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Posts Tagged ‘Joni Mitchell’

Heading to the Clouds

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on March 7, 2025| 5 Comments »

Cloud Flyer— At West End Gallery

It is better to have your head in the clouds, and know where you are, if indeed you cannot get it above them, than to breathe the clearer atmosphere below them, and think that you are in paradise.

–Henry David Thoreau, Letter to Harrison Blake, April 1853

This morning, I spent a few minutes looking intently at the image of the painting above. It’s a small piece that is part of the Little Gems exhibit now hanging at the West End Gallery. Something in it captured my attention this morning. Not one thing that I can spell out in words. Just a brief flash of feeling that for that moment held me happily spellbound.

Maybe it was just a quick escape from things in this world that have been harassing my mind as of late. I don’t know and, for that matter, I don’t care. We all need to climb into the clouds for dreaming and introspection every so often so that, like Thoreau wrote in a letter to an old friend above, we know where we truly are. We can sometime be deceived or misled, by others and ourselves, so that we don’t clearly see our placement in this world clearly.

We might think too much or too little of ourselves. We might respect the opinions of others while ignoring our own. We might place too much trust in the wisdom of others and too little in our own.

We sometimes need to get up above it all, to place ourselves in and above the clouds. Oh, we can’t stay there, much as we might like, but the clarifying effects of a short sojourn there are mighty.

It centers one’s soul.

The paragraph from Thoreau’s letter from which the passage above was taken also makes the point about that if we trust and respect ourselves, we have the ability to elevate our lot in life and live a fulfilled existence:

It is worth the while to live respectably unto ourselves. We can possibly get along with a neighbor, even with a bedfellow, whom we respect but very little; but as soon as it comes to this, that we do not respect ourselves, then we do not get along at all, no matter how much money we are paid for halting. There are old heads in the world who cannot help me by their example or advice to live worthily and satisfactorily to myself; but I believe that it is in my power to elevate myself this very hour above the common level of my life. It is better to have your head in the clouds, and know where you are, if indeed you cannot get it above them, than to breathe the clearer atmosphere below them, and think that you are in paradise.

That was very much in the same spirit of what I saw in that brief flash I felt while looking at the image at the top this morning. Feet-on-the-ground-head-in-the-clouds kind of satisfaction. Or should I say, Hand-on-the rudder-head-in-the-clouds?

Not sure on that one.

Here’s Joni Mitchell and her classic song, Both Sides Now. This is a favorite version of mine from her 2000 album, Both Sides Now. It is different in tone and sound to her original. Deeper and more world-weary. As you would expect. I read that it was as though the 24-year-old Mitchell wrote this song specifically for her 57-year-old self to sing.

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Nonno’s Poem

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on February 22, 2025| 2 Comments »

O Courage, could you not as well
Select a second place to dwell,
Not only in that golden tree
But in the frightened heart of me?

— Tennessee Williams, Night of the Iguana

The 1964 film Night of the Iguana was on TCM yesterday and I listened along as I painted yesterday. Based on the 1961 Tennessee Williams play, the film is one that has slowly become a favorite of mine.

By that, I mean it was hardly a favorite when I first saw it many years ago. Not sure I even watched the whole thing then. It felt grim to the younger me who wanted a neater and tidier story with sharply defined protagonists and an ending that tied up all the loose ends in a satisfying way. The younger me didn’t see any of that in this film then.

But with age, you realize that life is never neat and tidy, try as you might to make it so. The brokenness of the main characters in this film that once turned me off now seemed more pertinent to the world I now know, taking on a much deeper reality and meaning for me. Like much of the work from Tennessee Williams, it deals with broken people trying to make their way through this world. His work is seldom an easy thing to take in. But it is usually worth trying and over the years, I have myself growing into this film. 

I am not going to go into the story or the film here this morning. Nor am I endorsing this film for you. It is certainly art and is therefore subjective. Where I see light or hope in it, you might see darkness and despair. 

That’s art for you. As it should be.

I only mention the film this morning because I wanted to share the poem from the old poet, Nonno, who has ended up at the seedy Mexican resort where this takes place with his middle-aged granddaughter, who is an itinerant painter. She is played by Deborah Kerr who is an absolute favorite of mine. They have been traveling for a long time as he attempts to complete a poem that he has long labored over, one that deals with having a feeling heart in a corrupt world. 

The final version, in the video at the top of the page, delivered beautifully by Nonno, portrayed by Cyril Delevanti, is a wonderful scene and I thought it deserved to be shared. I also added the text of the poem below as well as a song, Night of the Iguana, from Joni Mitchell.

How calmly does the olive branch
Observe the sky begin to blanch
Without a cry, without a prayer,
With no betrayal of despair,

Sometime while night obscures the tree
The zenith of its life will be
Gone past forever, and from thence
A second history will commence.

A chronicle no longer gold,
A bargaining with mist and mould,
And finally the broken stem
The plummeting to earth; and then

An intercourse not well designed
For beings of a golden kind
Whose native green must arch above
The earth’s obscene, corrupting love.

And still the ripe fruit and the branch
Observe the sky begin to blanch
Without a cry, without a prayer,
With no betrayal of despair.

O Courage, could you not as well
Select a second place to dwell,
Not only in that golden tree
But in the frightened heart of me?

— Tennessee Williams, Night of the Iguana

 

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Moonlight Ghosts

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on December 9, 2024| 3 Comments »

GC Myers- Moonlight Quartet, 2023

Moonlight Quartet–At West End Gallery

In the moonlight which is always sad, as the light of the sun itself is—as the light called human life is—at its coming and its going.

—Charles Dickens, Dombey and Son 

This line from Dickens always makes me wonder about a lot of things– about the emotional feel of moonlight and sunlight, about how each serve as a witness to our existence, about our affinity for light as humans, and how we react to light.

This wondering brings up lots of questions. Is our life in the light, be it sunlight or moonlight, even real? Or are we mere ghosts, manifestations of formless souls, that only exist and find form in dimensions of light?

I sure don’t know. But I do like wondering, especially about those questions that can’t be answered. Sometimes it seems like those are the only questions that matter.

I see that the light is breaking in gray through the trees. Time for this ghost to get moving.

Here’s a song from Joni Mitchell from her jazz-tinged work of the early 1980’s. This is Moon at the Window.

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Go Ask Frodo

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on November 16, 2024| 2 Comments »

GC Myers-- Follow the River sm

Follow the River— At Principle Gallery

‘I cannot imagine what information could be more terrifying than your hints and warnings,’ exclaimed Frodo. ‘I knew that danger lay ahead, of course; but I did not expect to meet it in our own Shire. Can’t a hobbit walk from the Water to the River in peace?’

‘But it is not your own Shire,’ said Gildor. ‘Others dwelt here before hobbits were; and others will dwell here again when hobbits are no more. The wide world is all about you; you can fence yourselves in, but you cannot forever fence it out.’

—J. R. R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring

Yeah, I know. Another Tolkien passage in less than a week. I don’t think I’ve ever shared another passage from his books in the 16 years of this blog and now two show up in one week.  Guess that’s the way the Hobbit bounces.

I thought conversation between the hesitant hero Hobbit, Frodo, and the Elf, Gildor, fit with this painting, Follow the River, that’s at the Principle Gallery. The painting has an appealingly safe appearance with its blanket of green and its meandering tranquil river that, with the hills rising from it, feels safely walled in from the outside world. It has the insular warmth and security that I am sure the Hobbits felt in the Shire.

But there is darkness ahead. Part of me wants to see the rising moon in the blackened sky as light against the darkness while another part of me sees it as an ominous eye that surveils our every move.

Maybe it’s a bit of both. I can’t quite tell yet. Time will tell. But the message in this passage–the wide world is all about you; you can fence yourselves in, but you cannot forever fence it out— resonates in this moment. Blissful ignorance will not insulate one from the evils of the world.

Go ask Frodo. He’ll tell you.

Here’s a favorite song from Joni Mitchell that I’ve played a number of times in the past. It has the right vibe for this morning. Here’s her River.

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Hejira

Posted in Literature/ Books, Music, Painting, tagged , , , , on July 25, 2021| 2 Comments »

He was different; innocent of heart, and full of good will, which nobody wanted, this castaway, that, like a man transplanted into another planet, was separated by an immense space from his past and by an immense ignorance from his future.

― Joseph Conrad, Amy Foster

GC Myers-To Other Worlds

“To Other Worlds“- At the West End Gallery

Wow. That’s quite a passage from Joseph Conrad‘s short story, Amy Foster, which was about a shipwrecked emigrant landing in Britain, unable to speak the language. He learns a bit of English and weds a kind local servant girl, Amy Foster, but remains always the outcast, unable to fully express his past or his dreams for the future to anyone around him. His native language is looked upon with suspicion and derision. He dies asking for water in his native language, nobody understanding his request.

I don’t see this new painting, To Other Worlds, in the same tragic light as Conrad’s story but it has that sense of  being in a world that feels completely strange and alien. Maybe it is a world where your language and forms of expression seem odd and untranslatable to those you come across. Your past is, like that described in the Conrad passage, is separated from you by an immense space, forever unknown to those in your present. Your future seems hazy at best as you are unable to plan in world in which you can’t communicate effectively and that you don’t fully understand.

It’s very much the feeling I felt from my early Exiles series. I was still learning to harness the communicative aspects of art and often felt alien in this world. I certainly never felt like I fully understood this place or its people.

I guess that part hasn’t changed significantly. But I have somewhat reconciled my past, present and future with my work. Just being able to communicate with an expression of some sort of inner feeling has made this world seem less strange.

But that feeling of being in a world where one feels out of place in nearly every aspect still sometimes shows up in my work. I think it’s important o hold onto that feeling so that you can recognize it in others and attempt to let them know you see them and understand the landscape they are trying to find their way through.

Okay? Okay.

Here’s this week’s Sunday morning music. It’s Hejira from Joni Mitchell. It fits here in that hejira is a word for a migration, a flight from danger which often places those who flee in the role of the exile, the stranger in a strange land. Joni’s lyrics for this piece, like most of her songs, are wonderful. Certainly feels right for this stranger in this strange land on a gray wet Sunday morning.

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Quiet Like a River

Posted in Favorite Things, Music, Poetry, tagged , , , on August 11, 2020| Leave a Comment »

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“In the midst of a thousand clouds and countless waters
there is an idle person.
By day, he roams the green mountains,
at night, he returns to sleep beneath the cliff.
Quickly, the seasons pass
in serenity, with no worldly bonds.
How joyful! What does he depend upon?
Quiet, like a large autumn river.”

― Hanshan

Translated by Peter Levitt, The Complete Cold Mountain: Poems of the Legendary Hermit Hanshan

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Quiet. Like an autumn river.

This sounds pretty good this morning.

Little thinking and little writing.

Just flow. And be.

Just to pass on a little knowledge this morning, Hanshan was a legendary Chinese Buddhist monk who is thought to have lived as a hermit in the 9th century. Little is known of his life or if he even truly existed but there is a group of of several hundred poems attributed to him that were written on the rocks of the region in which he is purported to have resided.

Another factoid: Jack Kerouac dedicated his book, The Dharma Bums, to Hanshan.

Okay, enough with the thinking this morning. Back to being a cool autumn river.

To that end, here’s a favorite, River, from Joni Mitchell.

Be the river and have a good day.

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Court and Spark

Posted in Biographical, Influences, Music, tagged , , on February 23, 2020| 3 Comments »

Joni Mitchell- The Mountain Loves the Sea- watercolor 1971

Over the years, I have often been asked about influences on my work and I often list several artists that I feel pushed me in certain directions. Then I also point out that there have been influences that fall outside of the painter mode. For example, literature, poetry and film come immediately to mind. Then there’s pop culture such as cartoons and comics, television and so much more. I’ve mentioned that there was a Coca Cola tv ad back in the 80’s that featured saturated colors– reds and golds– that stuck in my mind for years before I began painting.

There are so many contributing sources of inspiration.

I mention this today because as I was looking for a piece of music to play this  morning, I came across the old Joni Mitchell album from 1974, Court and Spark. It was a great album, one that I loved even as a teenage boy. I had not listened to it in years but each of the songs was imprinted in me by this time.

I also hadn’t looked closely at its album cover for many, many years though it was a beautiful cover, cream colored with a small watercolor painting, The Mountain Loves the Sea, that Joni Mitchell had painted a few years before, tastefully in its center. It had a simple elegance that I recognized, again even as a teenage boy. But it was just one of those things that, because I had seen it so many times before, I didn’t look with any attention at all.

But I looked closer today at the painting in the cover’s center and was surprised at how much my own work sometimes held echoes of this little painting. I would never thought of Joni Mitchell as an influence beyond her music but looking at this little image made me rethink that.

Maybe it was just one of those little things that push you without your knowledge in one direction or another. Influences that you internalize and can’t recognize or name until you come face to face with them. We all have them, those small things we take in and blend together to make us who we are.

I am glad this was one of those things for me. So, let’s give a listen to the title track from Court and Spark.

Have a great Sunday.

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River

Posted in Favorite Things, Music, tagged , , , on December 20, 2018| 1 Comment »

Didn’t really want to write anything today and was listening to some music this morning. This song came on so I checked to see if it had played  recently on the blog. After all, it does have a holiday theme, in a mournful sort of way. Found that it had been a number of years and liked the post that accompanied it so I decided to repost it along with the song. Have a good day.

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There are some pieces in my studio that will always be with me, some because they are very personal pieces, virtual parts of my memory. Others because they are somewhat lacking and I wouldn’t want them out in the world. Then there are some that stay simply because I want them here. The painting below is one of those. It hangs above the large windows at the front of my studio and probably will for some time to come.

It is painted on a piece of our old upright piano, the lid that opened on its top. It’s about 8″ tall by 62″ long. You might think that this painting is about the heavy clusters of Red Roofs but for me this is a piece about escape. That cool blue ribbon of water that cuts through this painting, shown only in snips, is freedom to me, a rushing current to carry me away from the noise and chaos of the gathered village. Or better yet, I could become the river and move easily and forever– hopefully– through the land, joined with the other waters of the world.

I find myself thinking a lot when I look at this piece, which I do most everyday as it is mounted above the large window in my studio. It gives me pause and makes me think about being quiet internally, stilling the spinning wheels.

But most of all, it makes me wish I was that river.

I call this piece Wish I Was a River, sort of after the Joni Mitchell song, River. However, her chorus goes “ I wish I had a river…”  Maybe I’m being greedy here but I want to be the river, just running through and in the winter, frozen over and seemingly still while continuing to flow below. If Joni wanted to skate away on my icy surface, that would be fine with me.

Here’s the song from Joni Mitchell.

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Urge For Going

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on October 2, 2016| 1 Comment »

GC Myers- Breathing RoomOctober and the rampant heat of summer is finally letting go.  There’s a little color coming into the trees but it seems muted against the slate grayness of the clouds that are bringing us some much needed rain.  The change of seasons seems to be upon us and soon the green of the grass will be a bleached beige and the green clad trees will shed their leaves exposing the bone grey structures of the trees.  Color fades and everything takes on a the colors of the earth– shades of gray and brown.

This can make many folks a bit melancholy as they wistfully long for the sun and light of those longer summer days.  They want to flee the somber tones of the landscape around them.  They get the urge for going.

I understand this feeling.  But I more often than not find myself relishing this change of season, the more essential feel of this time of year.   I think the somberness of the colors outside the studio help me express the colors I am seeing inside and allows me to use my own urge for going in a constructive manner.  I believe that piece at the top is a good example.  It’s called Breathing Room. and is an 18″ by 24″ canvas. It could easily be called Urge For Going  as the path moves through a deeply colored foreground toward a light-filled and expansive horizon.

That, of course, brings us to this week’s Sunday morning musical selection.  It’s a very early version of Urge For Going from Joni Mitchell.  This is taken from a Canadian television program, Let’s Sing Out, that ran from 1963-1967.  It was broadcast from various Canadian college campuses and featured many folk performers of the day.  Joni Mitchell first appeared on the show in 1965 using her maiden name, Joni Anderson.  This particular performance using the more familiar Mitchell is from October of 1966 at Laurentian University in Sudbury, Ontario.  I think it’s a beautiful rendition of the song, especially for a fifty year old television clip.

So give a listen and consider your own urge for going.  Have a great day.

Oh, the painting, Breathing Room is part of my upcoming show, Part of the Plan, which opens October 29 at the Kada Gallery in Erie, PA.

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Black Crow/ Redux

Posted in Favorite Things, Music, tagged , , , on November 2, 2014| 7 Comments »

black-crowI normally wouldn’t repeat an earlier post on a Sunday morning, the time I usually reserve for a little music.  But I wanted to replay this song from a few years back and liked the post that went with it.  Plus, it gives me a chance to update it a bit as well.  So, here it goes:

One of the benefits of having my studio located in the woods is the opportunity to watch the wildlife from a fairly close perspective.  I have known all manner of animals over the years, from the mother raccoon and her kits that took up residence for a short time in the roof of my first, more rustic studio further up in the woods, and the everpresent deer that often nap  in the shady lawn outside my studio windows to the coyotes and bobcats that I have captured on my trail cam and have ran across in person, as well. 

I get to see how the animals interact, how they break down into family units and establish order.  How they survive the elements and their habitation among us humans.  Their survival instinct is powerful, a hard thing to see at times but powerful, nonetheless.

Over the years I have witnessed many deer with legs that have been broken, most likely from a misstep or an encounter with a woodchuck hole.  I am always amazed at their ability to persevere and prosper.  There was a doe several years ago who came around with a front hoof dangling, completely broken away from the leg above.  Eventually she lost the hoof completely, leaving a stump.  But it didn’t stop her.  She actually had 3 or 4 fawns over the next few years and it was only when she walked slowly to feed that you recognize that she was missing a hoof.  In full flight, she moved as fast as  the other deer and managed to evade predators and hunters for years.

I currently have a black crow that haunts the pines in front of my studio.  He came to my attention early in the winter.  I saw crow tracks in the snow that went from the studio all the way down the long driveway, about 1/5 of a mile.  I couldn’t understand why a crow would walk throught he snow when he could fly.  This went on for several days until I finally caught a glimpse of him, ambling up the drive.  It was a badly damaged  wing that hung off of his back to one side.  He would walk and hop with real determination and was seldom alone.  There was normally a group of crows that accompanied him, cawing to him from the trees above and sometimes coming down to walk with him.  I got the idea that they sometimes let him know what was ahead or behind, acting as his eyes in the sky.

I thought about trying to capture him and get him to an animal rehabilatation specialist such as the unit at Cornell University but he was always quick to spot me and would disappear into the woods with surprising speed.  He was even aware and suspicious  of me when I watched him from my front windows. 

His mobility has improved over the past six months.  He hops quickly and to my surprise has developed the ability to take flight for moments at a time.  Not for very long distances but enough to carry him to low branches of the trees from where he can hop to higher branches.  Once he reaches the top he will glide, without flapping his wings, to a point quite a ways down the drive from where he will commence his walk/hop.

I really admire his grit and evident intelligence.  I have gotten into the habit of putting out for him  the poor small rodents that my studio cat, Hobie, captures and kills in the woods around the place, laying them at  my feet proudly as gifts on a daily basis.  I have watched him and his kin find these small gifts  a number of times and I think he understands the gesture.  Doesn’t make him any less wary of me but that’s okay.  He gets an easy meal and I get to see that the mice and moles go back into the big circle quickly.  Win/win.

Update: The crow continued his rehabilitation to the point that he was nearly indistinguishable from the others.  He was able to fly with immediate lift and his wing only drooped a bit more than the rest.  This return to normal function allowed him to range further away so that I eventually lost track of him.  Whether he is still alive, I can’t say.  But his ability to survive and prosper through what could have easily been a deadly injury was really inspiring.  I have a tremendous amount of respect for crows.

Here’s a really nice rendition of Joni Mitchell’s song Black Crow from Diana Krall.  Just right for a Sunday morning.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OIwriS4Xahs

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