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Posts Tagged ‘Red Tree’

Self-Portrait

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on October 13, 2025| 2 Comments »

Idyllica-At West End Gallery

Each for himself, we all sustain
The durance of our ghostly pain;
Then to Elysium we repair,
The few, and breathe this blissful air.

–Virgil, Aeneid (29–19 BC)

This year’s edition of my annual solo show at the West End Gallery, Guiding Light, opens this coming Friday, October 17. The painting above, Idyllica, is one of the larger pieces from the show, coming in at 30″ by 48″ on canvas.

I might call this a signature piece, if I were to put a label on it. By that, I mean it might be a painting that I feel neatly sums up what my work means for me. A painting that symbolizes who I am and how I see the world and my existence.

Kind of like a self-portrait that portrays the artist in their best light as they see it.

I have had this feeling a number of times about paintings, feeling that they represent a totality of what I hope I am. Mybe it is really more that they represent all the things I aspire to but knowingly lack personally.

Grace, balance, and harmony, for example. You can also add boldness, confidence, and courage. Maybe throw in Inner peace and strength, as well.

Maybe I am not seeing this so much as a self-portrait, a picture of who I am now, but rather as a laundry list of everything I have yet to find fully in myself. An image of what I desire to be.

Perhaps that is what I see in this– a clear statement of my hopes for myself as a human.

Maybe in some way it can serve as a template or roadmap to the attainment of these qualities?

I don’t know. Maybe.

But for the time being I find myself basking placidly in this piece. And in these days now filled with uncertainty, lies, malevolence, and moral cowardice, it is refreshing to rest for a moment in something that aspires to the better parts of our humanity.

It’s what I need right now…

Here’s a song that haunts me for days every time I hear it. It plays, in a way, into what I am saying this morning. It’s from Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova, best known for their performances and music from the film Once, performing as The Swell Season. I am a big fan of their work, especially Hansard’s solo work. This is their version of Don’t Want to Know from a tribute album to the late British singer/songwriter John Martyn that came out soon after his death in 2009 at the age of 60. I don’t have time to go into his life right now, but Martyn was an interesting and enigmatic character, a mass of contradictions and conflicts and talents. The 1973 album that this song is from, Solid Air, is considered a gem that is little known here.

Here’s Don’t Want to Know from The Swell Season.

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Higher Rock

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on October 9, 2025| Leave a Comment »

The Awakening— At West End Gallery

Life always bursts the boundaries of formulas. Defeat may prove to have been the only path to resurrection, despite its ugliness. I take it for granted that to create a tree I condemn a seed to rot. If the first act of resistance comes too late it is doomed to defeat. But it is, nevertheless, the awakening of resistance. Life may grow from it as from a seed.

–Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Flight to Arras (1942)

What awakens us?

What are the sacrifices that created us and brought us to this point in our existence?

What seeds have been condemned to rot so that we might stand on this rock?

So many questions.

Few, if any, answers.

It sometimes like we have evolved enough to ask the questions but not enough to recognize the answers.

We are left standing on this rock with only a vague sense of what that answer might be. 

A nebulous feeling of what is and what is not.

And sometimes that feeling is enough in the moment to sooth whatever it is within us that asks such questions.

It is enough to allow us to feel as though we have been given an answer.

The real question is: What do we do with that answer?

I don’t know if any of this makes sense to you this morning. It just felt right for what I was feeling from the combined stimulus from the passage along with the painting at the top and the song below. There seemed to be some thread of sense running between the three, containing some sort of answer to whatever question I was asking.

But then again, I could be delusional. I wouldn’t be at all surprised– I hear there’s a lot of that going around. 

The painting shown here is The Awakening, 24″ by 12″ on canvas, that is included in my solo show, Guiding Light, that opens at the West End Gallery next Friday, October 17. The Red Tree in it represents, for me, the growth from that sacrificed seed, the newly formed consciousness that feels the wonder of the world into which it has emerged. It seeks to understand the answers it feels it is being given.

The song below is a new song from the new album from Robert Plant called Saving Grace.  It features the vocals of singer Suzi Dian and the group Plant. I really like this recent performance on Jools Holland’s show and felt it fit well with some of my work, including this new painting.

Feels like there’s an answer in there somewhere if I could just make it out…

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Witnesses

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on October 6, 2025| 1 Comment »

RedTree: Continuum— Coming to West End Gallery

“We’re only here for a short while. And I think it’s such a lucky accident, having been born, that we’re almost obliged to pay attention. In some ways, this is getting far afield. I mean, we are — as far as we know — the only part of the universe that’s self-conscious. We could even be the universe’s form of consciousness. We might have come along so that the universe could look at itself. I don’t know that, but we’re made of the same stuff that stars are made of, or that floats around in space. But we’re combined in such a way that we can describe what it’s like to be alive, to be witnesses. Most of our experience is that of being a witness. We see and hear and smell other things. I think being alive is responding.”

—Mark Strand, interview with Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (Flow)

Mark Strand (1934-1914) was a Pulitzer Prize-winning poet and essayist who served as the US Poet Laureate in the early 1990s.

I often wonder what, if any, purpose we have here on this planet. This thought from Mark Strand that we are put here in our present form as an assemblage of the molecules and matter of the universe so that the universe could see and analyze itself intrigues me.

Are we some sort of diagnostic tool? Is this planet a testing ground to reveal what works and what falls short? 

As I said, it’s intriguing. I have dozens of more questions pertaining to it. 

But perhaps Strand is closer to the reality of the matter, whatever the hell that is these days, when he opines that our ultimate purpose might be as witnesses. I guess that might still fall into diagnostic tool category as we would be serving as sensory indicators for the universe, cataloging everything–all the sights, sounds, smells, tastes, textures, emotions, etc.– that we encounter in our time here. 

I like this idea of us as witnesses or observers. I have thought for some time that many artists of all sorts began their lives as observers, as the quiet kid off to the side taking in everything in great detail.

Maybe in those formative years, we are simply new and fresh out-of-the-box sensors that work at full speed and capacity? That makes sense to me since I now often feel that many of my particular sensor’s storage unit is just about full and my operating speed is greatly lagging. 

But beyond that, it is this idea of us being witnesses that speaks to me. We all want to believe that the thoughts, feelings and experiences that make up our existence have served a purpose, that they matter beyond our own small bit of self.

That our voice will be heard somehow as testimony to our existence, as well as to the lives and existence of those around us.

I know that this desire to have my voice heard, to articulate somehow my purpose and experience of living in this world, was the primary reason behind my beginnings as an artist. 

To add my data to the catalog of the universe as fulfill my purpose as part of its continuum.

I will finish by adding the following from Tennessee Williams, in an interview with James Grissom:

All of us require a witness. A witness who will let us–and the world–know that we have lived, that we have contributed. As artists we need to know that our contributions mattered, touched the heart, evoked a thought, led someone else off to their own pale judgment to scribble something out. When we create characters, we are witnesses to ourselves and to those to whom we have reacted, to those we have loved, to those who inspire us.

The greatest artists are, I think, witnesses. They have been, to steal a line, present at the creation….of whatever they have seen.

 

The painting at the top is RedTree: Continuum, 18″ by 36″ on canvas, that is included in my solo exhibit Guiding Light, that opens next Friday, October 17 at the West End Gallery in Corning, NY. The show’s Opening Reception, which is free and open to all, runs from 5-7 PM.

A Gallery Talk is also scheduled at the West End Gallery for Saturday, November 1, beginning at 11 AM.

Here’s Doctor My Eyes from Jackson Browne. Seemed right this morning.

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The Heart is Free

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on September 30, 2025| Leave a Comment »

The Heart is Free— Coming to West End Gallery

Stone walls do not a prison make,
Nor iron bars a cage;
Minds innocent and quiet take
That for an hermitage;
If I have freedom in my love
And in my soul am free,
Angels alone, that soar above,
Enjoy such liberty.

― Richard Lovelace, To Althea, from Prison, 1641

Some folks that freely walk around are as imprisoned by their behaviors and beliefs as anyone behind the stone walls of any prison. As the 17th century poet Richard Lovelace pointed out nearly four hundred years ago, freedom is a state of mind.

For the most part, we often make our own prisons and do our own time. And conversely, we have the ability to define and make our freedom in any situation.

I was struggling to title this new painting that is headed to the West End Gallery for my annual solo exhibit in October. I saw it as representing the type of solitude that I enjoy, one that is not hindered by imposed restrictions or apartness.

The freedom of the heart and the mind.

But I also realized that my perception is not shared by a majority of folks. Most people don’t relish extended periods of time alone.  They need the sound and engagement of others and look outward, avoiding reflection and introspection.

I am not criticizing here, just noting the difference. As with everything, to each their own.

As I said, I wasn’t sure about expressing the type of solitude I saw in it in its title. Then I came across the lines from Lovelace in a prior blog entry from a few years back. It seemed to speak directly of what I was seeing in this painting.

The freedom of the heart and the mind cannot be caged or restricted. It is an island and world unto itself.

Hence, the title The Heart is Free came to be. 

I can only speak for myself, but for me it fits.

The Heart is Free is 14″ by 14″ on canvas and is included in Guiding Light, my 24th annual solo show at the West End Gallery that opens Friday, October 17.

 

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First Happiness

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on August 27, 2025| 2 Comments »

Bound in Time— At Principle Gallery

Chaos is the first condition.

Order is the first law.

Continuity is the first reflection.

Quietude is the first happiness.

— James Stephens / The Crock of Gold (1912)

The lines above are from a novel, The Crock of Gold, from Irish author James Stephens. The form above is not how they were presented in the book originally. They were actually dialogue spoken by the main character, the Philosopher, in the comic/fantasy novel that deals with philosophy, murder, love and marriage, and Irish folklore, including Leprechauns and a stolen crock of gold.

From the bits of it I have read on Internet Archive where it is available, it seems like a wild ride. It has had continuing influence, too. The late Shane McGowan, leader of the Irish band The Pogues, used the title for his last studio album before his death.

But it is the bit of dialogue that caught my eye. It seemed to capture much of what I have been seeing in my work in recent times. Or. at least, hoping to see. You’re never quite sure what will emerge when you’re pulling things out of the ether.

This procedural list seems to match with what I am trying to depict. We try to identify order within the chaos in which we find ourselves. Having revealed whatever bit of order there is to be found, we try to maintain it through repetition of conditions and behaviors. Having done so, we find a bit of tranquility in whatever small patch of order we are able to maintain. Therein lies happiness.

That might be all you need to know about life.

I don’t know, that’s for damn sure. But it sounds like a decent recipe.

Maybe that is the gold in the Leprechaun’s crock?

Here’s a song that probably has nothing to do with post. Maybe that’s the chaos part of it?

Anyway, it came on the station I often listen to just a few minutes ago. I hear it every couple of days, and it always catches my attention, even if I am really focused on painting at that time. It’s One of Those Days from singer/songwriter Eilen Jewell.

Maybe the appeal for me is that I’ve had a lot of those days. Bet a lot of you have, as well.

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The Seeker

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on August 22, 2025| Leave a Comment »

Under the Compass– Now at Principle Gallery

“I have no right to call myself one who knows. I was one who seeks, and I still am, but I no longer seek in the stars or in books; I’m beginning to hear the teachings of my blood pulsing within me. My story isn’t pleasant, it’s not sweet and harmonious like the invented stories; it tastes of folly and bewilderment, of madness and dream, like the life of all people who no longer want to lie to themselves.”

― Hermann Hesse, Demian

I have a new painting on the easel waiting for me this morning. I thought it was complete when I finished up yesterday but just as I was leaving, I saw that it needed a small but critical adjustment. I didn’t have the time then to complete it, so it’s been nagging at me all night.  Therefore, I will be short this morning even though the subject deserves much more time and effort than I can give it at the moment.

Today is a triad of word, image, and song centering around the seeker. By that I mean the seeker of inner discovery, of the self. I am including a passage from a Hermann Hesse book, Demian, that was very influential in my life. It came to me at a time when I was struggling mightily and it helped me rethink what my life was and could be. It allowed me to recognize that I was exhausted from the lies I told not only to others but mainly to myself.

Without coming across this book, I doubt I would be painting or writing at this moment. God only knows what, if anything, I might be doing.

I am accompanying the passage with a painting that is very much about seeking, Under the Compass. For me, I see it as being about the inner search though it might also apply to the seeker who still looks for outer validation of their existence. I a also sharing a performance from The Who of their song The Seeker. It first came out in 1970 and this is how Pete Townshend described it in a Rolling Stone interview at the time:

Quite loosely, “The Seeker” was just a thing about what I call Divine Desperation, or just Desperation. And what it does to people. It just kind of covers a whole area where the guy’s being fantastically tough and ruthlessly nasty and he’s being incredibly selfish and he’s hurting people, wrecking people’s homes, abusing his heroes, he’s accusing everyone of doing nothing for him and yet at the same time he’s making a fairly valid statement, he’s getting nowhere, he’s doing nothing and the only thing he really can’t be sure of is his death, and that at least dead, he’s going to get what he wants. He thinks!.

Divine desperation. Maybe that is the unifying bond here, the driving force behind the Seeker.

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I Got a Feeling

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on August 17, 2025| 2 Comments »

NightFlare– At Principle Gallery

I say in speeches that a plausible mission of artists is to make people appreciate being alive at least a little bit. I am then asked if I know of any artists who pulled that off. I reply, ‘The Beatles did’.

— Kurt Vonnegut, Timequake (1997)

To make someone else appreciate the fact that they are alive is an admirable goal for any artist– or any person, for that matter.

I can’t say that it was my mission when I first began painting. I don’t know that I actually had a mission other than trying to find something that would release the pent-up feelings within me. It began as a selfish act, for me alone.

There was never a consideration of its effect on other people. Actually, I doubted that it would have any effect on others. At the time, I didn’t have a lot of faith in my ability to do much of anything, let alone make others appreciate the fact they were alive. I wasn’t sure that I was that thrilled about being alive so who was I to make others feel that way?

But as time passed, the work I was doing, after first being an expression of self for myself alone, became a way of reaching out to people, many who recognized their own feelings in that work. I have been blessed to have heard from so many people over the years that tell me how the work has affected them. 

The effect this has had on me is immeasurable. I can’t say that it measures up to Vonnegut’s mission aim of making people appreciate being alive.  But I can unequivocally say that the reactions these folks pass on to me make me glad I am alive.

Maybe that should be a corollary to Vonnegut’s words, that the mission for the artist should also be to find a gladness for their own life in making others realize their appreciation for being alive.

If so, mission accomplished.

Here’s a favorite song and performance by those very same Beatles. This is from their legendary concert that took place in January of 1969 from the rooftop of their Apple Corps headquarters in London. It was their last public performance. I am not going to try to explain the effect that the Beatles had on everything in their short lifespan, not just on music. There are no contemporary comparisons, nor have there been any since, to make someone who came of age after they were around understand their influence and reach since the world had already changed by then. The shortest way I can describe it as the world was in black-and-white before the Beatles and in full, vivid color afterwards.

I love this performance of I Got a Feeling, particularly that of Paul McCartney, though everyone shines, including Billy Preston on keyboards, though you only get brief glimpses of him.

Makes me glad to be alive. 

Mission accomplished.

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I Am/ John Clare

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on August 15, 2025| 2 Comments »

Placidarium (2017)

I long for scenes where man hath never trod
A place where woman never smiled or wept
There to abide with my Creator, God,
And sleep as I in childhood sweetly slept,
Untroubling and untroubled where I lie
The grass below—above the vaulted sky.

–I Am, John Clare, ca 1845

I came across the post below from several years ago and was reminded of the painting shown above, Placidarium. It was painted in 2017 and instantly became a favorite of mine. The title was a conjured word that described a self-contained environment much like a terrarium or aquarium. I saw this as a self-contained ecosystem of tranquility. Over the years this painting has traveled far and wide in attempt to find a home that needs a placidarium of its own. And time and again, it has always returned to me like a boomerang.

Though I was pleased to have it with me once more, it was always a little disappointing when it would come back. Was there something in it that only I could see, a voice that only I could hear? That was certainly a possibility. Some work speaks so loudly to me that it feels like it must be audible to many others and sometimes that’s just not the case.

Some voices speak to only one person. Kind of like the many voices in my head that tell me to do terrible things. I am just kidding, of course– there’s not many voices, just one.

All kidding aside, the fact that this painting’s voice seemed to go unheard and the tranquil world it portrayed reminded me of this poem and the life experience of poet John Clare. I could see him lying untroubled as he slept among the flowers under this sky.

Sounds pretty damn good to me, as well.

[From 2021]

John Clare was an interesting case. He led a troubled existence for much of his 70 years on this planet. Born in Northampton in England to a family of rural farm laborers, Clare bounced from job to job and place to place, living a life of poverty. In an attempt to raise money to prevent his parent’s eviction from their home, Clare, through a local bookseller, submitted his poetry to the publisher who had published the works of John Keats. His book of verse, as well as a second soon after, was published and praised.

But even then, recognized as he was as a poetic genius in farmer’s garb, he struggled with his own mental demons. Much of the rest of his life was spent in English asylums. His most famous poem, I Am, whose final verse is shown above, was written in one such asylum, Northampton General Lunatic Asylum, around 1844 or 1845.

His work was somewhat overlooked after his death in 1864 at the Northampton Asylum, where he had spent his final 23 years. But in the 20th century his worked received new attention and Clare’s work was elevated and he has been deemed a major poet of the 19th century.

It’s a sad life, indeed. It reminds me of those times when I have been going through genealogy records, following an ancestor’s life as it progresses, and come upon a record from some sort of institution. It might be an almshouse– a poorhouse– or a county home, a place where they gathered the paupers, the handicapped and those with mental problems so that they would be out of sight.

Coming across these records always makes me very sad. I can imagine myself in these ancestors’ places, the feelings that I would no doubt be experiencing– the loss, the alienation, the confusion that must have plagued their minds.

But even more than that, my sadness comes from knowing that their voices were no doubt unheard by the time these records were registered. They had, by that time, become problems to be swept aside.

And they, no doubt, wanted little more than the peace of mind that Clare describes in that final verse– the untroubled sleep of a child in the grass beneath a high, clear sky.

I find my own desires for this life dwindling down to those same simple wants. And in this, I find a bond with these poor, troubled relations. And with Clare in that English asylum.

And that in turn makes me grateful for the small graces that allow me to live the life I live and to find expression for my own small I Am.

Sigh.

Here’s a fine reading of I Am from Tom O’Bedlam:

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Choices and Decisive Moments

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on August 11, 2025| Leave a Comment »

The Choice— GC Myers 2017

There is nothing in this world that does not have a decisive moment.

–Cardinal de Retz  (1613-1679)

Photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson , a favorite of mine, took that phrase from the quote above and used it to describe that moment in searching for an image when the photographer makes the creative decision to snap the photo. But I see the term at play in everything we do, everything we are. Who, what, and where we are is all the result of random moments of decision. Every day offers us new choices for moving ahead and very seldom do we ponder where these often simple and mundane decisions might ultimately lead our lives.

I think about this all the time when I consider the course my life and career has taken. Several of the galleries in which I show came about as the result of a series of random decisions– and a few moments of serendipity!– and if any of those choices leading up to the final result had differed in any way, my life as it is now might be completely different.

Even the beginning of my painting career might not have occurred if I had decided that working off a ladder on that September day twenty years ago was not a great idea. I would not have fallen and would not have found the time or inspiration to begin painting. Maybe it would have come anyway at some other point but who knows? And would that decision to follow painting at that later date yield the same results?

I see it in genealogy as well. When I look at the charts that show one’s whole ancestry laid out in an ever-widening mesh of connections all I can think is how we are all built on a huge set of random choices and pure chance. If any single one of those many thousands of connections had not been made the whole mesh that brought us here would fall away and our very existence would most likely not have occurred.

Our existence relies on so many ifs: If one ancestor had not returned from the many wars, if one ancestor had not been the lucky child that survived the many diseases that took so many children from most families in the earlier days of our country, if one ancestor had turned left instead of right and not met that person who became their other half.

It’s a delicate dance of decisive moments that leads us all to the here and now.

We can try to consider what each conscious decision we make might someday yield but there are so many decisions made on a daily that seem so inconsequential that they easily escape our notice. We often don’t realize the magnitude of a decision until much later and are either enjoying or suffering the result of a decision from our past.

Only then do we recognize it as the decisive moment.

I guess the best we can do is to use our best judgement in those decisions we truly consider and hope that who we are at our core allows us to make wise choices on those that we fail to consider fully.

I am reworking an old blog post from about 12 years ago to highlight the painting at the top from 2017, The Choice. It’s one of those pieces that jumped at me when I painted it, becoming an instant favorite of mine, but never clicked for anyone else. Over the years, as much as I liked it from the start, my appreciation for it has only grown. Maybe it’s because I see it as a representation of the choices and decisive moments that brought me to this here and now.

Or maybe not. I can’t decide…

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Bulb or Light?

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on August 10, 2025| 5 Comments »

Quiet Revelation-Now at Principle Gallery

The problem in middle life, when the body has reached its climax of power and begins to lose it, is to identify yourself, not with the body, which is falling away, but with the consciousness of which it is a vehicle. And when you can do that, and this is something learned from my myths, What am I?  of which the bulb is a vehicle?

One of the psychological problems in growing old is the fear of death. People resist the door of death. But this body is a vehicle of consciousness, and if you can identify with the consciousness, you can watch this body go like an old car. There goes the fender, there goes the tire, one thing after another— but it’s predictable. And then, gradually, the whole thing drops off, and consciousness rejoins consciousness. It is no longer in this particular environment.

~Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth

That is a great question: Are we the bulb that carries the light, or are we the light?

While I believe there may be an absolute answer that is deeply etched in whatever makes up and energizes the universe, the answer for our time here in this small world is determined by each of us.

We can see ourselves as being only a physical being. A body with a brain that is simply another part of it. And maybe that is all the brain is, a control module that exists to help the body maneuver and survive this world, with very little to do with our actual consciousness– that light, that lifeforce, that we carry and emit.

Or we can see ourselves as that light that is something apart from and only temporarily contained by our physical vessels. That we are that lifeforce that exists beyond our time here in this plane.

In our youth, we tend to see only the physical nature of our being- strength and beauty and the quickness of the mind. I thought that way for a while. But over the years, witnessing others struggle with disease and death while experiencing my own aging with the dings, dents, and slipping gears that accompany it, to continue the old car metaphor Campbell employed above, I definitely see things more in the latter mode, that we are the light, the consciousness, that is carried by the bulb that is our body. And someday, sooner or later, when our engine is blown and our fenders rotted off as the tow truck comes to haul us to the junkyard, our consciousness will go on. 

Cosciousness shall rejoin the greater consciousness. Our light will rejoin the greater light.

Just a thought, my own viewpoint as an old Subaru, this morning. I could go on, of course, and maybe I am remiss in not doing so. But I think I’ve said enough this morning and I’ll let you fill in the blanks like it’s some sort of philosophical Mad-Libs.

Besides, I want to get to the Sunday Morning Music for this week.

Here’s a great version of This Little Light of Mine from bluegrass legend Ralph Stanley. I had the great pleasure of seeing him perform a number of years back at Radio City Music Hall as part of the Down From the Mountain tour which featured the many singers and musicians– Alison Krauss & Union Station, Emmylou Harris, Gillian Welch, Patty Loveless, and Stanley— whose music played a large role in the film O Brother, Where Art Thou? Stanley’s performance of O Death was perhaps the most powerful moment from a memorable show.

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