of the song when he says he was a soldier on the way to Montreal, referring to fleeing north to avoid the war and the draft.   But it’s still such an infectious chorus with a message that so hits the point that I still find myself humming this song quite often.

I guess this painting’s simplicity and cheery feel made me think of this song.  There is something very idyllic  and charmingly essential  in this little guy.  It does look a bit like a pipedream, which is one of those words that we often use while not thinking about  its origin or meaning.  This word, pipedream, is from Victorian era Britain and refers to an improbable fantasy dreamt of while smoking opium.  Maybe this is an improbable fantasy?   It does have a fantasy feel about it but lets hope it is not so improbable.

This is, of course, one opf the pieces from my show, Traveler, opening next Friday at the Principle Gallery in Alexandria.  Now here’s the song  from one of my favorites, John Prine.

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Speed of the Sound of Loneliness

Posted in Biographical, Favorite Things, Music, Video, tagged , , , on July 30, 2013| 2 Comments »

GC Myers- Dawn Serenade smIn the aftermath of this latest show at the West End Gallery, I have been taking a small break from painting, instead trying to get some things done around my home and studio that have been put off while I was working.  I have a real knack for putting off things that need to be done and there is a real backlog now of small projects waiting to be faced.  Nothing big and nothing too testing, just normal maintenance things like cleaning up fallen trees around the property and the such.

I thought, while I was finishing up the show work, that puttering around with this maintenance work would be a relaxing break but I forget how ingrained my painting routine has become in me.  Instead of relaxing, I find myself gathering anxiety about not having a brush in my hand, not working towards something.   I don’t know how to feel about this and find myself conflicted.

In one moment, I view this inability to find relaxation beyond my work as a flaw, a symptom of a shallow or hollow nature.  But in the next moment I am thankful for having found the ultimate soother in my work, to spend the greater part of my time doing that thing that gives me peace and brings me a sense of deep relaxation.  Not to mention the meaning and joy  it brings.  I guess it comes down to me working to relax where most folks must leave work behind to feel at ease.  This inversion of the norm is obviously the conflict, one that I am still struggling to reconcile even after fifteen years of doing this on a full-time basis.  Maybe I will have it straightened out in my head in fifteen more.

Okay, enough of that.  Here’s a little music, from around 1990, by one of my favorites, John Prine, singing his Speed of the Sound of Loneliness with Nanci Griffith.

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Souvenirs

Posted in Video, tagged , , , , on November 25, 2012| 1 Comment »

I’ve been thinking about Thanksgiving over the last couple of days, trying to think of things that I’m thankful for and I began to realize there are no actual things on the list.  There are people and moments but no things.  And I guess that’s the way it should be.  But it made me wonder about what particular things  do have meaning for me.   What would I take if I had to grab but a few things and flee, say like the recent storm victims or the people in the areas where the wildfires bear down on them?

The actual loss of my house and studio might be difficult but they too an be replaced.  Outside of these structures, the list is still pretty thin.  A few photos, a few notes and letters and perhaps a painting or two.   A handful of books but they can also be replaced.  But no other things that I feel would leave a void in my life if I suddenly were to be without them.  No jewelry or family heirlooms. No memory jugs like the one shown above.   No priceless artifacts that I sought for years to find.  Very little, actually.

I sit here in my studio and look around at a few of the paintings that I hold on to and think that I would hate to lose them but it comes to me that they also represent moments and emotions for me.  Inner things that I hold already.  They actually are souvenirs of past moments,  like   family photos.  I’ve said before that seeing a gallery full of my work is sometimes awkward at first because it feels like I’m looking at my family photos on the walls for all the world to see.  And that’s not always the best thing.

Interestingly, I find this lack of things very liberating.  And that is something for which I am thankful.

Here’s a fitting  song, Souvenirs,  that is sung by here by John Prine and Steve Goodman, who wrote it.  Goodman also wrote The City of New Orleans , recorded most famously by Arlo Guthrie.  Most people have little knowledge of Goodman’s songwriting since he died in 1984 at the age of 36 due to leukemia.   There is another song  here by Goodman after  Souvenirs that shows more of his talents.

And I’m thankful for that, as well.

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Deep Groove- Killing the Blues

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on September 29, 2012| 4 Comments »

I’m knee deep in work at the moment, mired in a really deep groove.  I use the word mired but it’s meant to have a good meaning here.  It’s one  of those grooves that I hope for, where everything seems to click right off the brush and there’s a rush of excitement as one piece nears completion and the next is already beckoning.   The funny thing is that it’s not a manic groove even though I may sound manic in describing it.  It’s calm and cool, a sense of clarity with all the fogs of uncertainty blown away.  It’s a feeling, a rhythm, that I know and lay in wait for, often for long frustrating periods.  But I know that if I struggle forward, it eventually comes.  I don’t think I will ever succeed in describing this groove, this rhythm.  probably because when I’m mired in it I struggle to write about painting, am lax in communicating anything for fear of upsetting this delicate  rhythm.  So I will stop here.

Here’s a song, one of my favorites, Killing the Blues.  Written by Rowland Salley, I first came across this song many years ago when John  Prine did his remarkable cover of it.  Since then I have discovered that it has become a standard of sorts, covered by numbers of musicians.  Last year, I featured a haunting version here from Allison Krauss and Robert Plant.  I found this version from Malcolm Holcolme that I really like.  See if you agree.

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Far From Me

Posted in Influences, Music, Recent Paintings, Video, tagged on August 11, 2011| Leave a Comment »

This is a painting I recently finished, a small piece, only 4″ square on paper.  It’s a mix of landscape and very uncomplicated still life with stark but distinct elements throughout.  There’s a simplicity that runs through this scene that covers a depth of feeling, a pang from the heart.

I sat this aside for a day or two after finishing it and found myself coming back to it.  There was a familiar tone to it that reminded me of something that I couldn’t quite identify until this morning when I walked into the studio.  I looked at it as I sat down and instantly said to myself, “Far From Me.”

It was the old John Prine song from his first album which came out forty years back, in 1971. There was something in this piece that filled me the feeling of Prine’s lyrics of gradual loss:

And the sky is black and still now

On the hill where the angels sing

Ain’t it funny how an old broken bottle

Looks just like a diamond ring

But it’s far, far from me

This piece will probably always be that song now for me, a personal avatar for a song buried deep inside and often forgotten.  Funny how things work…

Here’s Far From Me  done by Jamestown Ferry,  a Berlin, Germany based duo who performs Americana music as well as traditional Scotch and Irish music.  It’s a lovely and faithful version.

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Killing the Blues

Posted in Video, tagged , , on May 28, 2011| 1 Comment »

Still in the act of getting work ready for the show in a couple of weeks.  It’s going pretty smoothly which I suppose it should after the years of doing this same routine.  It’s pretty exciting to see the work, especially those on paper, transform from the raw image to a fully presented piece with matting and frame.  Unmatted, the paintings have the exposed  beginnings of where the gesso of the surface begins as well as the rough edges of the paper itself.   The mat and frame focuses the piece and there’s a real sense of transformation once the piece is complete as though it has suddenly blossomed fully. 

So, I’m off to continue the transformation.  I thought I’d play a tune today, a wondeful version of an old John Prine song, Killing the Blues.  It’s from the unlikely  duo of  of bluegrass/folk star Allison Krauss and formerLed Zep frontman Robert Plant.  Just a great take on a great song.

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That’s The Way The World Goes ‘Round

Posted in Video, tagged , on March 13, 2011| Leave a Comment »

The time has moved ahead this morning and I awaken later than normal to a dark and gloomy morning.  My world is layered in mud and  I don’t feel like sharing this morning , wanting to keep my thoughts to myself and to take the time to think things out.  There are a lot of problems in the world that I find distracting today including the crisis in Japan.  My sense of empathy keeps bringing my thoughts back to what they must be enduring right now and the idea of talking about my work seems ridiculous this morning.   And the problems that others, such as the Japanese, are experiencing make my little quibbles seems tiny and trite.

So, today I will stop right here and just let the day form on its own accord.  That’s the way the world is  and that’s the way the world goes ’round, which brings me to a nice version of John Prine’s song, That’s the Way the World Goes ‘Round,  by Norah Jones.  Hope your day is peaceful.

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Living in the Future

Posted in Current Events, Opinion, tagged , on December 30, 2010| 4 Comments »

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These lines above are from the chorus of John Prine’s song Living in the Future, written well over 20 years ago.  I think of this chorus wheneverI hear people expounding on how wonderful or horrible things will be in the future.  It seems that the future seldom reaches the levels of our fears or hopes.

I’m thinking of this today because we’re nearing the official end of the first decade of this new millenium tomorrow night.  I guess we can drop the new part at that point.  The new car smell has definitely faded.  When I was a kid the idea of living in the 21st century seemed distant and alluring, with the prospect of jet packs whooshing us all over the world and teleportation flights to the amusement park on the moon being an everyday thing.  We’d all be wearing those space outfits that resembled shiny coveralls that we saw in the sci-fi flicks of the 50’s and our meals would be prepared with the touch of a button.  Disease had been eradicated and peace ruled the earth.

Okay, maybe I took it too far.  But it has been interesting living in this time that has long served as a far point in time for literature of the last century.  We have lived past the 1984 that George Orwell wrote of and the year 2000 fizzled like a wet firecracker despite the doomsayers who claimed an apocalypse was imminent at the time.  We haven’t quite seen the rise of Big Brother although it seems like we have taken strides in that direction at times.  We aren’t zipping about in rocket ships or teleporting across the universe but we are connected globally via the web in a way that I don’t think we fully saw thirty years ago.   Maybe we’re not talking with our minds, as John Prine predicted in his song, but we are talking more than ever with cell phones glued to faces and bluetooth headsets permanently jammed into ears.

 Meals are not cooked with the touch of a button.  In fact, we have went the other way.  We now celebrate the time and care of food preparation with television networks devoted to the act of cooking. 

Disease certainly hasn’t been eradicated but if you step back and really examine the strides made in medicine over the past thirty years, it is breathtaking.  Of course,  not all the breakthrough care is available to all of us but that’s a different story for a different time.

Of course, they were right about our garb.  I’m wearing my shiny silver space coveralls even as I write this.  I want to be ready when the future catches up with us.  It’s gaining…

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