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Posts Tagged ‘Principle Gallery’

Yelling at the Moon

Posted in Favorite Things, Neat Stuff, Television, tagged , , , , , on May 23, 2010| 5 Comments »

The term bucket list has become very popular over the last several years.  I suppose everyone has things they would love to do before they kick the bucket, fantasies they want to fulfill.  I don’t have anything formalized myself, anything written down, but a few weeks ago I saw something on television that I might have to have at the top of the page if I ever were to assemble such a list.

Yell at the moon with Buzz Aldrin.

In a recent episode of the NBC sitcom 30 Rock, Liz Lemon, Tina Fey’s character, discovers that her mother in her younger days had been in love with Buzz Aldrin and sets out to reunite them.  When Liz finally meets Buzz, he tells her how awful her mother’s life would have been had she stayed with him and that she was lucky to have left.  Having always fantasized about marrying her own aerospace hero, the imaginary Astronaut Mike Dexter, Liz is disappointed and seeing this Buzz asks her if she would like to yell at the moon with him.

“I walked on your face!” Aldrin yells as the two stand looking at the moon from a lofty apartment in NYC as the moon hovers in the daylight.

“I own you!”

“Stupid moon!” Liz chimes in.

I know it’s goofy.  And even though Aldrin’s delivery is a little stiff and stilted, it reminded me of the way Chief Dan George spoke and acted  in Little Big Man.  There’s something in it that feels honest and sincere that makes it more endearing. Unreal but real.  And the idea of Buzz Aldrin, the wizened old astronaut standing in the window and yelling out at the moon as though it were a living being to him, as though it were a kid he was shooing off his lawn, has an almost mythic quality.  This feels magical to me.  It would be great to be able to stand, next to Buzz Aldrin,  there and tell the moon where it could go.

So, if I ever get down to making a bucket list, that would have to be at the top.  Especially since Edmund Hillary is dead.  I would have loved yelling at Mt. Everest with him.

Stupid mountain…

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PS: The painting at the top of this post is a new piece, A Time to Rest, and is about 11″ by 15″ on paper.  It will be shown at the Principle Gallery show in June.

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Hierarchy

Posted in Painting, Recent Paintings, Technique/History, tagged , , , on May 20, 2010| 2 Comments »

Hierarchy ---GC Myers

The name I’ve chosen for my exhibition that opens June 11 at the Principle Gallery is Facets.  When looking at this year’s show, I realized that there was a very wide variety of my work in this group.  Not focusing on one specific aspect as in previous years.  There are  a few Red Roof paintings, a few fragmented sky paintings , a few with converging field rows, a few with Red Chairs and a couple of  my small, lone figures.  It’s overall a pretty interesting group that I think shows a fuller spectrum from the prism of my work.  Thus, the name, Facets.

There are also a handful of my Archaeology pieces in this show.  I only do a handful of these per year now.  The piece above, Hierarchy,  is derived from that series although it focuses more on the layers below the surface rather than artifacts, although there is one yellow shoe there.  This painting is a  30″ by 40″ canvas so it has some size which gives it some visual wallop. 

I’ve been working on this piece for about six months, doing a bit then setting  it aside.  I would keep glimpsing at it when I wasn’t working on it, trying to figure where I would go with it.  But I never wanted to rush it, never wanted to push it too hard.  Wanted it to grow naturally, organically.  It wasn’t until yesterday, when I dragged the last few strokes on the canvas, that I felt I finally saw where the painting had settled and it felt whole.

That’s always an interesting feeling, this sense of the work being suddenly complete.  Full.  Alive.  As though the last few embellishments stir something that make it more than mere paint smeared on canvas, make it an entity with a history and a future all its own.   It’s exhilarating  but sad at the same time, as though the life it’s taken on will soon be gone from my life.  I can’t fully explain it but that’s the feeling I felt yesterday with Hierarchy. 

So, I share my studio for the next few weeks with this breathing, living creature as it impatiently waits to shows its true self to the outside world…

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Reflections

Posted in Recent Paintings, Technique/History, Video, tagged , , on May 15, 2010| Leave a Comment »

I’ve been showing a lot of new work lately that I will be showing at my upcoming show in june at the Principle Gallery in Alexandria, VA.  This is a 24″‘ by 30″ painting that I finished back in February which has been above my studio’s fireplace for most of that time. I look at it several times a day and have yet to want to alter it in any way.  I find the sparseness of detail adds to the coolness and focus that I think make this piece work.

I didn’t have a title for this piece, even after months of looking at it.   I sometimes struggle with titling certain pieces that I’ve lived with for a while and seem to strike an inner chord with me.  This was one such painting.  But the time has come to start putting names to paintings.  I have a certain way of doing that that I’ve outlined before where I will set up a piece, pretending that I have never seen it before. I will turn away from it then turn back quickly, taking it in and grasping whatever first strikes me about the piece.  Color, shape, mood—–whatever jumps at me.  Then, taking that first impression, it becomes easier to find the right name.

But sometimes it doesn’t work and there are pieces that don’t adhere to this method.  Like this piece.  So I wait and hope something jumps out at some point or that I stumble across the right words for it.  I was looking for something else earlier and came across an old song from the late 60’s from a group, Marmalade, a Scottish band that had long since left my memory.  While their band’s name was forgettable, their best known hit, Relections On My Life,  was not.  Great song that rekindled old memory and I immediately knew I had a title for this painting: Reflections on a Life.

Sometimes you find things in unlikely places.  For those of you who don’t remember Marmalade, here they are:

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Excitement and Evolution

Posted in Painting, Recent Paintings, Technique/History, tagged , on May 7, 2010| Leave a Comment »

Blue Vigil- GC Myers

I’m about a month away from my annual show at the Principle Gallery and my studio is a mess.  There are paintings scattered about in varying degrees of completion.  Some are done and many need little touches here and there.  Some are still in early stages of development, still having many different potentials.  Some are still in my head, the result of ideas that blossom in this chaotic time of my year.

It’s hectic and I always seem to be behind my time schedule.  So much to do.  But it still remains one of my favorite times of my painting year if only for those new paintings in my head.  The intensity of the painting that comes with a looming deadline always seems to inspire new concepts and ambitions for my work which keeps me excited in the studio which makes my time spent alone there very easy to bear. 

This new excitement may come from working with a simple color or form or from a slight tweaking of  my technique.  It may come from revisiting concepts from the past that I haven’t used recently.  Or by a change in the materials I use.  A different canvas, paper or gesso often spurs me on.

This need to feel excitement in my own work is very important for me.  The main reason is simple.  If I cannot be stimulated by my own work, how can I expect others to be excited by it?  I’ve always believed that you can usually tell when a painter is inspired by their work.  There’s a confidence and surety in the rhythm of these pieces.  Perhaps this excitement is that which gives their work a signature “look”.

The other reason for this need to excite is that it fosters growth and change in the body of my work.  The changes may be small and imperceptible to many but they mark subtle expansion for me.  I see it when I scan back through the work over the last decade. Each year brings something new which changes the overall face on my body of work.  It may often seem much the same but it is actually an evolving continuum.  And I find excitement in this evolution…

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The Past Returns

Posted in Painting, Recent Paintings, Technique/History, tagged , , on May 1, 2010| 4 Comments »

GC Myers - The Past Returns

 

It’s the first day of May and I’m entering the stretch run in my preparations for my upcoming June show at the Principle Gallery in Alexandria.  The body of work is starting to take real shape and I’m getting a feel for how it will hang together during the show.  Themes emerge.

This year, I am devoting part of the show to work that is a return to my earlier work, painted in more transparent layers and more subdued tones of color. 

The piece shown here is indicative of this work.  I call this piece The Past Returns and it is 18″ by 18″ on treated cotton rag paper.  This piece to me is very much an homage to the first Red Tree paintings in color and form. 

This piece even has the visible spew line at the upper left corner where the liquid paint sometimes breaks free as I’m working it and rushes out of the picture plane.  I remember an older gentleman approaching me at an early show and pointing out this feature on my painting.  He told me how much he liked the spew lines, a term I had never heard.  He explained that he had worked in a foundry and that was their term for the excess metal that broke free of the mold.  I liked that and have called them spew lines since then.  I haven’t shown spew lines for some time, choosing to scrub and paint them out.  But seeing this one brought back the feeling of those earlier pieces and gave it an organic feel, exposing more of the process.  It had to stay.

Sometimes the past returns and it is a good thing…

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NEW! Name That Painting Contest!

Posted in Neat Stuff, Recent Paintings, tagged , , on April 21, 2010| 38 Comments »

It’s time for the annual (yes, I’m calling it an annual event) Name That Painting Contest!

The rules are simple.  Take a gander at the painting shown here, come up with a title that you feel fits it, and either submit your title through the comment section or e-mail it to info@gcmyers.com  no later than Midnight EST  on Sunday, May 16, 2010.  Feel free to enter as many titles as you wish.

The prize for submitting the winning title is…

A set of 2 extremely limited edition prints.  These are very high quality giclee artist proofs from a project that I tentatively started a few years back.  Very eye-catching, they are signed and numbered.  Plus, I will be including a signed copy of my book, In Quiet Places.

The painting is a fairly large 30″ by 40″ canvas and is a central piece for my upcoming solo show at the Principle Gallery in June.  I’m going to let the viewers choose their title without any prompting from me so I’ll leave it at that. 

 So break out your thinking beanies and give it a shot.  What do you have to lose?

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I Think I’m Going to Kathmandu…

Posted in Neat Stuff, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , , on April 18, 2010| 7 Comments »

GC Myers- The Dark Blue Above

Well, I’m not going to Kathmandu.

This painting  is, however.

Titled The Dark Blue Above, it was chosen by the  newly appointed US Ambassador to Nepal, Scott DeLisi, to adorn the his offices at the US Embassy in Kathmandu.  The Principle Gallery in Alexandria was approached by Ambassador DeLisi’s office concerning this piece and, as a result, it will hang in Nepal for the next three years as part of the US State Department’s Art in Embassies Program, which arranges American art for its diplomatic locations worldwide.

I feel honored to have a piece of mine chosen to be a representative piece of American art in another country and I’m particularly pleased that this painting was the choice to go to Nepal.  If you had asked me to choose a painting of mine to send there, this would have jumped to mind.  I can’t say this with any knowledge but I get the sense this piece will translate very well there.  Perhaps it’s the rich, bright blue in that sky or the the feeling of atmosphere.

I don’t know.  Just a feeling.

I wonder if I can visit it?

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Solace of Labor

Posted in Recent Paintings, tagged , , on April 16, 2010| Leave a Comment »

This is a small piece that I’m delivering today to the Principle Gallery in Alexandria.  Painted on ragboard, the image is a little over 5″ square and is titled Solace of Labor.

I really like this piece a lot, on a very personal level.  i suppose all my work is somewhat personal but, in this piece, I really feel as though I am the red tree here and the fields before it represent the work I’ve done.  The color of the piece has a calming, quiet effect and gives me the feel of the solace of the title.  It is a feeling much like that which I get when I collectively look back at the work, one of quiet pride of a task completed to my own satisfaction, knowing I had done my best and could do no more.

It also has a feel that takes me back to the very first work that I showed publicly many years back yet it still feels like today.  I feel the continuity of self through that time in this piece.  I guess what I mean by that,  is that even though the work has evolved over the years there is a line of continuity that runs through it and in this piece I can see it come full circle.

I don’t know if that makes sense to anyone but me.  I guess it doesn’t matter.  As I’ve said before, if I could say or write what I’m trying to say with my paintings, I wouldn’t need to paint.

But until I can write what I want to get across, I will paint.  Tomorrow.  Back in the studio after a couple of days on the road. 

I can’t wait…

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That’s The Way (The World Goes Round)

Posted in Recent Paintings, Video, tagged , , on April 14, 2010| Leave a Comment »

I was sitting at the computer the other day, going through the images of several new pieces that will be going with me tomorrow when I travel to a couple of the galleries that represent me.  This piece was still untitled and  I sat there, staring at it and trying to determine what it was saying to me, something that would give it a unique moniker.  As I struggled, a song came on the stereo and I had my title.

It was from my long-time ( and I mean, long-time) favorite John Prine.  It was That’s The Way The World Goes Round and it just felt right.  There’s a line in the song, …naked as the eyes of a clown…, that always I always seem to hear when the song is playing, regardless of what I’m doing or how occupied my mind is.  There’s something in the song that triggers an innate alarm so that at the moment that line is aboout to be delivered my mind pushes aside whatever it is doing and stops to listen.

This piece seems to fit that line for me.  There’s a festive feel in the colors of the fields and the confetti-like sky but there’s a distant feeling there as well.  The dichotomy of a clown. 

So it has a title now and one that I very much like.  The painting is a 12″ by 36″ canvas and will be at the Principle Gallery in Alexandria, VA  on Friday.

Here’s a version of the song from John Prine, filmed many years ago as he sat around a kitchen table with friends.  It’s not a complete version and it’s interrupted with chit-chat but it’s charming and humorous.  Makes me want to sit around and swap songs with him…

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Hokusai’s Waves

Posted in Favorite Things, Influences, tagged , , , on April 7, 2010| 2 Comments »

I often get comments from people asking about the Eastern, particularly Japanese, influence in my work.  While it has never been intentional, I have always been drawn to the prints of the Japanese masters Hiroshige and Hokusai and their influence inevitably finds its way into my own work.

I find the rhythm and structure of Hokusai’s wave prints very appealing.  There is a great combination of quietude and motion in the prints, brought to great effect with the use of gorgeous colors and impeccable design.

Along with this dichotomy of quiet and movement, there is a omnipresent sense of the immense force of nature over man.  Hokusai often has Mt. Fuji in the distance behind the curls of his powerful waves, reinforcing the power and sanctity of nature.  The finger-like  quality of the edges of the breaking waves seem like the hand of mother nature reaching out to slap at the reaching hands of her children, the boatmen.  Again, reinforcing the dominance of nature over man.

There is a lot more I could say about Hokusai’s work but so much of my appreciation for it is almost indefinable.  The work allows me to enter and translate it easily and thrill in the beauty of the lines and hues of the picture plane without determining why I am drawn to it.  This unquantifiable ease of translation may be the element of Hokusai’s work that I desire to see in my own work.

Great stuff…

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