Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Posts Tagged ‘Rainer Maria Rilke’

Questions For the Moon

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on September 22, 2025| 1 Comment »

Questions For the Moon-At West End Gallery in October

Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.

~Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

Do not now seek the answers…

Such a counterintuitive and wise bit of advice that Rilke passed on to his young poet friend. History and mythology are filled with characters who stand before the void, frustrated and grieved with life, pleading for answers to come out of the nothingness before them.

Answers seldom come.

But the questions remain. These questions and concerns become ingrained to the point of almost being unnoticed in the seeker’s life and being.

And one day, if they are fortunate, they realize that that the question itself was the answer and that it was always within them, ready to reveal itself when they have lived and dealt with that question in their life and finally came to this realization.

This realization is earthshaking for some and mundane for others. For others, it is both.

The point is that there are seldom easily obtained answers to the existential questions that plague us.\

Only time and life can turn these questions into answers. And some questions are such that the answers may well be beyond our living or recognition. Those answers remain a mystery.

Maybe the ultimate question here is how well we cope with lives filled with such mystery.

That is my first take on this new small painting, 8″ by 8″ on panel, that is included in my October solo show at the West End Gallery. I call it Questions For the Moon.

I’ve been on a lot of roofs in my life, having been a chimneysweep for several years, and, more importantly, have been on the roof depicted in this painting, sending out questions whose answers I was not yet ready to recognize within myself. I know the frustration and pain in that moment of questioning as you teeter on the roof’s peak.

In that moment, the only answer is to get off the roof in one piece and move on, accepting that this might not be such a bad answer. One day further down the road, if you’re lucky and have let those questions fade onto the deep recesses of your mind, almost forgotten, the question might once more show itself as an answer that has meaning for your life as it has been lived.

And you understand in that moment that this was the only way it could have been, that it took the pain and toil of life to get to where the question could be answered.

That’s a lot to ponder for a little painting.

Here’s song in that vein from the always charming Iris Dement. This is Let the Mystery Be.

Read Full Post »

The Passing Parade

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on June 3, 2025| 5 Comments »

The Passing Parade— Included in Entanglement at the Principle Gallery

Therefore, dear Sir, love your solitude and try to sing out with the pain it causes you. For those who are near you are far away… and this shows that the space around you is beginning to grow vast…. be happy about your growth, in which of course you can’t take anyone with you, and be gentle with those who stay behind; be confident and calm in front of them and don’t torment them with your doubts and don’t frighten them with your faith or joy, which they wouldn’t be able to comprehend. Seek out some simple and true feeling of what you have in common with them, which doesn’t necessarily have to alter when you yourself change again and again; when you see them, love life in a form that is not your own and be indulgent toward those who are growing old, who are afraid of the aloneness that you trust…. and don’t expect any understanding; but believe in a love that is being stored up for you like an inheritance, and have faith that in this love there is a strength and a blessing so large that you can travel as far as you wish without having to step outside it.

― Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

There is something in this new painting, The Passing Parade, from my upcoming Principle Gallery exhibit that just fills me up. It would be easy to simply say that there’s a joyfulness in it and let it stand at that. It does have an unmistakable sense of joyous verve, after all.

But that feels more on the surface, almost like it is the painting’s mask. No, there’s something more beneath that, something deeper and more internalized. Not joyful but not sad nor remorseful.  

A feeling of apartness.

Don’t take that to mean loneliness. It’s an altogether different animal. 

I went looking for a something that might better describe it than my impoverished words and came across the passage at the top from Rilke, one that I shared here a number of years back. It seemed to capture exactly what I was feeling in this piece, about how we change internally and how we express these changes to the outer world.

Some become more solitary and, in their solitude, grow away from people in general. I count myself among this group. But as Rilke advised, I try to not display that outwardly when dealing with people, understanding that not everyone will understand or desire this apartness. Or care, for that matter.

You might think that since I write about my work and perhaps too much more here on a daily basis, that I would easily talk about the doubts, uncertainties, and beliefs I possess and write about. That’s not the case at all. I will answer questions honestly and openly but still try to keep my apartness somewhat hid.

And that’s what I see in this piece– an inward-looking solitude that outwardly watches the passing parade of life from a distance.

I understand that to some that might seem sad. Of course, I don’t see it that way since I know that my apartness is often filled with the joy and love that you see on the surface of this painting. It is not sad at all except when sadness is present, as it sometimes is in every life.

It is hard to explain in words. Maybe that’s why I paint. A painted image transmits and translates itself to others in ways that they alone understand.

Much better than my words. In this case, I hope my meager words haven’t garbled your translation of this painting.

Now, leave me alone and get back into the parade. As Garbo said– I vant to be alone. Actually, I need to be alone. Still lots of work to be done for the show and I can’t get anything done if you’re still hanging around…

The Passing Parade is 12″ by 24″ on panel and is part of my annual solo exhibit — this year marks my 26th show at the Principle– of new paintings, Entanglement, that opens on Friday, June 13 at the Principle Gallery with an Opening Reception from 6-8:30 PM. The work for this show will be delivered to the gallery on Sunday and will be available for previews, though the show will not be hung until later in the week.

The day after the show’s opening, on Saturday, June 14, I will also be giving a Painting Demonstration at the gallery. The demo, my first there, should run from 11 AM until 1 PM or thereabouts.

 

Read Full Post »

Twilight Time

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on February 5, 2025| 2 Comments »

Twilight Time–AT West End Gallery

And even if you were in some prison the walls of which let none of the sounds of the world come to your senses—would you not then still have your childhood, that precious, kingly possession, that treasure-house of memories? Turn your attention thither. Try to raise the submerged sensations of that ample past; your personality will grow more firm, your solitude will expand and become a place where you can live in the twilight, where the noise of other people passes, far in the distance.

–Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

Little time this morning as I have some maintenance issues around here that demand immediate attention. Before I get to those issues, I thought I would share a triad of image, word, and song to serve as a reminder that the annual Little Gems exhibit of small works is now hanging at the West End Gallery and that the opening reception takes place this Friday, February 7, from 5-7 PM.

Above is a new painting, Twilight Time, 6″ by 12″ on canvas, that is included in the show. The words at the top are from the always relevant Letters to a Young Poet from Rainer Maria Rilke.  This passage is from a letter where he was instructing a struggling young poet to stop trying to satisfy the critics or publishers and focus on creating an inner world where his work can grow and prosper.  It then takes on its own life based on the poet’s unique self, instead of an imagined criteria set by other people. It then takes on a reality that others will recognize.

For the music, I am selecting the obvious song, Twilight Time. I probably should share the old beautiful Platters hit that most will recognize but I am going with a version from Willie Nelson. I enjoy his takes on the American songbook of standards. It always gives the work a somewhat different dimension, an easiness that is comforting to my ears. 

Okay, got to run. There are things to do that cannot wait.

Read Full Post »

The Dog in the Mirror

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on October 10, 2024| Leave a Comment »

He [Cézanne] reproduced himself with so much humble objectivity, with the unquestioning, matter of fact interest of a dog who sees himself in a mirror and thinks: there’s another dog.

–Rainer Maria Rilke, Letter to his wife, from Rilke’s Letters on Cézanne

After Paul Cezanne died in 1906, during the next year there was a retrospective exhibit of his work at a Paris gallery. Throughout the autumn of 1907, the poet Rainer Maria Rilke went to that gallery nearly every day to take in the Cezanne paintings. He would then write long letters to his wife describing the work and what he saw in it. These letters were later assembled in a book that expresses the joy and wonder that Rilke found in Cezanne’s paintings.

I came across the passage above about Cezanne’s habit of revisiting subjects again and again. He painted over 30 self-portraits (a handful are above) in his lifetime as well as over 80 versions of Mont Sainte-Victoire. His still life paintings were often new examinations of the same subject matter.

Rilke’s description of Cezanne as being like a dog gazing into a mirror and thinking that it was another dog made me laugh. But it also made me think about how many other artists often revisit the same themes and subjects repeatedly.

For me, it is in my landscapes and the ubiquitous Red Tree. When I think about it, every time I am in the midst of a new painting and it shows itself as Red Tree landscape, I seldom, if ever, think of it as a revisitation of a past painting. No, it always feels like it is something new, something fresh. It may be familiar to me, may spark a feeling of recognition but it seems new to me in that moment.

Another dog in the mirror.

One might wonder why that is so. I can’t say for sure, can only throw out theories based solely on my own glaring lack of knowledge in things such as art or psychology or most anything else. Just guesses really.

Maybe it is mere mental laziness? I might go with that but that is kind of insulting on a lot of levels. If that were the case, why even make the effort to talk or write about it?

Maybe one senses there is something more to be found in whatever that subject is but can’t quite determine what it might be. You need to come back to it again and again.

Kind of like a recurring dream, one that keeps showing up over time as the seemingly same dream but one that is slightly altered in some way that makes it feel somehow new to the dreamer. Certain aspects of the previous dreams remain but some are gone. Some elements that might have been mere background in former dreams suddenly take on greater significance. As a result, though it might have the same overall imagery and scenario the tone and feel of the dream is entirely different.

I could see this being the case with my painting. There is often a repetitive quality, but similar paintings never feel quite the same. There are often subtle (and not so subtle) changes in color, texture, emotion, depth, perspective, and on and on. There are refinements and progressions to the previous incarnations as well as regressions.

Like the recurring dream, some parts move forward to the new dream and some do not.

That dog in the mirror looks familiar but I don’t know it. Yet.

Here’s a tune that has nothing to do with this post other than the fact that it has dog in its title. Maybe that’s more than enough. Anyway, this is Sundog Serenade from the new album, The Southwind, from Grammy-winning guitarist Bill Mize. As mentioned here before, the album cover features one of my Archaeology paintings. That doesn’t matter– this is just a lovely tune for this morning.

Read Full Post »

Yet Not Alone…

Posted in Painting, Poetry, tagged , on June 24, 2021| Leave a Comment »

GC Myers- To the Calling Moon 2021

“To the Calling Moon“- Now at the Principle Gallery

I Am Much Too Alone in This World, Yet Not Alone

I am much too alone in this world, yet not alone
  enough
to truly consecrate the hour.
I am much too small in this world, yet not small
  enough
to be to you just object and thing,
dark and smart.
I want my free will and want it accompanying
the path which leads to action;
and want during times that beg questions,
where something is up,
to be among those in the know,
or else be alone.

I want to mirror your image to its fullest perfection,
never be blind or too old
to uphold your weighty wavering reflection.
I want to unfold.
Nowhere I wish to stay crooked, bent;
for there I would be dishonest, untrue.
I want my conscience to be
true before you;
want to describe myself like a picture I observed
for a long time, one close up,
like a new word I learned and embraced,
like the everyday jug,
like my mother’s face,
like a ship that carried me along
through the deadliest storm.

–Rainer Maria Rilke ,  1875-1926

Read Full Post »

Standing in Shadow

Posted in Biographical, Influences, Quote, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , on February 8, 2021| Leave a Comment »

So don’t be frightened, dear friend, if a sadness confronts you larger than any you have ever known, casting its shadow over all you do. You must think that something is happening within you, and remember that life has not forgotten you; it holds you in its hand and will not let you fall. Why would you want to exclude from your life any uneasiness, any pain, any depression, since you don’t know what work they are accomplishing within you?

― Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

Funny how often the words of the poet Rilke mesh with the message I am seeing or hoping to see in a painting of mine. It’s certainly the case in this new smaller piece, Standing in Shadow, that is part of the Little Gems show at the West End Gallery that opens this Friday.

For me, the message I wanted to distill here was that we all live in the shadows of places, people, and events. Even the past and the future cast a shadow on our lives in the forms of regret and fear, among many others. 

In a way, we are shaped by shadows, depending on how we react to them. In the best case, we seek to step beyond them, to find a place in the light where the only shadows present are those we cast in our wake.

That is where the words of Rilke come into play. It is while we are in the shadows, that we must use those feelings that thrive within us there, the anxiety and pain and other deep emotions, to find a way forward.

To use the shadows as building blocks toward the light. 

I’ve discussed this here before, this idea that it is most often that our hardships form our character and that our creations ultimately– and hopefully– reflect that character. I’ve always thought that the appeal of my work was in the shadows that came through in my work. I am not talking about physical shadows though they sometimes are manifested as such in the work. It’s more in the underlying darkness, the acknowledgement that there is dark behind the light. That even the optimism and hope carried in the work is tempered with a wary eye cast toward the shadows.

Our hardships do, as Rilke points out, accomplish work within us. That’s not easy to see when you’re deep in the shadows. But once one recognizes that the shadows are the place where the deepest emotions are spawned, that one can use these feelings as a way to the light, that it is the place where creation is born, it becomes a less scary place. 

At least that’s how I am reading this, in both Rilke’s words and in this painting.

I could be wrong. Wouldn’t be the first time and it certainly won’t be the last.

Maybe you will see it differently with the benefit of your own shadows. That’s how it should be.

Have a good day.

Read Full Post »

Back in the Canyon

Posted in Biographical, Painting, Process, Quote, tagged , , , on January 23, 2021| 1 Comment »

 

GC Myers- Canyon of Doubts

Creativity requires introspection, self-examination, and a willingness to take risks. Because of this, artists are perhaps more susceptible to self-doubt and despair than those who do not court the creative muses.

–Eric Maisel

This painting below sits on a shelf directly in front of my desk. I was looking at it early this morning and wondered if I had put anything about it here on the blog. I came across the entry below from about four years ago which really spoke to the doubts I endure every year at this time as I begin to gear up for my annual shows.

This year is no different. Maybe even more pronounced, given the stress from the events of this past year. But I take some comfort in knowing that I have navigated through these canyons before and that takes off the edge. The doubts are still there but can’t box me in.

There is always a way through. 

Here’s what I put down about this four years back:

This new painting, 8″ by 10″ on panel, is called Canyon of Doubts. For me, it represents the navigation that takes place in the creative process as the artist tries to get past the formidable obstacles of self doubt. Doubt often throws up barriers that has the artist asking if they are good enough, if they have the talent, training, and drive to create true art that speaks for them to the world. Doubt makes them fear that they are out of place, that they don’t belong, that every other artist has more right to create than them.

Doubt keeps the artist seemingly boxed in with no apparent way forward.

Doubt is a pain too lonely to know that faith is his twin brother.

–Kahlil Gibran

I’ve been trapped in that canyon many times. I’ve thought many times that there was no way out, that the fears posed by my doubts were the realities of who and what I was.

I have always felt alone with my doubts. Words of encouragement from others often felt hollow when I was lost in those canyons. They didn’t know how steep the walls of doubts seemed to me or how inadequate, how ill-prepared I felt in that moment.

The only option that seemed available to me was to trust that I could somehow fight my way out of those daunting canyons. It would mean mustering every bit of talent, every ounce of energy, and a sustained belief that I deserved to have my voice rise from out of  those canyons. It was matter of  either having the faith in my own value as human to find my way free or withering away in a canyon of doubts.

Your doubt can become a good quality if you train it. It must become knowing, it must become criticism.

–Rainer Maria Rilke

I still find myself in those canyons. I still find myself periodically looking up at the walls that surround me and wonder if I am talented enough, strong enough, or even entitled to escape them.

But I now know that there is a path through them, one that is well worn with my own footprints from my past journeys in that shadowed place. I know that, even though it is lonely and seemingly unbearable in that moment, I don’t have to be trapped in that place of doubt.

I’ve traveled this path and there is indeed a way out.

It takes time and effort and devotion. It takes the belief in yourself, forged from past experience, that you will make the right decisions and not be trapped in those walls. It’s in having the faith that when take a wrong turn, when you make a mistake, that you will recognize it and get quickly back to the path that sets you free.

At the moment, I may well be in that canyon still but I have the moon guiding me and its light shows me where the canyon ends.

And then I will be free once more.

Have a good day.

Read Full Post »

Don’t Roll Those Bloodshot Eyes at Me

Posted in Advice, Current Events, Music, tagged , , , , on December 31, 2020| Leave a Comment »

And now let us believe in a long year that is given to us, new, untouched, full of things that have never been, full of work that has never been done, full of tasks, claims, and demands; and let us see that we learn to take it without letting fall too much of what it has to bestow upon those who demand of it necessary, serious, and great things.

― Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters of Rainer Maria Rilke, 1892-1910

Gosh, I wish Rilke was sending me letters. I always seem to find something in his collected letters that speaks directly to me, something that helps me better understand my own place in the world.

Give me his letters and the Peanuts comic strip and I am all set for advice on how to live my life.

Rilke’s words above on the New Year speak loudly this year. Let us look at 2021 as a clean slate, a tabula rasa, that that is filled with new potential. The time ahead may be filled with hard work and stressful times but we should use every available minute of it in attempting to make 2021 far better than its predecessor. 

I know that these words can sound like empty platitudes but I truly hope they ring true this year and that we don’t waste the gift of time we are given.

Have a happy and quiet New Year’s Eve. Stay safe and perhaps next year at this time, we can truly celebrate the end of a wonderful year.

For those of you who don’t buy into my hopeful look forward and plan on partying your brains out tonight, here’s a song from Wynonie Harris, the great blues shouter who many consider the father of rock and roll. His style, his stage moves and provocative hip gyrations were swiped and adapted by Elvis, who some thought was the G-rated version of Wynonie Harris. His stuff really rocks and this song, Don’t Roll Those Bloodshot Eyes at Me, reminds me of the best work of Louis Prima, which is pretty high praise.

So, enjoy and bid goodbye to 2020 tonight in whatever way you see fit. May we all have a happy New Year in 2021.

Read Full Post »

Everybody’s Gotta Live

Posted in At the Movies, Music, Poetry, tagged , , , , , , , , , on August 3, 2020| Leave a Comment »

*********************

The film Jojo Rabbit premiered on HBO over the weekend, which made me very happy. It hits a lot of sweet spots for me.

A great cast and a script filled with a beguiling mix of dark satire and tragic poignancy. Strong visuals. Big laughs and plenty of tears. Ridiculous (but still scary) Nazis.

Hitler eating a unicorn.

Yeah, you read that right.

There’s even some poetry from Rainer Maria Rilke as the film ends, a snippet from his poem Go to the Limits of Your Longing, which is shown at the top. Words that seem applicable to this time, for sure.

It also uses its soundtrack brilliantly. It begins with the Beatles singing their German version of I Want to Hold Your Hand over archival clips of Hitler’s adoring fans at huge nationalistic rallies that are chilling in their magnitude and fervor. Images from the infamous Nuremberg rally always puts a knot in my stomach. The film ends with the German performance from David Bowie of his always rousing Heroes.

Filmmaker Taika Waititi also makes brilliant use of the song Everybody’s Gotta Live. It’s a song from 1972 from a band of that era, Love, that is very underappreciated. Led by the late Arthur Lee, it was an interesting group, a multiracial group that dabbled in folk rock and psychedelia a la the Byrds. Their 1967 release, Forever Changes, is on the Rolling Stone’s list of the 500 Greatest Rock Albums and was added to the Library of Congress’s National Recording Registry in 2011.

Even so, I am sure most of us haven’t heard much of their work. But it shines in Jojo Rabbit and is certainly worth examining further.

Here’s a video with the lyrics and images from the film just to give you taste. If you get a chance to see the film, I recommend it highly. But be forewarned, that it is art and, as such, is a subjective thing. What I love may not move you at all.

Take a look and give a listen then have a good day. We all deserve one.

Read Full Post »

Working to Stillness

Posted in Event, Painting, Quote, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , , , , on July 9, 2020| 4 Comments »

*****************************

“You know that great pause that comes upon things before the dusk, even the breeze stops in the trees. To me there is always an air of expectation about that evening stillness.”

― H.G. Wells , The Time Machine

*****************************

The painting shown here, about 15″ x 24″ on paper, is titled Working to Stillness. It is included in my upcoming solo exhibit, From a Distance, that opens next Friday, July 17, at the West End Gallery.

I debated quite a bit over the title. I had read a letter of advice from the poet Rainer Maria Rilke that spoke of the great movements of activity that take place within us when we are still, sometimes resulting in great works at a later time. That made me think of making the title this painting Working From Stillness rather than To.

But I thought of the stillness that comes at the end of those days of great activity, of toil both physical and mental. When the tasks have been completed and set aside for the day, there is a sense of relief and satisfaction that sets upon the body and mind. Stillness arrives.

It’s a good feeling for me and one that I look forward to most days. I often think of my days as working to this stillness.

This piece captures that feeling for me. It has great warmth and an abundance of strength. I think I used the term muscularity when I was talking about it when I delivered the show to the gallery yesterday. It has that kind of physicality to it. I don’t know how to really describe what I mean by that but it sounds right. Maybe it comes from what I see as the strength of the colors and forms in this piece.

Whatever the case, it’s a piece that has great and undeniable presence in its setting. Maybe that’s the part that speaks most to me in these times where we all feel a need to have our voices heard. This one demands that its voice be heard.

Even in its stillness.

 

Read Full Post »

Older Posts »