Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Posts Tagged ‘June Tabor’

Finisterre

Posted in Early Paintings, Music, tagged , , on March 3, 2019| 1 Comment »

Finisterre is a peninsula at the westernmost point of Spain. In Roman times, it was thought to be the end of the known world.

Thus the name: finis/end + terre/land.

Finisterre.

It is also the title of a lovely song from English folk singer June Tabor that I am featuring for this week’s Sunday music. Very atmospheric.

The accompanying painting at the top is a piece I came across this past week in an old sketchbook from back in 1994, when I was just starting to paint. I hadn’t seen it in some time and was pleased that it had aged well, that it had a completeness that was not the norm for the work I was doing at that time. The rest of the sketchbook, for example, is filled with landscapes that are cringeworthy enough that this piece seems out of place.

I chose it to accompany this song because it also has an atmospheric quality, one that speaks of open space and emptiness. Pauses and the quiet rush of the wind through the grass. It might not be Finisterre but it feels like it might be the end of the world for someone.

Have a good Sunday.

Read Full Post »

Strange Affair ( Kind of Redux)

Posted in Favorite Things, Music, Video, tagged , , , , , on February 16, 2014| Leave a Comment »

GC Myers Strange Affair 2010I had this video, Strange Affair,  on the blog about four years ago and just wanted to share it again.  Good sound for a cold and quiet Sunday morning.  Plus the image that I used to accompany the post (a painting that is, of course, titled  Strange Affair)  is one of those images that both sticks in my mind and meshes well with June Tabor’s beautiful interpretation ( accompanied by one of my favorites, Martin Simpson, on guitar) of the Richard Thompson song.

There’s something stark in both the song and the painting that appeals to my sensibilities.  A sort of joy found in certain moments of melancholy.  There was a moment like that last week when I was walking through the woods to the studio.  It was extremely cold with the sky a flat gray slate and there hardly another sound other than the trudge of my footsteps in the snow.  It seemed like such a bleak and sterile moment but then a single snowflake drifted down, dancing delicately in the air, and I was suddenly filled with a joy that I couldn’t quite put my finger on.  It wasn’t happiness.  Just the joy of feeling connected to the world in that moment.

Joyous melancholy.  A paradox.  A strange affair, to be sure.

So, pardon me for showing this image and this video again.  It was four years ago  after all.  Enjoy and have a great Sunday.

Read Full Post »

Scarecrow

Posted in Video, tagged , on February 26, 2011| Leave a Comment »

We’re deep in snow now, a couple of feet now built up over the ground outside my studio and coating the trees, making the evergreen limbs bow deeply .  When I go outside there’s wonderful stillness, the blanket of whiteness muffling all sound.  There’s a very meditative quality in big snowfalls as though time even trudges slower through the deep snow

‘Tis beautiful.

I don’t feel like writing today.  Feel like painting.  Here’s an atmospheric song from June Tabor, accompanied by one of my favorite guitarists, Martin Simpson.  It’s called Scarecrow and is wonderfully understated.  The quiet and the pauses give this song great weight.  Like the morning after a big snow.

Read Full Post »

Strange Affair

Posted in Influences, Recent Paintings, Video, tagged , , on April 27, 2010| 2 Comments »

I’m not sure if Strange Affair is going to be the title of this piece.  I’ve had this painting, an 8″ by 18″  image on paper, done for several weeks now and I’ve been waiting for a title to come.  Something that speaks of it’s starkness of detail and stillness.

Then I heard a version of a Richard Thompson song, Strange Affair, sung by June Tabor accompanied by Martin Simpson on the guitar, and this piece came to mind.  It was as though the character in the painting might very well be playing this very song.  Really evocative.

You be the judge…

Read Full Post »

%d bloggers like this: