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Posts Tagged ‘Layers’

Moon and Mood

Posted in Painting, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , , on July 21, 2014| Leave a Comment »

Moon and Mood

Moon and Mood

There are several paintings in my upcoming Layers show at the West End Gallery that feature the moon quite prominently.  I showed one, Moonlight Revelation, earlier in the month in a blog post.  I like these pieces as there is usually  a certain moodiness, a placid and contemplative feeling that permeates the work.

I don’t know if its the moon or the bluish tones that I use to represent the night sky, but is has a very calming effect on me.  The piece shown above, Moon and Mood, is a 16″ by 20″ canvas that very much represents this feeling that I describe.  Its purplish blue sky and pale moon give the the horizon a hazy, misty feel which creates a mysterious atmosphere.  If you’ve ever looked across broad moonlit fields, you’ve probably had that feeling that there are things there that are barely visible.  The imagination sometimes creates possibilities, some far from the realm of reality,  for what these things might be.

Below, is Traveler’s Moon, an 8″ by 24″ canvas, and the aforementioned Moonlight Revelation,  24″ by 24″ on linen.  Both are also part of the show.

The show, Layers, opens Friday, July 25th, at the West End Gallery in Corning, NY.  The opening reception runs from 4:30 until 7:30 PM.  The exhibit hangs until August 29.

Traveler's Moon

Traveler’s Moon

Moonlight Revelation

Moonlight Revelation

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“Layers” Show Preview

Posted in Motivation, Music, Painting, Recent Paintings, Video, tagged , , , , on July 20, 2014| 2 Comments »

GC Myers- In the Pocket of Time sm This coming February marks 20 years that I will have been showing my work at the West End Gallery.  It has been my pleasure over these two decades to be able to exhibit my work in my home area, to be able to share what I do with those folks who live in close proximity to me.

You would think this would make for an easy-going time when it comes to mounting a show each year, as I have done for the last twelve years.  After all, many of these people know me, have watched the evolution and growth of the paintings through this time and have supported me in so many ways that I will never be able to fully express my gratitude.

Maybe it’s that last point that makes this such a nerve-wracking show for me.   They have done so much for me that I don’t want to disappoint.   Like any performer or athlete, you always want to do well in front of a home crowd.

I feel very good about this show, feel that it will the space with deep glow of  saturated colors., feel that it really is a full expression of  myself in my work.  Hopefully, this will prove true.

Below is a short video that gives a preview of all of the work from my upcoming show, Layers, which opens this coming Friday, July 25th, at the West End Gallery in Corning, NY.   The music is  a guitar interpretation of Gymnopedie #1 from composer  Erik Satie.  The painting at the top is from the show.  Called In the Pocket of Time, it’s a 24″ by 30″ canvas that was one of the first inspirations for the show’s title.

Have a great Sunday…

 

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Stepping Up

Posted in Recent Paintings, tagged , , , on July 19, 2014| 1 Comment »

GC Myers-Stepping Up smWell, the studio seems very cool and empty this morning.  The work for this year’s show, Layers, at the West End Gallery has been delivered and I am left to clank around in a lot more open space, which is like having an empty canvas or a blank sheet of paper before you, the moment filled with possibility.

There’s exhilaration in this instant but also a bit of sadness at not having those now gone paintings close at hand.  There was something comforting and inspiring in having them surround me in the studio.  Their presence reinforced my belief in the work and new ideas and concepts were always bouncing from them, begging to be taken up.  They were very much like friends, albeit mute ones.

But, as you would hope for any friend, they must at some point set out on their own and find their own place in the world.  Reach their own potential.  And hopefully they soon will.  That would be most gratifying for me.  After nearly two decades of showing my work now,  I am always surprised at how many people have told me about the relationships they maintain with my works, how they continue to find something personally meaningful for themselves even after years of having the painting in their homes.  It would be enough to have the work simply decorating their homes or offices but to have it fulfill any greater role is a great pleasure and thrill, giving meaning to the time I spend in this now empty studio.

So, with hopes those friends who have went out into the world find homes in which they can serve some purpose, I start anew.   Looking for a new friend to spend some time with me here.   Just part of the rhythm and cycle of what I do.

The piece shown here, Stepping Up, is part of the show at the West End Gallery.  It is 6″ by 26″ on paper.  The show was being hung yesterday evening so if you would like a preview, stop in this weekend.

 

 

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Aswirl

Posted in Current Events, Painting, tagged , , , on July 18, 2014| 4 Comments »

GC Myers -AswirlI started writing a diatribe this morning about the dangerous world in which we live, given the recent events in the Ukraine and Israel.  But I realized there is more than enough talking (well, not really talking in substantive terms but mouths opening and words of some sort coming out) going on from politicos and pundits and little action actually taking place.  If you’re reading this, you’re probably fatigued by the whole thing and looking for something to calm you or at least divert your mind from the chaos of the outside world.  I know that is a great part of the motivation behind doing what I do, going inward to find a place of peace where I can take shelter.

So, today is a bit of both.  It’s a little anomaly of a piece that I am including in my upcoming West End Gallery show, Layers, which opens on July 25th.  It’s a small painting, about 5″ by 7″ on paper, that I call Aswirl.  It’s inward but it acknowledges the swirling nature of events in the outer world.  It is chaotic but finds a harmony in rhythm and color.

This is a piece that I have had in my studio for years and have wanted to show but just never got around to doing so.  But I like including at least a couple of small anomalies or oddities in my shows and as I assembled this group of work, this piece began to start popping up.  It always seemed to be in sight and though it is much different than almost anything in the show, it still feels like it fits.

Maybe that’s just me.

But I do know that it takes me away from the tensions of the events in the outer world and settles me as I find pattern and motion in the swirls of colors.  And if that is its only purpose, or my only purpose in what I do, then that is enough for the moment.

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The Empowering

Posted in Biographical, Quote, Recent Paintings, Technique/History, tagged , , , , on July 17, 2014| 2 Comments »

GC Myers- The Empowering smWhat we achieve inwardly will change outer reality.

-Plutarch

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I am in the very last day of preparations before delivering my show to the West End Gallery for next Friday’s opening of my show, Layers.  It’s a day that mixes the tense anticipation of how the work will be received at the show with the relief of finishing all the tasks required to make it happen.

Fear and elation from moment to moment.

This is just an accepted part of the process by now.  But it’s all too easy to let the fear part of this little dance grow, to imagine worst-case scenarios where the show is an abysmal flop and the work fails to move a single person on any level.  I can only imagine that  anyone who creates or performs has these fears.  The trick is to not succumb to them, not let them drown out what you know to be true in your work.

That’s where the elation part of the process comes in.  When I am framing and prepping, the work is arranged in stacks so that I can’t see much of it as I go through the process.  I am engrossed in doing these tasks and put the work itself out of my mind as I proceed.  But as I go along, I get to each individual piece, turning it over to reveal an image that had escaped my mind.  It’s exciting, like seeing it for the first time, and I find myself appreciating aspects of the painting that I had overlooked or not even noticed when it was consuming me in its creation.  It’s a moment that wipes away the fears and reinforces my own belief in the work.

That’s what happened yesterday with this piece, an 18″ by 18″ canvas painting that I call The Empowering.  It had slipped from my sight and memory and upon turning it, it just seemed to glow among the other work.  It really bolstered me and had me setting up pieces in my framing space so that I could see it alongside the other paintings in the show.  The fears were washed away and I was left with a great sense of internal satisfaction that this group was already a success, regardless of my fears.

Here’s hoping that Plutarch’s words hold true and this inner belief becomes an outward reality.

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Glimpse and Aspiration

Posted in Painting, Quote, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , , , on July 15, 2014| Leave a Comment »

To have his path made clear for him is the aspiration of every human being in our beclouded and tempestuous existence.
–Joseph Conrad
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GC Myers- Glimpse and Aspiration sm
In the next week or so I will be featuring several of the new pieces that will be part of my show, Layers, which opens next Friday, July 25th,  at the West End Gallery.  This painting is titled Glimpse and Aspiration and is 24″ by 48″ on birch panel.  It has been a favorite from the moment that it began to take on its own life, midway through the time I was painting it.  Its size gives it a weightiness that fits well with the mood and  glow of the painting.  I find myself looking at it quite often in the studio with a great deal of internal satisfaction at the completeness of it.  It just does something for me.
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I see the Red Tree here as a symbol of the aspiration for  a life of purpose and meaning, the desire for one’s own place in the world.  It is not always a clearly defined objective, as Conrad points out in the quote at the top.  Our life’s path winds through other places and lives but once in a great while there is clarity and we fleetingly see that thing which we believe to be our purpose.  Our aspiration.  Just glimpsing it and having it take a tangible form in our mind is fortifying, making our footsteps lighter and our path even more defined.
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It is something  which we can hold in our minds to guide and inspire us on the path ahead.
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There’s something in this idea  that fills this piece,  making it a very comforting piece for myself.  I am going to very much  miss this painting in my studio when it has went out on its own.  But it has done what it must for me and is destined to hopefully do the same for someone else.
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Sending it out into the world is simply part of my purpose, my aspiration.  At least that is how it appeared to me in my brief glimpse.

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Layers

Posted in Painting, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , on July 14, 2014| Leave a Comment »

GC Myers- Layers

I am in the final days of preparations for my annual solo show at the West End Gallery in Corning which opens next Friday, July 25th.  It’s really coming together in all areas and I think it will hang together very, very well.  I’m very much looking forward to seeing it in the gallery.

The title for the show comes from the painting shown here, Layers, a 24″ by 36″ canvas.  I was originally going to call the show Strata after a group of paintings from that series that will be in this show but after looking closer at the work in this show I realized that there were layers of all sorts in my work, not only in the underground portion of the Strata pieces.

I described this a bit more in a statement for the show:

I chose the title for this year’s West End Gallery show, Layers, after a re-examination of my work where I tried to determine what themes might have appeared in it, often without thought or guidance from me, through the years. The thing that struck me was how often the paintings were about layers.

Layers in the literal sense, as in the Archaeology and Strata series where the actual underground layers’ patterns become integral rhythmic parts of the painting.

Layers of depth into the picture plane, represented often by a path passing through layers of rolling landscape. Usually to a distant horizon and a sun/moon beyond.

Layers of texture, often chaotic, in the surface of the paintings which add depth and meaning, catching and darkening colors in the depths and lightening them at the highest points.

Layers of color as in the skies of much of my work that require dozens and dozens of layers of color, to the point that only a tiny bit of most of the layers show through. But without each layer, even those that barely show, the painting would lack its fullness.

Layers of meaning. Most of these works have an easy accessibility and a simplicity that can be understood and enjoyed with a casual observation but beyond that there is a layer, even layers, of emotion that are often only revealed by a deeper examination, allowing the color, the forms and the textures to fully fill in the blanks.

Perhaps these layers represent those layers in our world, our emotional and spiritual spheres that, while unseen, move us forward in our lives.

I don’t know the why’s or the what’s of them. I only know that for me these layers add something to the work that I never could have imagined.

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Night Still Comes

Posted in Music, Video, tagged , , , , , , on July 6, 2014| Leave a Comment »

GC Myers- Confessor Blue smYet another Sunday morning finds me in the studio working.  My show, Traveler,  at the Principle Gallery ends this week and my next show, Layers at the West End Gallery, opens in a few weeks on July 25th so there hasn’t been much of a break.  But that’s okay, I like the busyness and purposefulness of it.  It forces me to keep my head down and concentrate.  To forge ahead instead of being distracted by shiny things, something to which I , like many others, am prone.

Not that distraction is a bad thing.  You find interesting things when you allow your eyes and mind to wander and that, too, eventually finds its way into your work.  But that is for another time when there is a deadline involved.

So, its back to work.

But it is Sunday and I have made a habit of having some music on this day’s posts.  This week I am featuring one of my favorites, Neko Case, who I have featured many times over the years.  This is Night Still Comes from her most recent CD, The Worse Things Get, The Harder I Fight, The Harder I Fight, The More I Love You– which is quite a mouthful.  I chose the painting above to go along with it.  Its title is  Confessor Blue and its one of the remaining paintings at the Principle Gallery show.

Enjoy and have a great Sunday…

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Moonlight Revelation

Posted in Quote, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , on July 1, 2014| 3 Comments »

GC Myers- Moonlight RevelationThe revelation of thought takes men out of servitude into freedom.
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-Ralph Waldo Emerson
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When I look at this  new painting, a 24″ by 24″ canvas, it gives me a sense of conscious dreaming, of  taking those deepest  and largest internal wishes and making them known to the world, bringing them into the realm of possibility.  I think there’s something potent in the idea of this sort of imagining, of seeing oneself in different circumstances, in different lights.  It sets courses and opens windows of possibility.  It unsettles us and stirs change.
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It also makes me wonder how this sort of dreaming changes over the course of our lives,  I know as a child I was always immersed in daydreams that took me to far-reaching places under the wildest of circumstances.  Yet while I still daydream, as an adult my dreams have changed and become far more limited and smaller in scope, much less expansive than they were in my youth.  Perhaps it is a product of pure practicality, of having realized my own limitations and what is possible for the person I believe myself to be.  Or maybe my desires have have lessened by virtue of  simple acceptance and comfort in the present.
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When do we lose the capacity for the large dreams of childhood?  Is it when the world loses some of that sense of wonder that came with the fresh eyes of youth?  Is it possible to imagine unlimited possibilities when the sight of a bright and full moon rising fails to inspire you?
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Maybe that’s what I see here, a recapturing of that wonder in seeing the moon and all that is possible under its gaze.
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This painting, Moonlight Revelation, will be at the West End Gallery as part of my solo show there, Layers, which opens July 25.

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Seeking Uncertainty

Posted in Opinion, Quote, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , , on June 25, 2014| 2 Comments »

Doubt is not a pleasant condition but certainty is an absurd one.

–Voltaire

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GC Myers- Twilight WandererMuch of my work has a journey or a quest as its central theme and the odd thing is that I don’t have a solid idea of what the object is that I am seeking in this work.  I have thought it was many things over the years, things like wisdom and knowledge and inner peace and so on.  But it comes down to a more fundamental level or at least I think so this morning.  It may change by this afternoon.  I think the search is for an end to doubt or at least coming to an acceptance of my own lack of answers for the questions  that have often hung over us all.

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I would say the search is for certainty but as Voltaire points out above, certainty is an absurd condition.  That has been my view for some time as well.  Whenever I feel certainty coming on in me in anything I am filled with an overriding  anxiety.  I do not trust certainty.  I look at it as fool’s gold and when I see someone speak of anything with absolute certainty–particularly politicians and televangelists– I react with a certain degree of mistrust, probably because I see this absolutism leading to an extremism that has been the basis for many of the worst misdeeds throughout history.  Wars and holocausts, slavery and genocide, they all arose from some the beliefs held by one party in absolute certainty.

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So maybe the real quest is for a time and place where uncertainty is the order of the day, where certainty is vanquished.  A place where no person can say with any authority that they are above anyone else, that anyone else can be subjugated to their certainty.

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To say that we might be better off in a time with no certainty sounds absurd but perhaps to live in a time of certainty is even more so.

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The painting at the top is called, fittingly, Seeking Uncertainty, and is a new 10″ by 20 painting on canvas that will be part of my upcoming solo show, Layers,  at the West End Gallery in Corning which opens July 25.

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