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Perpetua

Posted in Painting, Quote, Recent Paintings, Technique/History, tagged , , , , on September 4, 2015| 1 Comment »

GC Myers- Perpetua

The decisive moment in human evolution is perpetual. That is why the revolutionary spiritual movements that declare all former things worthless are in the right, for nothing has yet happened.

—Franz Kafka

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I have been working on some new work that is built on layers of painted textures in the under painting.  They are often in their own way abstract pieces in themselves and I find myself contemplating the possibility of building more on these to create pure abstract paintings without any direction toward representation.  I think there will be at least several attempts in the future to at least explore the possibility, trying to see if I can satisfy my own needs within the realm of abstraction.  But for the moment, the abstract elements support, and hopefully enhance,  my own imagery.

Much like my normal gessoed surfaces, these painted underlying elements are meant to create a visual thumbprint, a distinct and individual surface that has a life force of its own and adds a measure of depth to the whole of the painting.  Some of the painted textures have been chaotic with multiple shapes and colors throughout.  Others use similar forms and colors set in a loosely patterned manner.  Whether they are random or built in a pattern, they must have some natural flow and depth within.

This new piece above is an 18″ by 18″ canvas that I call Perpetua.  It is built on a base of what I would call painted rectangular plates that seem to be descending into the background.  For me, it takes a simple image comprised of only a couple of elements and gives it added levels of depth and meaning.

When I look at this, that background has me considering things beyond the central figure of the Red Tree and its place in the moment.  It becomes a mere marker in a larger continuum, perhaps at the vanguard in its own present time but soon to be surpassed by the progress of the coming future.  Perhaps those plates represent images of past times and those things that were the cutting edges of those times, hovering in the background and supporting a new ascension.

Maybe.  Who knows?  I painted it and much of it remains a mystery to me.

And maybe that is the whole point…

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Quote of the Week: Lawren Harris

Posted in Favorite Things, Influences, Quote, tagged , , , on September 3, 2015| 4 Comments »

Lawren Harris- Mountains in Snow 1929

Lawren Harris- Mountains in Snow 1929

The power of beauty at work in man, as the artist has always known, is severe and exacting, and once evoked, will never leave him alone, until he brings his work and life into some semblance of harmony with its spirit.

—Lawren Harris

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The more I look at the work and read the words of the great Canadian painter Lawren Harris (1885-1970), the more of a fan I become.   His work was never about  capturing the physical reality of place.  No, it concerned itself with capturing the emotional response to the and harmony and spiritual nature of place, to evoke that power of beauty that has moved him.  It reminds me in that sense of  Edward Hopper’s work.

I am totally enamored with his paintings of the great white north in fantastic colors and forms but have been recently looking at his more abstract work and find then every bit as beautiful and engrossing.  They possess that same degree of feeling of his more representational pieces yet move into an even more internal space.  I find them intriguing and inspiring.

There is a book on the work of Lawren Harris coming out in a few weeks, co-authored by actor/comedian/art collector Steve Martin, The Idea of North: The Paintings of Lawren Harris,  that will be attempting to take Harris from being portrayed as  just a Canadian painter and place him highly in the larger context of all art.  It’s a book to which I am looking forward.

Lawren Harris The Spirit of the Remote Hills 1957Lawren Harris - abstractLawren Harris- Abstract #7 Lawren Harris- Abstract Painting #20 Lawren Harris abstractlawren harris-mt-lefroy LawrenHarris-Mount-Thule-Bylot-Island-1930

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Quote of the Week: Satisfaction

Posted in Motivation, Painting, Quote, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , , , on August 27, 2015| 3 Comments »

GC Myers- The Satisfaction smSatisfaction lies in the effort, not in the attainment. Full effort is full victory.

–Mahatma Gandhi

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I often paint the rows of a freshly cut field in my work.  While this creates an interesting visual effect with its pattern of alternating colors, it also satisfies my own need to express the importance — and necessity–of effort for myself and for my work.

I have often pointed out at gallery talks that I spend huge amounts of time alone working in my studio, well over 50,000 hours in the past fifteen years.  I usually make a joke of this, saying that I just tell people I am hard at work during my time in the studio so they will not bother me and that its really not that much work.  Okay, maybe there is some truth there as far as not having people bother me.  But the fact remains that while I find my time in the studio enjoyable as well as enlightening, it requires great effort and work.

And I wouldn’t have it any other way.

I guess that’s because there is usually a moment after finishing a piece or a group of work for a show when I stop and look at the work in its state of completion.  In this moment there is a great sense of satisfaction at the result of my full efforts.  And that full effort gives the results a sense of completeness and their completeness brings me my own completeness, a fulfillment of some small purpose that I find necessary in order to persist in this world.

That small moment of satisfaction makes all the work, all the frustration and missteps, fade away and that which should have depleted me now serves as nourishment.  I find myself strengthened for another day.

Maybe that what I see in this new painting, an 18″ by 18″ canvas which is headed out to California.  It is called The Satisfaction, of course.  It very much reflects what I have written here, with the Red Tree representing someone looking back on the results of a long day of labor.  And again, they feel uplifted rather than worn down.

I know it’s not always that way.  There have been times when work has been very draining, definitely in my past and occasionally even now.  But knowing that  special moment of satisfaction that comes along every so often is out there makes me look forward to the task and the effort ahead.

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Quote of the Week: Oscar Wilde

Posted in Quote, tagged , , , , on August 18, 2015| 2 Comments »

GC Myers- Light ObsessionIt is Art, and Art only, that reveals us to ourselves.–Oscar Wilde

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In Heaven Now…

Posted in Favorite Things, Motivation, Music, tagged , , , , on August 15, 2015| 2 Comments »

GC Myers- Raised Up Practice kindness all day to everybody and you will realize you’re already in heaven now.

—Jack Kerouac

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I am not sure what to do with these words from Jack Kerouac but I do like them and think they deserve to be passed along.  I am a firm believer of kindness in all forms and believe that it is a pathway to a better life here in this world.

When I was waiting tables I found that my own attitude and demeanor often dictated how others responded to me.  If I smiled and acted congenially, more often than not the person I was dealing with responded in the same manner.  We are reactionary creatures and we instinctively respond according to the tone we encounter– rudeness with rudeness and anger with anger.

And kindness with kindness.

It’s our choice.  If we can fight against our reactionary nature and choose to act and react with kindness, we can shape our world and then perhaps realize that a form of heaven might be within our grasp.

I have never had the faith or certainty of those who believe that there is an actual heaven waiting beyond this world.  I would like to but I just don’t have it within me.  So, for me, if there is to be a heaven it is something to be sought in the here and now.  By that, I mean creating an environment that is honest, kind and gentle.  A life that is peaceful and quiet–that would be heaven to me.

So, when you’re out there today and face rudeness and anger, make the choice to react in a gentler manner and be kind.  Your world might be one small step closer to heaven.

This quote reminded me of a song from one of my favorites, John Prine.  The title pretty much sums it up: He Was In Heaven Before He Died.

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Lucid Dreaming

Posted in Painting, Recent Paintings, Technique/History, tagged , , , , , , , , on August 7, 2015| Leave a Comment »

GC Myers- Lucid DreamAll men whilst they are awake are in one common world: but each of them, when he is asleep, is in a world of his own.

~Plutarch

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The other night I fell asleep early then awoke and after a bit tried to go back to sleep.  I flopped around trying to be comfortable but the wheels of my mind started turning and for a while I just lay there.  But there came a time when I slipped briefly into dreams even though I still felt awake.

It’s a strange feeling but it felt good at the same time because in those moments of lucid dreaming I saw a color and a surface that was new to me, one that I saw being used in my work.  It was multi-colored with blues and greens within it and a certain level of depth within the color that gave it a gorgeous glow.  Plus it was arranged in transparent plates that overlapped so that the combined colors deepened even more.

It’s hard to describe now because even in the time soon after waking I struggled to fully recall it in my memory.  It was there completely but in a vague sort of way.  It was not a color that I had worked with or had even seen though I can’t be sure of that.

I wanted to see it and tried to recreate it within my own range of color and technique.  I stumbled a bit at it for most of the day yesterday and finally realized that it would require something new, something different either in media or process to get the color and surface and depth that was still in there somewhere.

But the piece at the top did pop out during the day’s attempts and while it disappointed me because it didn’t fulfill my dream, it has an interesting feel that pleases me on another level.  Maybe this will take me a step closer to what I am seeing in my dream or maybe it will evolve into something different on its own, something I can’t yet envision.

It has shown itself in my dream so maybe it can come forward now if I keep looking for it with my waking mind.  Who knows?  You can never tell how things will turn out when you’re trying to take something from that inner world and move it out into the waking world.

We shall see…

 

 

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Raindance

Posted in Painting, Quote, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , on August 5, 2015| Leave a Comment »

GC Myers- Raindance smThere will be a rain dance Friday night, weather permitting.

—George Carlin

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This new painting, Raindance, is a 16″ by 20″ canvas at the West End Gallery as part of the Home+Land show now hanging there.  As I finished this piece I was keenly aware of the drought taking place in California and other parts of the American west.  It has resulted in dozens of wildfires throughout California, destroying homes and wildlife habitats as it furies along.  Rain can’t come soon enough for that part of the country.

In this painting the Red Tree seemed to be in the midst of some sort of beseeching, twisting and extending its limbs upward.  I saw it as a rain dance of sorts, begging the dark skies above to release the rain and feed the hills and valleys below.  The skies here have an ominous warmth that gives the distant hills a pale yellow hue and the yellow semi-circle in the foreground that supports the Red Tree acts as a sun symbol.

Let’s hope that this rain dance achieves its desired effect…

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Gallery Talk Today (With Prizes!)

Posted in Biographical, Current Events, Painting, Quote, tagged , , , , , on August 1, 2015| Leave a Comment »

GC Myers Destiny Bound framedIn everything that can be called art there is a quality of redemption.

—Raymond Chandler, The Simple Art of Murder

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If you’re in the Corning area this afternoon, I will be giving a Gallery Talk at the West End Gallery beginning at 1 PM.  My talks usually consist of some biographical background, a few stories about the paintings as well as some other things and honest answers to any questions asked of me.  Oh, and it comes to an end with a drawing for the painting above, Destiny Bound.

I try to make it as entertaining and informative as possible, usually just speaking off the cuff.  Sometimes there is a theme, other times there is not.  I may have a theme for today and perhaps the quote from author Raymond Chandler points to what it might be. Or not.  Maybe I just like and agree with this quote.  Or maybe the talk will go ina completely different direction right from the start.

I won’t know until I’m standing there and open my mouth for the first time.  These talks are kind of like my painting– sometimes I have an idea of where I want them to go and they go to a place I never saw coming.  And sometimes those unexpected places are the most gratifying.  So, we’ll see where we end up today.

Hope you can make it.

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Quote of the Week: Fellini

Posted in Biographical, Painting, Quote, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , , , , on July 30, 2015| 2 Comments »

GC Myers-Transmitters smAll art is autobiographical; the pearl is the oyster’s autobiography.

—Federico Fellini

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I love this quote from legendary Italian filmmaker Federico Fellini and the image of us all having a pearl inside ourselves, just waiting to be revealed to the outer world.  It’s a pearl that is formed from the experiences and observations that make up our lives.

It fits well  with the theme for the Gallery Talk that takes place Saturday at the West End Gallery in Corning.  I plan on talking about  how art has transformed my life and how that transformation has made its way into my work.  In short, how my own simple pearl was formed and  brought to light.

An example of that might be in the painting at the top, a very new work that will be shown for the first time on Saturday called Transmitters which is 10″ by 20″ on canvas.  I see it as being about the need to communicate, about how we seek  and reach out to like-minded people throughout our lives.  For me this has been one of the biggest needs that  painting has fulfilled for me.  It has provided a platform for me to express thoughts and emotions that I would struggle to express in any other way.  In doing so it has created a path forward to reaching others who share similar thoughts and emotions.

So here the pearl is the Red Tree and it reaches across space to others who feel they have their own Red Tree within.  Hopefully, knowing that allows them to open their own shells and share it with the world.

Well, that might be part of what I’ll be talking about on Saturday.  Who knows what might come up?

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Living in All Dimensions

Posted in Quote, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , , , , on July 29, 2015| 1 Comment »

GC Myers- Living In All Dimensions smInward is not a direction.  Inward is a dimension.

-Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev

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This quote from the contemporary Indian Yogi Jaggi Vasudev rang very true for me when I first came across it and it seems to fit this painting, Living in All Dimensions, which is another piece from the Home+Land show  hanging at the West End Gallery.

It is a painting that appears to be outward in all aspects.  It is no shrinking violet.  In fact, the violet color of the sky and  the other deep colors seem to want to lift off of the deeply textured surface and reach out of the picture to the viewer.    There is outward distance in the moon appearing on the horizon and the Red Tree itself seems to be radiating outward.

But for me, this is completely inward in nature.  It is about finding a center of calmness and timelessness.  It’s about transcending the here and now and discovering that inward dimension that binds us to all other dimensions.  A spiritual Oneness.

Well, that’s my take anyway, for what it’s worth.  It’s the kind of piece that will no doubt come across differently to many different people, both in a positive and  a negative way.

And that is as it should be.

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