Got a lot to get done this morning but thought I’d pass along a reminder that my 20th annual exhibit at the Principle Gallery is still hanging in the Alexandria, VA gallery. It’s a show that from which I took a lot of pleasure and if you’re in the area, please stop in to take a look.
Posts Tagged ‘Red Tree’
Still Going!
Posted in Event, tagged GC Myers, Principle Gallery, Red, Red Tree on July 2, 2019| Leave a Comment »
Dance Me to the End of Love
Posted in Event, Favorite Things, tagged Baucis and Philemon, GC Myers, Greek Mythology, Leonard Cohen, Painting, Red Tree, West End Gallery on June 23, 2019| Leave a Comment »
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Dance me to your beauty with a burning violin
Dance me through the panic till I’m gathered safely in
Lift me like an olive branch and be my homeward dove
Dance me to the end of love
Dance me to the end of love
—Leonard Cohen, Dance Me to the End of Love
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The painting above, 8″ by 16″ on canvas, is a smaller piece headed to my upcoming solo show at the West End Gallery. The intertwined trees in this piece refer back to my Baucis and Philemon paintings which are are symbolic representations of the Greek myth of the poor elderly couple who show the god Zeus unlimited kindness when he shows up in their village dressed as a beggar. He spares their lives alone when he destroys the village and rewards them with an eternity bound together as two trees on a hill.
This piece definitely reminds me of the tale. Maybe it’s the deep and dark threat that is posed from the clouds. Perhaps these clouds represent the wrath of Zeus while the clearing sky on the horizon represents eternity.
I don’t know for sure.
But it is a striking piece, one that is very simple to take in yet has the depth I want for it.
I am calling it Dance Me to the End of Love after the song chosen for this Sunday morning music. It is from Leonard Cohen from 1984. Interestingly, the song has Greek roots, its composition following that of a Greek folk dance performed through the centuries by members of the butcher’s guilds. It is often referred to as the Hasapiko, translating to the Butcher’s Dance.
So, give a listen. Have a good day, okay?
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Moments and Color, my annual solo exhibit at the West End Gallery in Corning, NY, opens on Friday, July 12 with an opening reception running from 5-7:30 PM. It is, as always, open to the public.
Every Picture Tells a Story
Posted in Event, Music, Recent Paintings, tagged GC Myers, Recent Paintings, Red Tree, Rod Stewart, West End Gallery on June 21, 2019| Leave a Comment »
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And if they had the words I could tell to you
To help you on your way down the road
I couldn’t quote you no dickens, shelley or keats
‘Cause it’s all been said before
Make the best out of the bad, just laugh it off
You didn’t have to come here anyway, so remember
To help you on your way down the road
I couldn’t quote you no dickens, shelley or keats
‘Cause it’s all been said before
Make the best out of the bad, just laugh it off
You didn’t have to come here anyway, so remember
Every picture tells a story don’t it?
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I wrote yesterday that I was extra busy getting ready for my upcoming West End Gallery show, that opens in three weeks, on July 12. Well, nothing has changed so I am just going to share a song that has been running through my head since yesterday morning. It’s Every Picture Tells a Story from the 1971 Rod Stewart album of the same name. I am not the biggest Rod Stewart fan but at that point in time he was really dealing and this song is an absolute gem.
I included a new smaller piece from the show. This song made me think about this painting. There is definitely a narrative in it. What story does it tell? I am thinking of a title of One and Many Lives for it. I see the Red Tree in the central panel as moving from one house to the other, a symbolic transition. We may have one life but we are often many people within it.
There’s a story in there somewhere.
Got work to do. Have yourself a good and great day.
Next Up: Moments and Color
Posted in Event, Recent Paintings, tagged Art Exhibit, GC Myers, Red Tree, West End Gallery on June 20, 2019| Leave a Comment »
I am buried in work right now as I prepare for my upcoming annual solo show at the West End Gallery in Corning. This year’s show is titled Moments and Color and opens on Friday, July 12, with an opening reception that runs from 5-7:30 PM. I will be providing more details on the show and the work in it over the coming weeks.
There will also be a Gallery Talk taking place on Saturday, August 17 beginning at 1 PM. There will be, of course, plenty of details on this talk beforehand as it is generally a pretty popular and entertaining event. If you’ve come to one, you know what I mean.
The piece at the top is one of the larger paintings in the show, coming in at 30″ by 40″. It was going to be titled In the Gardens of Splendor but I have settled now on Moments and Color: Big Placid. [ Note: Actually, there was a bit of confusion and this painting is titled Moments and Color: Big Placid (In the Garden of Splendors) which is a mouthful. But then again, it’s a big painting]
So, mark your calendars and pardon me– I’ve got lots of work to get done!
Tattoo You
Posted in Event, Favorite Things, Music, tagged Dropkick Murphys, GC Myers, Principle Gallery, Red Tree, Roberto Gemori, Tattoos on June 11, 2019| 9 Comments »
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“Life is like a tattoo: we have a certain space available and that’s it. The more we fill it with negative elements, the less space will be left for the positive ones. Shape your life like a work of art as you would do with your tattoos, and keep the good in it.
Shape your dreams.”
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At the opening at the Principle Gallery on Friday, as I was speaking with some folks, I noticed a man standing just on the edge of the group, not part of it. That’s not unusual at openings. Sometimes at these things I get to tell stories about the work and people often step up to listen in. After the group departed, this man moved up and said he had something he wanted my opinion on.
His name was Kevin Jobe who explained he was a police officer there in Alexandria and said he hoped I wouldn’t be offended. He was such an affable guy I couldn’t imagine what he could do that would offend me.
He proceeded to pull up his sleeve and, lo and behold, there was the image of a Red Tree painting on his bicep. The tattoo artist had done a great job replicating the trees and other elements of my work, using their own technique for creating texture in the field rows in the lower part of the tattoo, which I really liked. It had the impact of one of my paintings for me.
I was stunned and couldn’t take my eyes off of it. I felt a bit awestruck as well as deeply honored that someone chose that image to permanently engrave on their body. I mean, how do you respond to that?
I told Kevin that I thought it was awesome. And I do. And it is.
He explained that it was still a work in process and he asked for my opinion on how he should finish the sea and sky. Not knowing the tattoo medium too well, I hesitated. It was like looking at a painting that’s it’s at a point where I am afraid of screwing it up because I am not sure which is the next right move. We discussed the possibility of using a swirled pattern in the sky, as I sometimes use in my work. The painting here on the left, Energizing Light, from a few years back has a pattern in its sky ( and possibly in the water) that I think might translate well to the tattoo without crowding out the Red Tree.
Any suggestions from my tattoo knowledgeable friends out there?
I am still very much honored by Kevin’s action though I will point out that I did feel slightly uneasy afterwards. I mean, that’s permanent! It’s not like he had a t-shirt made or carved a red tree out of an old 2×4. That’s his skin and it will most likely, pending a thresher accident on the farm, be with him forever. I have to admit that I felt a little pressure to somehow live up to Kevin’s confidence in committing that image to his skin. I worried that just meeting me might have him doubting his decision.
Hopefully, I can live up to his confidence. Thank you, Kevin, for showing me your work in progress. I am honored and still awestruck. Can’t wait to see the finished product.
On the subject, here’s a little song from the Dropkick Murphys about a tattoo. And the Roberto Gemori from the quote at the top is a well known tattoo designer.
Red Tree 20 Opens Tonight
Posted in Event, Painting, tagged Alexandria VA, Art Exhibit, GC Myers, Principle Gallery, Red Tree on June 7, 2019| Leave a Comment »
GC Myers- Mantra 9
Going to keep this short and concise. My show Red Tree 20: New Growth opens this evening at the Principle Gallery in Alexandria, VA. The reception begins at 6:30 and runs until 9 PM.
If you can make it, please make sure to take a few minutes to speak with me or at least say hello. This part of the openings means a lot to me so if I look busy, catch my eye or speak with someone from the gallery and I will make sure I get to you. It’s my pleasure.
Hope to see you there!
GC Myers- Fire and Ice
GC Myers- To Have and To Hold
Red Tree 20 Preview
Posted in Biographical, Event, Favorite Things, Painting, Recent Paintings, Video, tagged Alexandria VA, Emile Zola, GC Myers, Georgia O'Keeffe, Principle Gallery, Red Tree on June 6, 2019| 2 Comments »
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If you ask me what I came to do in this world, I, an artist, will answer you: I am here to live out loud.
–-Emile Zola
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The show is hung in the gallery. I am relieved and anxious, same as always. It’s been twenty years of doing this, of sweating out–or maybe it’s bleeding out –work for my annual show at the Principle Gallery. It’s always hard but I don’t want to imply that it’s harder than any other job. Every job, every career has its good and bad parts. You can only hope that the good parts far outweigh the bad.
I think my job does, most times.
I was asked this past week in an interview for a regional magazine how and why I came to be an artist. I think I said that I just wanted to have my voice heard in this life. I wish I had added that I wanted to do all I can to put out work that will hopefully live beyond the limitations of my own worldly life, as well. Just so someone somewhere someday will know that I existed and thought and felt. That I laughed and cried.
That I had a voice that needed to be heard at times.
Maybe that’s what Zola meant by living out loud– needing to be heard.
These kind of thoughts always populate my mind when my shows roll around because in so many ways, I feel exposed and vulnerable on those walls. Defenseless against all judgement and criticism.
But after so many shows, I am almost numb to these fears and doubts. I know my own voice now and trust that it is real. It’s all I have to offer of value and it is that that allows me to live out loud. Like Georgia O’Keeffe said: I have already settled it for myself so flattery and criticism go down the same drain and I am quite free.
That said, I think this is a very strong group of work, one that carries my voice well enough to remind me that I truly exist.
Hope you can make it to the show. Whether you can or can’t, below is a slideshow preview of the show.
There is also a very nice article and interview at PrincipleArtTalk, the blog of the Principle Gallery, about this show and some of the new work. You can go to that article by clicking here.
To the Gardens of Hope
Posted in Event, Painting, Poetry, Quote, Recent Paintings, tagged Alexandria VA, GC Myers, J.R.R. Tolkien, Langston Hughes, Lord of the Rings, Poetry, Principle Gallery, Red Tree on June 4, 2019| 2 Comments »
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“The world is indeed full of peril, and in it there are many dark places; but still there is much that is fair, and though in all lands love is now mingled with grief, it grows perhaps the greater.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring
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Above is a new painting, a larger one at 30″ by 48″ on canvas, that is part of Red Tree 20: New Growth, my annual solo show that opens this coming Friday at the Principle Gallery. With its size and deep coloring, it presents a strong and striking image in person. Along with that strength, looking at it, the feeling that came to me was one of hope. There’s a sense of journey in this, a movement through dark and possible peril towards light and the possibility of tranquility. That brought about the title To the Gardens of Hope.
In short, hope is the thing that drives us through the dark.
In dark times we must hold on to hope, to have a goal of light that drives us to action. Too often we think of hope and dreams in passive terms. But hope without action is futile, a lazy daydream that will never grow in the gardens of light.
Hope combined with action is a potent force.
Maybe that is why the words above from the first book of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy seem to mesh so well with how I see this painting. That story certainly had existential peril and darkness. But throughout the tale there was always an end goal that gave hope. And plenty of action was required to get to that goal, to overcome the darkness with light. This concept was not in mind during the painting but now that I think of it, this could be from one of the kingdoms or shires of those books.
That concept can also be summed up in four short lines below from the poet Langston Hughes. Without hope and dreams, we have no will to act and are, as he describes, broken-winged birds.
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“Hold fast to dreams,
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird,
That cannot fly.”
― Langston Hughes
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So, in perilous times, when darkness seem pervasive, hope has a place for those willing to step forward and move toward the light.
That’s only my take on this painting. You might well see it in different terms and that is, as always, as it should be.
This painting along with the rest of the show will be hung today in the Alexandria gallery. Hope you get a chance to stop in and see it. If you’re around Old Town Alexandria on Friday evening, I will be at the gallery for the opening reception which runs from 6:30-9:00 PM. Come in and say hello. I look forward to it.
I Stand Before You
Posted in Biographical, Event, Painting, Philosophy, tagged GC Myers, Kenneth Grahame, Principle Gallery, Red Tree, Shows, The Finger Lakes School, The Wind in the Willows on June 3, 2019| 2 Comments »
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All this he saw, for one moment breathless and intense, vivid on the morning sky; and still, as he looked, he lived; and still, as he lived, he wondered.
—Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows, 1908
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This little snip from The Wind in the Willows seems to capture that same feeling of a conscious sense of wonder that I see in the new painting above. Titled I Stand Before You, it is 12″ by 36″ on canvas that is part of my solo exhibit, Red Tree 20: New Growth, at the Principle Gallery that opens this Friday, June 7.
I have been showing at the Principle Gallery since the early days of 1997. In the first few years there, I had been included in a group of five painters– Tom Buechner, Marty Poole, Tom Gardner, Rudy Gyr, and myself– from my home region that the gallery termed The Finger Lakes School. That group had two successful annual shows before I was moved out on my own with a solo show in 2000 called Redtree. That was a very successful show and its momentum has, in many ways, carried me through the past two decades.
This year’s show marks my 20th solo show at the Principle Gallery and if I had to use a term to describe what I wanted the work from throughout that time to convey, I might very well use the term sense of wonder. Just being able to witness small bits of this world around me, to see the green of grass and leaf, the ruffle of feathers or the mottle of light on the forest floor, brings about a feeling that I am experiencing all the wonder of this world.
And more than that, this past twenty years has allowed me to maintain that sense of wonder. Part of me expects that sense to diminish as I age but, if anything, it has expanded with through the years. The simplest pleasures, ones that I might well have overlooked in a youthful exuberance to see bigger and grander wonders, now seem like rare and privileged glimpses into the inner workings of the universe.
This very moment, I tuned my head and in the distance I watch two wild turkeys walking up the drive with broken light flashing off their iridescent feathers. I can’t tell you what a wonder that seems to me and how it makes me appreciate the life I am privileged to live.
As I have pointed out many times before, I am not an overtly religious person. But perhaps this sense of wonder, this sense of awe, fills that same void for me. I don’t know but I am pleased I still wonder about such questions, that I don’t take these simple things that fill me with awe for granted. Maybe that’s a form of prayer.
Who knows?
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Red Tree 20: New Growth opens Friday, June 7, at the Principle Gallery in Alexandria, VA, with an opening reception that runs from 6:30 until 9:00 PM. Hope to see you there.
Please Don’t Talk About Me When I’m Gone
Posted in Current Events, Music, Painting, tagged Alexandria, GC Myers, Leon Redbone, Principle Gallery, Red Tree on June 2, 2019| 2 Comments »
“Depth of Moment”- From the show “Red Tree 20: New Growth,” at the Principle Gallery
Well, the paintings are in the gallery now for my new solo exhibit, Red Tree 20: New Growth, opening next Friday, June 7, at the Principle Gallery.
I can now let out a big sigh of relief just knowing the biggest part of the process– the creation, finishing, and delivery–is out of the way.
And I can give an even bigger sigh of relief in seeing that the work looks very strong in the gallery. It had the pop in that space that I hoped for. Sometimes pieces can feel bigger and stronger in the studio and much less so in the open space of a gallery. This group had the depth of color and strength of forms along with the sizing and scale that fit well in the space.
They could say what they had to say. That’s all I could hope for them. Now it’s up to them.
Phew! Now it just comes down to seeing if others can see and hear what they are saying. We shall see…
For today’s Sunday morning music, here’s a song from the very unique Leon Redbone, who passed away Thursday at the age of 69. It’s a 1977 performance of Please Don’t Talk About Me When I’m Gone. Gentle and easy for a gray and very wet and green morning here. Hope there’s some sunshine for you, wherever you might be.
Redtree Times 