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Posts Tagged ‘life’

Let Me Be

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on January 31, 2026| 1 Comment »

Let Me Be— Now at West End Gallery

Everything has its wonders, even darkness and silence, and I learn, whatever state I may be in, therein to be content.

 -Helen Keller, The World I Live In (1908)

Really tired this morning. I think the hormone therapy is finally catching up with me a bit as my fatigue has increased a lot in the past couple of weeks. Still not terrible, not yet up to the fatigue I suffered last summer with the undiagnosed anaplasmosis. That kicked my butt in several different directions.

Even though I am tired, I already wrote a post this morning. However, it felt too personal, too exposing. That may surprise some of you since I seldom hesitate with openness or transparency. But I think my physical weariness made me a little more protective of my private domain this morning.

Made me want to withdraw a bit.

Which coincidentally and fortuitously might pertain to the new painting at the top. It’s called Let Me Be. It’s a 6″ by 8″ painting on canvas that is part of the Little Gems show that opens this coming Friday at the West End Gallery.

Its title and the feel of wanting to be left alone that I take from it suit me this morning. Well, most of the time actually.

There’s a lot more to say about this painting and what I see and feel in it. It has a lot to say. But this morning I am going to let it speak for itself.

If it speaks to you, great. If not, that’s great as well. I am on my little quiet island. I can’t trouble my mind with such concerns this morning.

Here’s song from Rising Appalachia that fits the feel and tone of the morning for me. This is Silver.

Listen but don’t linger. The boat is leaving to take you back to shore. You better catch it now. Otherwise, you’ll be swimming back. Only room for me here this morning.

Now get on the damn boat.

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The Juncture

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on January 30, 2026| 4 Comments »

The Juncture— At West End Gallery

The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only a green thing which stands in the way… As a man is, so he sees.

–William Blake (1757–1827), 1799 letter to Dr. John Trusler

Ot it could be a red thing, right?

I would like to think that Blake would be okay with red trees. He was someone who definitely marched to his own drum in his time, never compromising his artistic vision to suit anyone other than himself. He willingly paid the price for choosing to maintain the integrity of his work, dying a pauper.

Such choices are not the sole province of artists. We all face similar choices in our lives about love, family, friends, work, and so on. Our lives are built on the decisions we make when faced with such choices. Some of our choices have huge and obvious consequences but even the smallest decision has some bearing on where we eventually end up and who we become.

To me, this new small painting, The Juncture, represents such a choice.  The path brings us to a fork in the road. We can see a bit ahead where one path will lead us. It seems safer and even bends back towards us. The other veers off and over the mound, giving away few hints to where it might take us. One is safe and one entails the risk of the unknown.

There is no telling if it will end up being a big or small choice. You often don’t know at the time you decide. Choices can sometimes hide or mask their eventual importance and, as a result, we end up taking them too lightly I think that’s why we make so many decisions.

Some may see the Red Tree here as just something to rush by, much like those who according to Blake see trees as something merely standing in the way. In my mind, the Red Tree here is advocating for taking that risk, for pushing ahead to the new unknown. I see it as a knowing guide, letting you know that it can see further ahead than you and that it can be okay– if you commit fully to that path.

That unknown path is not for the squeamish or those require absolute comfort and security. The unknown path has other rewards.

William Blake understood this.

This is a simply constructed painting but its colors the relationship of its forms make it seem bigger and more complex. It makes it feel like makes a statement even though it is smaller and spare in detail.

Well, that’s how I see it but, of course, I am more than a little biased.

This piece, 6″ by 8″ on canvas, is included in the Little Gems exhibit at the West End Gallery, opening one week from today, on Friday February 6.

Here’s a song from Ray LaMontaigne that may or may not mesh with the other part so this post. Actually, it just came up on my playlist as I finished that last paragraph. It’s a song that I have liked for a while and it felt right in the moment. Even its title feels right– Highway to the Sun. And its chorus below could easily be applied to this painting, representing why one might decide to take that unknown path.

I just wanna wake upUnderneath that open skyJust wanna feel something realBefore I die

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Three Rules/ Oh What a Beautiful World

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on August 29, 2025| 2 Comments »

The Call of Wonder– At Principle Gallery

Three Rules of Work:

Out of clutter find simplicity; From discord find harmony; In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.

–Albert Einstein

This Einstein fellow is a pretty smart guy.

Simplification, harmony and opportunity could be ingredients for any recipe to success in any field, but I think they apply particularly well to the creative arts. I know that I can easily apply these three rules to my own work.

For me, its strength lies in its ability to transmit through simplification and harmony. The forms are often simplified versions of reality, shedding details that don’t factor into what it is trying to express.

There is often an underlying texture in the work that is chaotic and discordant. The harmonies in color and form painted over these create a tension, a feeling of wholeness in the work. A feeling of finding a pattern in the chaos that makes it all seem sensible.

And the final rule–opportunity lying in the midst of difficulty– is perhaps the easiest to apply. The best work always seems to rise from the greatest depths, those times when the mind has to move from its normal trench of thought. Times when one has to expand beyond the known ways of doing things and find new solutions and methods to move the message ahead.

The difficulties of life are often great but there is almost always an opportunity or lesson to be found within them if only we are able to take a deep breath and see them. These lessons always find their way into the work in some way.

Thanks for the thought, Mr. Einstein. I hear good things about the work you’re doing.

I run theses Three Rules from Einstein every couple of years and it felt like the right time since I think we are all looking for simplicity, harmony, and opportunity in our own lives. Plus, I am short on time this morning. I am going to embellish a bit with two other favorite quotes from Mr. Einstein and a newer version of the wizened wisdom of Oh What a Beautiful World from the ageless Willie Nelson and Rodney Crowell, who wrote and first recorded the song in 2014.

Here are those words from Einstein:

The world as we have created it is a process of our thinking. It cannot be changed without changing our thinking.

———–

“People like you and I, though mortal of course like everyone else, do not grow old no matter how long we live. What I mean is we never cease to stand like curious children before the great Mystery into which we were born.”

–Albert Einstein, Letter to Otto Juliusburger, September 29, 1942

And what a mystery it is…

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Comes a Wind

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on June 13, 2024| 2 Comments »

GC Myers- Comes a Wind 2024

Comes a Wind— Now at Principle Gallery

That man’s best works should be such bungling imitations of Nature’s infinite perfection, matters not much; but that he should make himself an imitation, this is the fact which Nature moans over, and deprecates beseechingly. Be spontaneous, be truthful, be free, and thus be individuals! is the song she sings through warbling birds, and whispering pines, and roaring waves, and screeching winds.

—Lydia Maria Child, Letters from New York (1843)

Be spontaneous, be truthful, be free, and thus be individuals!

Is there any better advice than those words from Lydia Maria Child way back in 1843? She is best known for writing the famous Thanksgiving poem, Over the River and Through the Woods. But more than that, she was a forward thinker in her time– an abolitionist, women’s rights and Native American rights activist, journalist, poet and novelist whose work often took on white supremacy and male dominance, issues that plague us to this day.

She would no doubt be a forward thinker in our time. Her words certainly ring true, then and now.

I am using her words today to accompany the new painting above, Comes a Wind. It’s one of the larger pieces, 30″ by 48″ on canvas, from my Principle Gallery show that opens tomorrow night. I chose her words because I felt they somewhat described how I view my landscape work. I never have tried to imitate the reality nature, never wanting exactitude or even a representation of a single real location.

I just wanted to capture the feel and rhythm of the landscape. We live in it and with it. We are part of it, carrying that same feel and rhythm within us. At least, that’s the hope. I believe we sometimes lose that feel and rhythm that connects us to the land. We fail to see the grace and inevitability of nature. When left to its own devices, the landscape achieves an organic perfection.

It is as it should be and only as it can be.

I think this piece is a great example at my attempt to capture that feel and rhythm. It has an organic quality in the curves and lines of the landforms that calms me in much the same way that I feel looking at a panoramic landscape in reality. Like much of my work, there is an area somewhere near the center of the landscape where the landscape’s layers go down then rises up, creating what I call the saddle or easy chair (taken from an old Dylan song) of the painting. I don’t know exactly why I do that, but it feels like it acts as place for the eye to settle in and rest, like one might in a saddle. Or easy chair.

When I first finished this painting, I saw it as being about some forewarning brought on the wind. I still see that somewhat but I now also see the wind as pictured as being about letting ourselves go with the rhythms of nature, about reconnecting to our place within the greater forces.

Or as Ms. Child may have put it: Be spontaneous, be truthful, be free, and thus be individuals!

Here’s that Bob Dylan song with the easy chair reference, You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere. From1967, it was part of his Basement Tapes and more famously recorded by the Byrds in 1968. This is a newer version that I like very much from Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova. It’s a great tune. Worth a listen.

Comes a Wind is included in Continuum: The Red Tree at 25 which opens tomorrow, Friday, June 14, at the Principle Gallery in Alexandria. The opening reception runs from 6-8:30 PM on Friday. I will be there so please stop in and check out the show. Maybe have a chat.

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