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Posts Tagged ‘Principle Gallery’

Alive in the Gray Area

Posted in Painting, Recent Paintings, tagged , on June 11, 2010| 3 Comments »

Alive in the Gray Area- GC Myers

My show opens tonight at the Principle Gallery.  I head down the highway early in the day and settle into my hotel and relax for a short time before the opening.  Have a bite to eat and try to take my mind off the show.  I still have anxiety over the whole thing, as I talked about in yesterday’s post.  But it’s not so much of a panic after 25 or so solo shows. 

Just try to keep the flop sweat down and be grateful for those who show up.

Dancing in the Gray Light

This year, I’m bringing a couple of pieces with me on the day of the show.  They are two smaller paintings done in shades of gray and black with touches of color.  I started these this week as an exercise, sort of to clear my palette.  Go back beyond color then come forward again.  These were primarily done as such and were not meant to be shown but I found that they really appealed to me and gave a different flavor to my normal compositions.  Taking the focus off the color made my eye instead fall to subtlety of line and tonal differences in the grays.

It was still my work but I was seeing it  in a different way.  Like hearing a song you know very well played in a much different manner.  You recognize all the things about it that you liked in it normally but notice things that evaded you before.

That’s kind of how I feel about these pieces. 

So I decided to show them tonight if only to get a bit of feedback.

So if you’re in Alexandria tonight, stop in at the Principle Gallery and say hello. Maybe take a look around.  There’s plenty of color to go along with the grays…

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Connected

Posted in Recent Paintings, tagged , on June 10, 2010| 2 Comments »

 

Well, I’m basically set to head to Alexandria for tomorrow night’s opening of my show, Facets, at the Principle Gallery.  This is the eleventh year that I’ve done this show so I have an idea of how things usually go.  Not a lot of surprises.  Like they say, this ain’t my first rodeo.

But, despite this little burst of bravado, there is always a level of anxiety that accompanies these shows.  I’ve talked about it before in this blog.  The thought that I’ve misread my work and it doesn’t resonate with a larger audience always lingers in the days before a show.  That’s my biggest fear.  That and the fear that nobody shows up and I’m left standing with the folks from the gallery, me apologizing to them and them to me, all of us making rationalizations on what might have happened. 

Been there, done that.

This second scenario sounds worse, I know.  The awful awkwardness of it.  But the fear of midreading my own work and how it comes across to others looms far larger for me.  People not showing up, sales being up or down– things like that are usually the result of factors you can’t predict or control.  Weather.  Scheduling conflicts.  The economy.

But not seeing your own work as others might see it is a bigger problem, at least in my eyes.  I see my work as being successful when it’s communicating across a wide spectrum of people.  To me, art is all about communicating and connecting on an emotional level, getting across some feeling that I can’t capture in any other way but my imagery and having someone see and react to it in much the same way as I.  And when that doesn’t happen, I’ve misread my work in some way.  And when that happens, it’s like a sailor being adrift without a rudder or the stars to guide them.  Truly alone.

And that is a time of fear.

But those moments are rare, fortunately.  And I feel this show communicates well, reaches out in a broad way.

Connected, like the painting above of the same name, which is part of this show.  It’s a painting on paper that measures 18″ by 26″ and one that I think very much bridges the gap between the past and the present of my work.  I think that word, connected, says everything I want to say about this show.

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A Look to the Past

Posted in Recent Paintings, tagged , on June 8, 2010| Leave a Comment »

This is a new painting from the Facets show that opens Friday at the Principle Gallery.  It’s called A Look to the Past and is a 12″ by 18″ image on paper.

There are a lot of things about this piece that I like, that keep my eyes coming back to it and making me think about what I’m seeing.  For instance, the deep blue rise that  cuts in a diagonal slash across the foreground with the peering red tree atop it.  Its darkness plays well off the soft gold of the sky and its lazy clouds, giving it a sense of being a delineating point here, the transition between dark and light, the past and the present and other polarities in our nature.  Much like the dividing line in the yin-yang symbol.

The red tree seems to be part of both sides here, rooted in the dark blue and basking in the golden light.  It is in the present and in the past as well, which is represented by the softer palette of the greens and yellows of the landscape that moves deeper into the picture plane.  There’s a really nice interplay between the sharpness of the foreground and the softening of the background that gives the piece an interesting visual tension.

It just seems to come together well and provides a launching pad for many different interpretations and emotions.  I can read this piece in so many ways– hopeful, strong, sad, wistful, etc.   It’s a kind of barometer piece for ones own psyche and has a complexity that belies its simple appearance, something that gratifies and excites me when I see it in my work.   The ultimate aspiration for what I do…

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Advocate

Posted in Opinion, Recent Paintings, tagged , , on June 7, 2010| 4 Comments »

  Concerning this blog, a gallery owner once said to me, “You sure have a lot of opinions.”  I think they were concerned with the possibility of me  alienating one or more of their clients with my personal opinions.

“Everyone has opinions,” I replied. “They just don’t always express them.”

That short exchange may well be the basis for this painting, Advocate.  A 24″ by 36″ work on canvas, this is a new piece showing at the Facets show at the Principle Gallery in Alexandria, VA, which opens Friday, June 11th. 

 When I look at this piece I see the red tree as the advocate, standing up for an opinion that may represent that of the red roofed houses.  It’s as though there is an interchange happening between the tree and the light breaking through the fingers of the sky, the tree arguing for the light to shed aside the darkness and shine on the scattering of homes below.

Actually, while I do have as many opinions as anyone and  sometimes have an inability to keep them to myself when asked, I try to steer away from treading too much in this blog  on subjects that do not pertain to my work in some way.  Unfortunately, my work is a product of my emotions and my emotions are often stirred by things going on in this world.  So occasionally opinion on things that may not seem to have anything directly to do with the making of art creeps in. 

 This always leaves me a little uneasy.  Like the title of my show, I am a prism comprised, as we all are, of many and varied facets.  I show many of these aspects in my work and in this blog and I sometimes fear I am showing too much,  that once the viewer has gained enough familiarity with the work and me,  the mystery of the work will be gone.  So, I try to keep some of these facets out of the light of my visible prism.  Actually, I almost started listing these here as examples, which would kind of defeat the whole purpose of not showing them in the first place.

But the red tree of this painting is not afraid to show themself fully as it is, visible from every aspect.  It is vulnerably in the open yet it appears strong and definite in conviction, willing to face down anything that crosses its path.  It is a fully lit prism.

Maybe this is a case where a painting represents aspiration rather than reality…

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Gossamer Days

Posted in Painting, Recent Paintings, Technique/History, tagged , on June 6, 2010| Leave a Comment »

Gossamer Days - GC Myers 2010

The studio is relatively empty now as I’m now in the week between delivering the Facets show to the Principle Gallery and the actual opening night this coming Friday.  While there is always anxiety over the show itself, there is usually a sense of relieved relaxation in the studio at this point, an almost giddy feeling over the possibility of what may come next there.  Usually at the end of painting for a show, all the creative energies  have come to a sharp, focused point and in the weeks of prepping the work for a show and the point when painting is resumed, this point is constantly poking me, impatiently waiting to be untethered.

At the moment, it wants to explore new ideas in sometime older styles.  For instance, the painting shown here, Gossamer Days, is painted in the more transparent manner of my early work and  provides me with a new spark each time I see it.  After years of having the work grow and evolve beyond this style, it’s always interesting to revisit it with the benefit of knowledge and insight gained through the years.  Something new and exciting emerges as new ideas are incorporated and older ideas that may have faded from my vocabulary are reintroduced.  For me, this an exciting time in the studio.

This discovery of things new and old keeps me always fully engaged, always feeling that the work is growing and not stagnant.  The idea of the work not moving forward is death in the energy of the studio and something for which I always on the lookout.  For the work to be vibrant and have its own sense of life, I must have a sense of engagement with and excitement for the work myself.  So, at points like this, when that excitement is almost palpable I am thrilled because I know the importance of it.  But I am always also a bit nervous of not capturing the full strength of this creative wind in my sails and being left adrift to paddle my way out by creating new energy somehow.

That is tough work…

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Travel Notes

Posted in Neat Stuff, tagged , , , , on June 5, 2010| 3 Comments »

Well, my show for next week’s opening at the Principle Gallery has been delivered.  It was an easy day of traveling, the traffic relatively light and no major aggressors menacing the four-lanes.  Smooth.

Going through Pennsylvania there are these large gas stations/convenience store plazas that line Rte. 15.  Sheetz runs a number of these always bustling havens for the road traveler.  They have dozens of gas pumps and fast food and aisles of snacks.  They’re almost always packed with cars and people.  As I drove  yesterday, I noticed one such plaza that was almost empty, shockingly.  I looked at the sign and noticed the colors.  It was a BP-ran plaza. The actual BP logoat the top of an obelisk-like sign  had been covered with what looked to be  heavy white plastic that had been shrink-wrapped around it, obscuring the logo except for the outline of their trademark sun symbol.  Apparently, the driving public had cast a vote of extreme disapproval for the company in the most potent way– with their buying dollars.  It was an interesting thing to note and, while I wish no business harm, it heartened me to see that people were making conscious choices and, in their way, voicing an opinion with their pocketbooks rather than just shrugging it off as another “Oh well, what can I do about it?” moment.

Just interesting.

Also, I heard a story on NPR about the ukulele revival around the world.  I have featured ukulele pieces here a couple of times, with the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain and virtuoso Jake Shimabukuro, so I was happy to hear that I wasn’t alone in my admiration of this much maligned instrument.  Apparently, for many years now, many schools throughout Canada use the uke in teaching music to elementary grade students, giving each kid their own ukulele.  On this program, they played a clip of a performance where a large number of the audience had brought their own ukes and at a point in the concert joined with the onstage performers in a version of Keep on the Sunny Side of Life.  It was great and made me wish that people were required to carry ukuleles with them at all times.  How can you be mad with a uke in your hands?

Anyway, here’s a peformance from the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain that doesn’t feature the uke but is  great fun nonetheless.  Sounds pretty good on a Saturday when I can relax for a bit now that my studio is emptied…

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In the Golden Light

Posted in Painting, Recent Paintings, Technique/History, tagged , , on June 3, 2010| 2 Comments »

I’m in the last days of preparation for my show, Facets,  that opens June 11 in Alexandria, VA at the Principle Gallery.  Today I put on the final few hanging wires on the backs of the paintings, finish the necessary paperwork and documentation then wrap and load the paintings for tomorrow’s delivery.

This is often a hectic, anxious day but this year I find it strangely calm thus far.  Maybe it comes from the relief of seeing the endpoint in preparations for this show or perhaps it comes from finally seeing this group of work together, now fully framed and moved from raw images into their now presentable form. 

 Often a piece, especially one on paper, undergoes a  startling transformation once it is put in a setting for presentation.  I think of the painting as a gem of sorts and the matting and framing as the setting that holds this gem and allows it to be seen in its best light.  Sometimes a piece takes on a sparkle, a different life even, when seen in the setting of its frame rather than as a raw image on paper.  I see this often with Cheri when she will see a painting in the studio before framing and give little response then will react so much more stronglyand positively after it is fully presented. 

Seeing this group together and fully presented gives it a wholeness and allows me to see the continuity in it that I knew was there, which is reassuring.  It looks like it will hang together well and the pieces will play well off one another, each exhibiting its own individual strength and acting as a complement to those around it, reinforcing them.  There is a great blend in this group of boldness and softness, strong colors and muted tones.  Like the name of the show implies,  this group shows many of the facets of the body of my work to date.

The piece above, In the Golden Light, is part of this show.  It is a work on ragboard and measures a little over 11″ by 25” and is matted and presented in a 20″ by 34″ frame.  I think it’s a prototypical example of my work, one that strikes close to the core of everything I want to show and say in my work.  It’s a painting that flowed out easily and gracefully near the end of the final days of painting for this show, almost as though it were the final performance after months of dress rehearsals.  There was no struggle with this piece and there was a sense of a type of destiny in it even as the first section of paint began to dry.  I can’t fully explain this.  I used the word gracefully earlier in the paragraph and there was a type of grace in the painting of this, an ease of motion and a confidence that I seek yet seldom find, in my work or in my life.

I think I can say the same for much of this group of work.  I think there’s an ease and a confidence in this work that arises from coming to terms with where I am as a painter, reveling in what I am and setting aside concerns about what I am not.   I think it comes through quite evidently  in this show. 

At least it does for me.  I can’t predict what others might see…

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Vestige of Memory

Posted in Recent Paintings, tagged , on June 1, 2010| Leave a Comment »

This is a new painting that is called Vestige of Memory.  It’s a modestly sized piece on paper, a 5″ by 19″ image on paper that frames out at 12″ by 26″.  It’s part of my upcoming show, Facets, at the Principle Gallery.

I’ve always been interested in how our memory functions, how we organize and determine the importance of memories within our minds.  How we determine what remains intact and seemingly vital to us and how we figure out what gets tucked away in some distant corner or simply flies away.   Why do some innocuous moments remain vital in our memories while other more important ones seem to have no place there?

Is there a collective memory among us as a species, ingrained remembrances that give us our instinctual reactions?  If so, do we add to it even now?

Those are just a few of the questions that come to mind when I see this piece.  It’s a simple composition yet it says a lot with the little it possesses.  Perhaps it’s the motion of the tree or the fleeting leaves. Maybe it’s the hints of color in the background sky or the texture there that hints at some unknown entity or knowledge  that we can only see as chaos.   Maybe it’s the simple red chair, signifying a matter of importance, something to be held close.

Or maybe it’s just a chair on a mound as the wind blows a tree. 

It’s all a matter of perception…

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In the Freeflow

Posted in Recent Paintings, tagged , on May 26, 2010| Leave a Comment »

I’ve been featuring a number of new paintings lately that will be showing at my upcoming exhibit, Facets, at the Principle Gallery.  In this show, there is a wide variety of the motifs that I’ve used over the years and today’s piece is an example of a subject that I’ve revisited many times. 

The simple shape and grace of the blowing tree give it such a symbolic sense and power that it always draws me back, often when I have no intention of revisiting it.  This painting, In the Freeflow, is a 12″ by 17″ image on paper and is a great example of why this tree stays with me. 

The tree takes a very bold stance in the picture plane, dominating the foreground on its mound, giving no evidence of its locale or environment.   The whole narrative of the piece is told in its lines and movement and their relationship with the color and texture of the sky behind and even in the spew lines at the top of the image where the paint breaks free in rivulets going outward.

To me, this piece is about calling on one’s inner grace and strength to survive and ultimately overcome the forces that place seemingly endless obstacles before you.  In the bends of the tree,  I see  the adaptive qualities that allow us to change and grow in different ways so that we might endure our travails.  In the red flowing leaves, I see the unquenchable spirit of those who persevere, bending to the winds that push them in many directions but always rooted in knowing who they are.  And in the bit of yellow in the sky at what seems to be the horizon, I see the hope and potential of a future worth the effort of this act of endurance.

Or maybe it’s just a little tree in the wind.  Sometimes, as they say, a cigar is just a cigar…

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Archaeology: Legacy

Posted in Painting, Recent Paintings, Technique/History, tagged , , on May 24, 2010| 2 Comments »

I am finished painting now and have started the process of finishing my work for the upcoming show, Facets, at the Principle Gallery in June.   As with every show, there is a final painting completed and for this show this is the last painting finished, a piece from the Archaeology series that is 18″ by 25″ on paper.  I call this painting  Archaeology: Legacy.

This is a piece that I started at the end of last year.  It was one of those times when I got to a certain point and liked what I had in front of me but had decisions to make witht he piece and didn’t feel ready to make them at the time.  So the piece would be set aside.  Occasionally, I would pull it out and add a bit to the underground artifacts but it just kind of simmered, growing slowly. 

As I neared my self-imposed deadline for this show, I began to hover back more and more to this piece.  I think part of it has to do with the feeling I’ve been experiencing in my mind at this point in the process.  Sometimes, as I near readiness for a show, there is a sense of great mental focus and clarity and other times, a feeling of chaos and disassociation.  There is no rhyme nor reason for this.  It just happens.  Maybe it has to do with my view of the outer world at the time  or how often I yell at the moon.

 I don’t know.

But as the prep for the show winds down this year, I find my concentration and attention dwindling.  Thoughts are short and fleeting.  Bursts of thought and image come and go in a flash.  It might be disturbing if I didn’t recognize this as being a sometime by-product of my process.  So, it seemed fitting that the last piece before me was an Archaeology piece where the details underground consist of a free flow of items and associations. 

As it neared completion, it seemed to calm me, as though a great piece of unfinished business that had been hanging like the sword of Damocles above was finally out of the way.  When the last iota of detritus had found it’s way to the surface, I breathed a sigh of relief.  A sigh of finality.

And maybe that’s what this painting is about.  The sigh of relief of a future world growing beyond the legacy passed on to them from a chaotic world.

Or not.

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