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Posts Tagged ‘Little Gems’

Serenity Flag

Posted in Quote, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , on February 3, 2015| 2 Comments »

GC Myers- Serenity Flag smWhen despair for the world grows in me, and I wake in the night at the least sound in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be — I go and lie down where the wood drake rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds. I come into the peace of wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought or grief. I come into the presence of still water. And I feel above me the day-blind stars waiting with their light. For a time I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

-Wendell Berry

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There’s something in the design of this new piece that is part of the Little Gems exhibit  at the West End Gallery that reminded me of a flag or banner.  I kept looking at it in the studio, wondering where or what it might represent as a flag, when it came to me: a place of peaceful stillness.  Resting , as Wendell Berry points out in the quote above, in the grace of the world.

A state of serenity.

It’s a small painting, only 4″ by 6″ in size and titled Serenity Flag, but it speaks very strongly to me of the desire to quell the anxieties that often rise up within me and to find that moment of grace where they all dissolve into the stillness.  I’ve spoken here often about this desire as being one of the prime motivators behind my painting and this simple, small piece sums it up well.

I think there’s the possibility that if I ever stumble into that state of placid stillness I will see the Serenity Flag flying.

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Born to be Blue

Posted in At the Movies, Favorite Things, Music, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , , , , , on February 1, 2015| 2 Comments »

GC Myers The Blue Cool This is another small painting that is part of  the Little Gems exhibit opening this coming Friday at the West End Gallery.  This is a little 3″ by 5″ piece on paper that I call The Blue Cool.  I guess that it arose from the current frigid temps that we are in here in the Northeast.  The sky here is in three blocks of an aqua blue color that has a transparency that makes them seem like thin slabs of ice.  I don’t know if this quality shows up on the computer screen  but when this piece was in the studio I always felt like holding it up to the light to see light shine through the ice that I felt like I was seeing.

It’s a simple meditative piece, what I like to typically see in these small works.  The small scale lends itself to simplicity.  Maybe this built-in restraint is one of the reasons why I enjoy painting these small pieces and why I feel they often work so well.

I don’t know for sure.  And I think that uncertainty or puzzlement  is sometimes a good thing.  It creates a sense of wonder and surprise and that is always a good thing.

I thought for this week’s Sunday music I would stick with the Blue theme and some blue cool jazz from one of my favorites, the late great Chet Baker.  The song is Born to be Blue which is also the title of a film currently in production about Baker’s life with Ethan Hawke portraying the gifted but tragic trumpeter.  His story reads like a screenplay– Golden Boy of jazz with movie-star looks loses everything to drug addiction and violence and tries to find redemption.  I’ve thought for years that it was meant to be a film and now it is, hopefully one that does the story justice.

When I listen to Baker’s music, I hear it with that same sense of uncertainty and puzzlement I alluded to above.  There’s just something natural and right in it that can’t be, or shouldn’t be, defined.  It just is.  Give a listen and have a great Sunday.

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Wisdom of the Wind

Posted in Quote, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , , on January 28, 2015| 1 Comment »

GC Myers- Wisdom of the WindWisdom sails with wind and time.

–John Florio

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Thought I’d take the opportunity to show another new small painting that will be part of the Little Gems show at the West End Gallery, opening next Friday.  This little 4″ by 6″ piece is titled Wisdom of the Wind.

For me, this is a piece about motion, about the movement of the trees caught in the gusting winds.  Like the words from the 16th century above, I see this as being about how we  are often shaped by exposure and time to prevailing thought.  Some will simply succumb to the winds of the time while some will offer resistance against the direction in which the wind is blowing.

I suppose that the wisdom comes from knowing when to relent and when to resist.  What fights to pick and what fights to let pass.

There’s a long pause between that last short paragraph and this one.  I find myself lost in that thought, wondering if there is any wisdom in it at all.  It’s one of those things where I can see a viable argument for either side.  I suppose it comes down to one’s nature, how one is built.  Some trees are made to simply go with the wind while others always struggle against every wind.

I sometimes can’t decide what type of tree I am.

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The Outlier’s Home

Posted in Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , , on January 26, 2015| 2 Comments »

GC Myers - The Outlier's Home 1200- 72Yesterday on the blog, I showed one of my small pieces from this year’s Little Gems show at the West End Gallery, which opens February 6.  I thought I might show another today, this one a little 4″ by 6″ painting called The Outlier’s Home.

It’s a simply constructed piece that features the intense color of the foreground set against the placid blue gradation of the sky with a red-roofed homestead alongside a Red Tree set between the two contrasting forces.  It has a feeling of distance and separation but without anxiety or fear.

Maybe that is where the title originated, in this separation.  I like the idea of the outlier, that thing or being that is apart from the normal set.  An aberration, something slightly outside the norm in one way or another.  I think that is why I envision the Red Tree standing alone apart from other trees in many of the paintings.

I like the idea here of  a place outside the normal that seems peaceful and accepting of itself, not caring what the world  that looks at them from across that purple field  thinks.  I think that’s what we all hope for in this world– an acceptance for ourselves as we are without having to put on a mask to fit into the crowd.

It’s a lot to see in a simple, little piece.  But that’s my take.

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The Storms Are On the Ocean

Posted in Favorite Things, Music, Painting, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , , , , , on January 25, 2015| 8 Comments »

GC Myers- Storms Are on the OceanI’ve been working recently on some very small pieces for the upcoming Little Gems show at the West End Gallery in Corning.  I’ve mentioned here before that this particular show is always  a sentimental favorite of mine as it was in this show that I first publicly showed my work twenty years ago.  It represents the first step on to the path that I now follow and that makes it special for me.  Plus I enjoy working in the smaller scale for a bit.  It allows for easily easing back into older themes and forward into newer ones.

One of these pieces that just finished yesterday is shown here at the top.  It’s a 4″ by 6″ painting that I call Storms Are on the Ocean.  I haven’t done a boat painting in some time and thought the smaller format would be the perfect opportunity to re-visit the theme.  I am always drawn to the motion in these pieces and the billow of the sail.  It reminds me of a fable or a dream in some way that I find appealing.

I thought this would be the perfect match for this week’s Sunday morning music which is the song after which this painting is titled.  It’s The Storms Are on the Ocean, a song first done by the legendary Carter Family back in the late 20’s.  This version is from June Carter Cash‘s last album, Wildwood Flower, which was released in the year, 2003, after her death.  Like the final recordings of her husband, the great Johnny Cash, this album shows her in a fragile state of health which adds greatly to the emotional impact of the songs.

It definitely comes through on this lovely song with its haunting chorus:
The storms are on the ocean
The heavens may cease to be
This world may lose its motion, love
If I prove false to thee

Enjoy and have a great Sunday.

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The Eternal Gaze

Posted in Recent Paintings, tagged , , , on February 6, 2014| 3 Comments »

GC Myers- Eternal GazeThis past week on the blog, I’ve been putting up images from a group of work that is part of the Little Gems show that opens tomorrow at the West End Gallery.  I was going to show yet another snow painting in honor of our recent wintry weather- it’s hovering around zero on the thermometer and everything is covered with a white layer of snow here.  But this painting struck me this morning.  Maybe it was the warmth of the sky.

It’s called The Eternal Gaze and is about 4″ by 6″ on paper.  The large bird who seems to be overseeing the whole scene and the atmospheric glow give this an otherworldly feel.  Large birds, especially crows and ravens, have always had an otherworldly quality for me, their watchful intelligence always coming across as some sort of deeper and timeless wisdom.  As though they are and have been witnesses to our time in this world.

The contrast between the light of the sky and the darkness of the bony tree and the bird creates a nice tension within the picture but it’s the simple silhouette of the bird that changes the whole feeling and focus of it.  Without the gazing black bird this piece felt much different.  Again, the bird carries a certain cache in its symbolism.

Actually, since the snow piece I was going to show had several birds in a tree in a more wintry setting and also alluded to their watchfulness, why not show it as well?  This is Winter Watchers and is a mere 2.5″ by 3″  on paper.  Both are currently at the West End Gallery.

GC Myers- Winter Watchers

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Memory Way

Posted in Influences, Personal Mythology, Quote, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , , on February 4, 2014| 4 Comments »

GC Myers-Memory Way smEvery man’s memory is his private literature.

-Aldous Huxley

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As I have stated in the past here, the Red Chair, an icon that often appears in my work, is a symbol to me of people and places and experiences from the past.  In short, my memory.  In this new piece, Memory Way, that is most certainly the case.  This little painting, 2″ by 5″ on paper, is another of my pieces from the Little Gems exhibit which opens Friday at the West End Gallery.

The road here represents to me the continuum of time.  The landscape is almost idyllic, perhaps representing my tendency to block out the worst parts of memory.  At least, to downplay them and keep them in the background and to put what good there was there in the best possible light.  I like to revisit the past occasionally and I have to make it a place where I am comfortable.  A past filled with nothing but dark and fear-filled memories is no place to venture on a regular basis.

Anyway, this little piece makes me happy and fills my mind with a feeling of good memories.  As Huxley said  above, our memory is our own private literature, filled with the memories of our lives and the lives of our ancestors.  I sometimes edit, embellish and redact my life’s literature, all to make it an interesting read for myself.

That’s what I see in this little guy.

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Serenata Blue

Posted in Favorite Things, Music, Painting, Recent Paintings, Video, tagged , , , on February 2, 2014| 4 Comments »

GC Myers-Serenata Blue This is another of the pieces that are in the upcoming Little Gems exhibit at the West End Gallery in Corning.  This little guy is titled Serenata Blue and is a just a bit larger that 2″ by 4″ on paper.  It’s a continuation of the recent snow paintings as well as another of my solitary guitarist pieces, of which I do a handful each year.

There’s something very appealing to me in the solitary guitarist standing amidst open space as he cradles his guitar.  It usually brings me a wistful, somewhat sad feeling.  Not in a bad way sad.  Just a slight existential melancholy.  You know, the good kind.

I thought that there should be some appropriate musical accompaniment to this painting so I came up with a sad song.  And I mean sad.  This Nancy Griffith’s version of Tecumseh Valley.  It’s an achingly  beautiful and sad  lament that tells the story of a poor mountain girl.  To make this version even sadder, this is from a tribute show from the friends of the song’s writer, the great Townes Van Vandt, right after he passed away in 1997.  But it is a haunting and lovely song so don’t be afraid to listen.

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Steps to Solitude

Posted in Biographical, Painting, Recent Paintings, Technique/History, tagged , , , on January 29, 2014| 7 Comments »

GC Myers- Steps to Solitude smMaybe I decided to use this image  because it was -8° when I headed out for my stroll through the woods to the studio.  Well, not really a stroll.  More like a hard determined march, trying to cut through the sharp cold as quickly as possible.  But as I glimpsed at the still dark sky,  Venus  was shining brightly just above the treeline, so much so that it caused me stop and just wonder at its brilliance.  To my eye it had a reddish glint that made it seem  like some exotic little gem in the sky.  Beautiful enough to stop me in my frozen tracks.

This brought to mind the upcoming  Little Gems show at the West End Gallery in Corning that opens next Friday,  February 7th.   I am currently prepping a group of paintings for this exhibit of small work which is always one of my favorite shows of my painting year and one that always brings back good memories.  As I have noted here in the past, the Little Gems show in 1995 was the first opportunity I had to show my work in public.

A first step on a then unknown path.

This will be my twentieth Little Gems show, something which would have seemed unfathomable back at that first show.  I don’t paint as many small pieces in recent years, spending more time on larger work, so this is always a great time to revisit the small form.  There is something  wonderful in seeing the colors and forms compressed into a smaller space, something that brings out the gem-like quality in each.  Each element, each mark takes on greater weight in the smaller form.  There’s a different type of concentration, one that is  quicker in its self-editing and one that is definitely more intuitive.  The sizes are such that everything just happens quicker and there is less time to ponder.

And that is often a good thing.   I’ve often said that I’m not smart enough to paint when I have to think about it.   Maybe these small pieces are  proof  of this.

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This piece is called Steps to Solitude and is a compact 3″ by 6″ painting on paper.  It will be at the West End by the end of this week along with several other small pieces.

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Little Gems

Posted in Recent Paintings, Technique/History, tagged , on January 26, 2011| 4 Comments »

I just finished a small group of tiny paintings for an annual show held at the West End Gallery in Corning, called Little Gems.  Held every February, it’s a show of miniature paintings from the gallery artists.  I’ve mentioned before that this show is a sentimental favorite of mine.  The first time I exhibited my work in public was at a Little Gems show in 1995, at a time when the idea of being a collected painter seemed awfully far away, if even imagined at all.  Most of the work I was creating at the time was small and pretty much fell in line with the theme of the show.  It was a turning point in my life, opening doors of new possibility to me.

Since that time, I have always held a special spot for this show for that reason and for the fact that it has original work, albeit small in size,  offered at very affordable prices, giving  people of modest means an opportunity to collect work  they might admire.  There’s something very egalitarian about it, far from the perception of the art gallery as an elitist institution.  And I like the idea  that art is for everyone.

This is a group of tiny 2″ by 4″ canvas paintings that I frame in a slightly larger (just under 6″ by8″) shadow box frame that makes the piece seem a bit larger .  The petite canvas size creates a challenge and I like to include a few twists on my normal compositions, such as this piece to the right with the yellow flag and the divided sky.  But I often try to keep the work typical of my style and subject vocabulary.  This goes back to the thought in the last paragraph.  This might be the only piece of original art that is bought by the person who selects this painting and I would like to give them opportunity to have a piece that is obviously recognizable as my work.  That’s one of the reasons that I have always strived to paint these little pieces with all the effort and care that I use in much larger pieces.

This show, Little Gems, opens next Friday, February 4th, at the West End Gallery in Corning, NY.

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