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Posts Tagged ‘Kahlil Gibran’

The Center Found

Posted in Literature/ Books, Quote, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , , , on July 12, 2021| Leave a Comment »

9921088 The Center Found sm

“The Center Found“- Now at the West End Gallery

Imagination sees the complete reality, – it is where past, present and future meet… Imagination is limited neither to the reality which is apparent – nor to one place. It lives everywhere. It is at a centre and feels the vibrations of all the circles within which east and west are virtually included. Imagination is the life of mental freedom. It realizes what everything is in its many aspects… Imagination does not uplift: we don’t want to be uplifted, we want to be more completely aware.

― Kahlil Gibran

I came across the passage above from writer Kahlil Gibran (1883-1931) and felt it matched up well with my interpretation of the new painting at the top, The Center Found. I see it as it being about the Red Tree’s awareness of the many worlds surrounding it and its place and purpose within those intersecting worlds.

As Gibran points, out, that comes with the mental freedom of imagination which allows the Red Tree here to see the possibility of these worlds existing.

So perhaps the Red Tree in some of its many iterations could be a symbol for ones imagination. I can see that being true in this piece and in many others and could easily live with that interpretation since it links imagination with awareness.

Gibran is certainly right that we want to be more completely aware. I am not sure that I completely agree that we don’t want to be uplifted in a spiritual sense. I might be taking liberties here but I think he means we don’t want to be uplifted by others, that our uplifting is dependent on our own actions and understandings.

But I understand his point that without awareness, there is little possibility of being truly uplifted. And I would like to think that in this painting the Red Tree has found that center of awareness, that it feels the intersections of all the worlds around it.

And is then uplifted.

The Center Found is part of my new annual exhibit, Through the Trees, which opens Friday, July 16, at the West End Gallery in Corning, NY. There is an opening reception from 4-7 PM Friday. The show is currently hanging and available for previews. Thank you!

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Back in the Canyon

Posted in Biographical, Painting, Process, Quote, tagged , , , on January 23, 2021| 1 Comment »

 

GC Myers- Canyon of Doubts

Creativity requires introspection, self-examination, and a willingness to take risks. Because of this, artists are perhaps more susceptible to self-doubt and despair than those who do not court the creative muses.

–Eric Maisel

This painting below sits on a shelf directly in front of my desk. I was looking at it early this morning and wondered if I had put anything about it here on the blog. I came across the entry below from about four years ago which really spoke to the doubts I endure every year at this time as I begin to gear up for my annual shows.

This year is no different. Maybe even more pronounced, given the stress from the events of this past year. But I take some comfort in knowing that I have navigated through these canyons before and that takes off the edge. The doubts are still there but can’t box me in.

There is always a way through. 

Here’s what I put down about this four years back:

This new painting, 8″ by 10″ on panel, is called Canyon of Doubts. For me, it represents the navigation that takes place in the creative process as the artist tries to get past the formidable obstacles of self doubt. Doubt often throws up barriers that has the artist asking if they are good enough, if they have the talent, training, and drive to create true art that speaks for them to the world. Doubt makes them fear that they are out of place, that they don’t belong, that every other artist has more right to create than them.

Doubt keeps the artist seemingly boxed in with no apparent way forward.

Doubt is a pain too lonely to know that faith is his twin brother.

–Kahlil Gibran

I’ve been trapped in that canyon many times. I’ve thought many times that there was no way out, that the fears posed by my doubts were the realities of who and what I was.

I have always felt alone with my doubts. Words of encouragement from others often felt hollow when I was lost in those canyons. They didn’t know how steep the walls of doubts seemed to me or how inadequate, how ill-prepared I felt in that moment.

The only option that seemed available to me was to trust that I could somehow fight my way out of those daunting canyons. It would mean mustering every bit of talent, every ounce of energy, and a sustained belief that I deserved to have my voice rise from out of  those canyons. It was matter of  either having the faith in my own value as human to find my way free or withering away in a canyon of doubts.

Your doubt can become a good quality if you train it. It must become knowing, it must become criticism.

–Rainer Maria Rilke

I still find myself in those canyons. I still find myself periodically looking up at the walls that surround me and wonder if I am talented enough, strong enough, or even entitled to escape them.

But I now know that there is a path through them, one that is well worn with my own footprints from my past journeys in that shadowed place. I know that, even though it is lonely and seemingly unbearable in that moment, I don’t have to be trapped in that place of doubt.

I’ve traveled this path and there is indeed a way out.

It takes time and effort and devotion. It takes the belief in yourself, forged from past experience, that you will make the right decisions and not be trapped in those walls. It’s in having the faith that when take a wrong turn, when you make a mistake, that you will recognize it and get quickly back to the path that sets you free.

At the moment, I may well be in that canyon still but I have the moon guiding me and its light shows me where the canyon ends.

And then I will be free once more.

Have a good day.

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Seeking Depths

Posted in Painting, Quote, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , on February 25, 2020| Leave a Comment »

********************

“The hidden well-spring of your soul must needs rise and run murmuring to the sea;
And the treasure of your infinite depths would be revealed to your eyes.
But let there be no scales to weigh your unknown treasure;
And seek not the depths of your knowledge with staff or sounding line.
For self is a sea boundless and measureless.
Say not, “I have found the truth,” but rather, “I have found a truth.”
Say not, “I have found the path of the soul.” Say rather, “I have met the soul walking upon my path.”
For the soul walks upon all paths.
The soul walks not upon a line, neither does it grow like a reed.
The soul unfolds itself, like a lotus of countless petals.”

― Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet

**********************

A new painting, a 24″ by 24″ piece on canvas that I call Seeking Depths.

I am starting to make progress on  work for my two main annual shows, the first at the Principle Gallery in June and the second at the West End Gallery in July. I am working on several different modes for these shows, ranging from a series of cityscapes such as the one featured in progress here last week  to revisiting the sparse ink landscapes on paper of my early work along with new paintings that are at the current end of  my painting continuum. The overlying theme for these shows is that the work will be mainly seeking to find inward depth in the picture plane and a deeper atmospheric presence.

This piece is a pretty good example of what I am looking for in the current work. There is optical depth into the canvas. The colors are darkly deep and rich. The atmosphere that moves across the depths of the painting, from the sky to the foreground, is an essential element of the painting here with  its own weight and dimension, not just a background on which everything rests.

I am looking forward to how these groups of work progress together. Having determined a direction, I now feel refreshed and eager to move ahead at a reckless pace– my favorite way to work.

We shall see what it brings…

 

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Canyon of Doubts

Posted in Motivation, Quote, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , , , on February 21, 2017| Leave a Comment »

GC Myers- Canyon of DoubtsCreativity requires introspection, self-examination, and a willingness to take risks. Because of this, artists are perhaps more susceptible to self-doubt and despair than those who do not court the creative muses.

–Eric Maisel

*************

This new painting, 8″ by 10″ on panel, is called Canyon of Doubts. For me, it represents the navigation that takes place in the creative process as the artist tries to get past the formidable obstacles of self doubt.  Doubt often throws up barriers that has the artist asking if they are good enough, if they have the talent, training, and drive to create true art that speaks for them to the world. Doubt makes them fear that they are out of place, that they don’t belong, that every other artist has more right to create than them.

Doubt keeps the artist seemingly boxed in with no apparent way forward.

__

Doubt is a pain too lonely to know that faith is his twin brother.

–Kahlil Gibran

*************

I’ve been trapped in that canyon many times. I’ve thought many times that there was no way out, that the fears posed by my doubts were the realities of who and what I was.

I have always felt alone with my doubts.  Words of encouragement from others often felt hollow when I was lost in those canyons.  They didn’t know how steep the walls of doubts seemed to me or how inadequate, how ill-prepared I felt in that moment.

The only option that seemed available to me was to trust that I could somehow fight my way out of those daunting canyons. It would mean mustering every bit of talent, every ounce of energy, and a sustained belief that I deserved to have my voice rise from out of  those canyons. It was matter of  either having the faith in my own value as human to find my way free or withering away in a canyon of doubts.

__

Your doubt can become a good quality if you train it. It must become knowing, it must become criticism.

–Rainer Maria Rilke

*************

I still find myself in those canyons. I still find myself periodically looking up at the walls that surround me and wonder if I am talented enough, strong enough, or even entitled to escape them.

But I now know that there is a path through them, one that is well worn with my own footprints from my past journeys in that shadowed place.  I know that, even though it is lonely and seemingly unbearable in that moment, I don’t have to be trapped in that place of doubt.

I’ve traveled this path and there is indeed a way out.

It takes time and effort and devotion.  It takes the belief in yourself, forged from past experience, that you will make the right decisions and not be trapped in those walls.  It’s in having the faith that when take a wrong turn, when you make a mistake, that you will recognize it and get quickly back to the path that sets you free.

At the moment, I may well be in that canyon still but I have the moon guiding me and its light shows me where the canyon ends.

And then I will be free once more.

__

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