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Posts Tagged ‘Red Tree’

Day of Hope

Posted in Current Events, Quote, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , , on July 20, 2016| 2 Comments »

GC Myers- Day of Hope smWe have always held to the hope, the belief, the conviction that there is a better life, a better world, beyond the horizon. 

—Franklin D. Roosevelt

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We’ve had our share of fear and anger in recent days.  Time to begin looking forward towards the light of the horizon.

Time to look for hope.

I think that pretty much sums up my feelings about this new painting, a 10″ by 30″ canvas called Day of Hope.  It’s about calmness and a real considered contemplation of the future set in optimistic terms, far removed from reactionary destructiveness and irrationality of fear and anger.

Nothing good or lasting has ever been built with fear and anger.  Sure, we have moved ahead in the past when fear and anger have been present but it was in spite of those things, not because of them.  Most of the great strides forward from the past were built on a vision of hope, with a rational belief that the world could somehow be a better place.

That is what I see in this painting– a patient hopeful look to the future.

Call it naivete, call it what you will– I don’t care.  I will choose a hopeful naivete any day over fear or angry cynicism.

This is another painting from my show, Contact, which opens this Friday, July 22, at the West End Gallery in Corning, NY.

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Energizing Light

Posted in Painting, Quote, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , , , on July 19, 2016| Leave a Comment »

GC Myers- Energizing Light smThere are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.

–Edith Wharton

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As a rule I don’t have favorites when it comes to my work.  I have always felt that I can see something in each completed painting that somehow resonates within me, something that calls out and connects to me.

In some pieces I see traces of myself as I am and as I have been in the past, reflecting moments of emotion that I have experienced at some point in the distant or recent past.  In other pieces I see them as aspiring to a form of consciousness that seems in the future, at a point well beyond me in the present.

It is one that appears to be rooted in a placid state of mind, one that is connected to a greater source of light and becomes, as Edith Wharton so aptly put it, the mirror that reflects it.

That is how I saw this painting, a 36″ by 24″ canvas titled Energizing Light, from the minute it took form on the easel.  It has a harmony and depth that gives it that aspirational aspect that so appeals to me.  It makes me hopeful in my possibilities as a human as well as an artist.  And that hopefulness makes pieces such as Energizing Light feel special for me.

This painting is part of my show, Contact, which opens Friday, July 22, at the West End Gallery.  There is an opening reception from 5-7:30 PM which is open to all.  Stop on in, have a glass of wine and take a look around.  I’ll be glad to see you there.

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An Inner Warmth

Posted in Favorite Things, Music, Painting, Recent Paintings, Technique/History, tagged , , , , , , , on July 17, 2016| 4 Comments »

GC Myers- An Inner Warmth smIt’s been a warm summer.  I guess for some of us that’s an understatement.  The mowed lawns are burned to the color of Shredded Wheat and ponds show more and more of their banks as the water levels slowly descend.  There’s a dustiness in the air from the driveway that coats everything and the thickness of the heat has me dreaming of hopefully cooler days ahead in the fall and winter.

In that vein, I thought I’d show another piece from my show that opens this coming Friday, July 22, at the West End Gallery in Corning.  Titled An Inner Warmth, it’s 10″ by 16″ on paper and feature cooler color tones yet has a warmth to it that is pleasant to me.  It’s a painting that points very much back to my earlier work in the way it is composed of distinct upper and lower blocks of color divided by an unpainted line.

The interplay of those blocks of colors is what carries the weight of the painting for me, carrying its message and meaning.  The details of the trees and the path in the foreground add a narrative element but the colors tell the story here.  The red of the tree seems even warmer here set against the cooler tones.

For this Sunday Morning Music, I thought I’d play a version of one of the songs from the great American songbook, Summertime from George and Ira Gershwin, taken from their opera Porgy and Bess.  It has been covered by so many people and there are so many wonderful versions out there from which to choose.  You’ve got the operatic versions from the likes of Kathleen Battle and Renee Fleming,  jazzier versions from Ella Fitzgerald and Sarah Vaughn,  rockier versions from Janis Joplin and Sting and countrified ones from Doc Watson and Willie Nelson.  And that is only a tiny sampling.  And almost all of them are absolutely outstanding which I thinks speaks to the strength of the composition.

I chose this version from Norah Jones just because I like it’s coolness.  This is a duet between her and the late jazz piano legend Marian McPartland.  It’s a lovely version and gives a cooler feel to these hot days.

Have a great day…

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The Patient Heart

Posted in Current Events, Quote, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , , , on July 16, 2016| 4 Comments »

GC Myers-The Patient Heart smOnly a burning patience will lead to the attainment of a splendid happiness.

–Pablo Neruda

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We are living in a crazy time.  Every week, every day, brings us news of some new atrocity around the world– Nice, France is just the latest of all too many– and we find ourselves gripped with feelings of anger, fear and confusion.  We want answers and solutions yet we don’t really know what are the real questions being posed before us.  We just want action, or should I say reaction.

We seem to react, raging and flailing, to every situation without thought.  We take little time to consider our words or actions and their consequences.  It is all now, now, now.  And this unsettled impatience makes us willing to look to those people who offer us quick and easy answers with little substance to back their claims of what they can do.  This path ultimately comes at a much greater expense than we could ever foresee in our haste to react.

There are no quick and easy answers to the questions and problems that lay before us.  The immediate future requires, as Neruda puts it above, a burning patience.  Our first reaction is not always our best and taking a long moment to contemplate our actions is generally a wise move.

That being said, I have to say that the last few weeks have proved to me that my work has a real purpose, at least for myself.  This has been a time of real stress in the world and with every day’s dose of awful news I found myself looking closer and closer at my work as I was getting ready for the upcoming show.  At certain stressful moments, I found myself really going into the work, being absorbed by the harmonies and rhythms.

These moments were like little meditative breaks where I felt the chaos of the outside world was blocked off, only a dark mass well beyond the boundaries of the world I was now in.  It brought on an energizing calm, one that allowed me to not react with anger or despair.  It reinforced my burning patience.

And that was just what I needed from it.

The painting above is titled The Patient Heart and is 4″ by 16″ on paper.  It is included in my show, Contact, at the West End Gallery in Corning, which opens next Friday, July 22.  The show has been delivered and is now in the gallery for previews.

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That Rare Moment

Posted in Painting, Quote, Recent Paintings, Technique/History, tagged , , , , , on July 14, 2016| Leave a Comment »

GC Myers- That Rare Moment smPictures must be miraculous: the instant one is completed, the intimacy between the creation and the creator is ended.

—Mark Rothko

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I came across the words above from the late painter Mark Rothko and found myself relating very much to their meaning.  The process of creating a picture is ideally a period of intimacy, one where the maker  ideally opens their self and exposes their totality to the surface.  There is a transference of energy and knowledge in that moment that forms the new life taking place on that surface.

Each move, each change to the surface pulls bits from the inner stores of the creator and alters the new reality being formed.  For a rare moment, the two entities– the maker and the surface–are are locked together.  They are one.

But as the picture takes shape and form, beginning to express its own life force, it moves away from the maker.  It is its own being at that point, beyond the reach and influence of the maker.

As a maker of pictures, I can say that this moment is both wistfully sad and exhilarating.  When that moment of completion is at hand I immediately miss that time of transference, so full of possibility.  But seeing the new picture, self-contained and speaking for itself, brings a kind of parental pride.  I know that I will never be as close to that picture as I was in that moment.  But that moment binds us forever, even if it will be always as a faint memory when I glimpse its image in the future.

I chose the piece at the top for this post- fittingly titled That Rare Moment– because what I could have been writing solely about this piece.  This painting, an 8″ by 24″ canvas, was very much created with in the process that I described.

There was a definite moment of transference when this painting made the leap from being me to being it.  In the days after it was complete, I would look at it and sigh with that mix of sadness and pride.  It is beyond me now and speaks with its own voice, its own meaning that will no doubt soon express itself to someone other than me.

And they will hopefully experience their own rare moment….

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This painting is part of my solo show, Contact, at the West End Gallery in Corning, NY.  The show opens Friday, July 22, 2016 with an opening reception that runs from 5-7:30 PM.  There is also an accompanying Gallery Talk that takes place on August 6.  More details on that later.

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Purified Solitude

Posted in Quote, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , on July 11, 2016| Leave a Comment »

GC Myers- Purified Solitude smSolitude is the place of purification.

–Martin Buber

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I have found myself painting quite a few islands lately, much like the one shown here in this new piece.  This small 12″ by 6″ painting on canvas is titled Purified Solitude and is part of my show, Contact, at the West End Gallery which opens on July 22.

Maybe the islands have come about because they are simply interesting compositional elements.  But part of me thinks it’s most likely an emotional response to the tensions of the world, an inner desire to pull away and find some peaceful solitude in a place where the bang and thrum of the outer world can’t reach me.

Of course, that is only possible on a short term basis.  We are formed in this world and are part of this world and can never fully break away.  The world is always with us.  But those moments when I find myself on that island of solitude do much to reinvigorate me, to make me feel strengthened to come back into the world once more.

That’s what I see in this little piece– a temporary refuge where the light can fully surround and cleanse me, purifying and washing away the confusion, the anger and the despair that builds up after time spent in this world.

Thankfully, I know that island is always there, waiting for me to arrive.

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On the Dock

Posted in Current Events, Music, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , , on July 10, 2016| Leave a Comment »

GC Myers-- On the Dock smWhat a time, what a time…

Watching the news it seems like we live in a time of chaos, in days and nights of division and anger.  To a certain extent I believe that’s true.  But for the majority of us– and I believe this includes people of every color, ethnicity and religion– we simply want to live a hassle-free life, one without rancor and hatred.  One where we can be ourselves as we wish ourselves to be and move through our days without fear.

One where chaos is a distant thing that doesn’t find its way to our guts.

Can we get to that point?  I believe we can.

How? That I don’t know.  Perhaps it to be found at first in small ways, in acts of kindness and tolerance towards others.  In not rushing to judgments and showing empathy.

It can’t hurt.

The painting at the top is in my upcoming show, Contact,  at the West End Gallery, opening July 22.  It’s an 8″ by 24″ canvas that is titled On the Dock.  There’s something very pacifying in this piece, something that definitely reminds me of the great Otis Redding classic, (Sittin’ on) The Dock of the Bay.  I have heard this song literally thousands of time and it never gets old for me.  It’s always calming and that is something I need these days.

It’s hard to believe that Otis Redding was only 26 when he cut this track not long before his death.  His life may have been short but he gave us so much to enjoy.  So, give a listen and have a peaceful Sunday.

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The Pause

Posted in Advice, Motivation, Painting, Quote, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , , on July 5, 2016| 1 Comment »

GC Myers- The PauseThe right word may be effective, but no word was ever as effective as a rightly timed pause.
—Mark Twain

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The painting shown here is titled The Pause and is 16″ by 16″ on paper.  It is included in my upcoming show, Contact, at the West End Gallery which opens on July 22.

I am a big believer in the pause as a form of communication.  That brief moment of silence between words said and words not yet spoken, that small period of inaction between actions, is often filled with a great and ponderous anticipation of what might come next.  In that tiny span of emptiness there is both a look backward at all that has come before and ahead at all that the future might bring.  The pause allows for contemplation of both.

Okay, now that may be putting the importance of a pause in larger than life terms.  Not every pause holds all the past and all the future.  But every pause allows consideration and thought of the immediate past and future, giving that moment a certain degree of importance.

I learned the lesson of pausing from the many gallery talks I have given over the years.  Halting for just a moment to ponder the question asked or the statement made is far more effective than simply beginning to speak.  That was a difficult thing to do at first when it sometimes seemed like every moment needs to be filled with sound and content to cover my insecurity.  But I learned that that moment of silence was not a bad thing at all.  It showed an appreciation of the question or statement, showed that I heard what was being said and showed that I wanted really consider how I would answer.

Moving back to larger terms, the pause works in much the same way.  The pause takes the past and brings it into the present and makes it part of the decision for the future.  The pause consoles us as to what has failed us in the past and what has succeeded.  It cautions us against rash and impetuous actions.

The pause is a deep breath that freshens us, allowing us to take in the world around us and to refocus, to reconsider our words and actions.  The pause allows us to see other paths leading forward.

The pause can be a potent force, if only we choose to use it.

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Listener (The True Music)

Posted in Quote, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , on June 30, 2016| 8 Comments »

GC Myers- Listener (The True Music)Mr. Twigley’s eyes glowed behind his spectacles as he thought of all the lovely things he would put in the musical box.

“But you can’t hear trees growing,” protested Michael. “There’s no music for that!”

“Tut!” said Mr. Twigley impatiently. “Of course there is! There’s a music for everything. Didn’t you ever hear the earth spinning? It makes a sound like a humming-top. Buckingham Palace plays ‘Rule Britannia’; the River Thames is a drowsy flute. Dear me, yes! Everything in the world — trees, rocks and stars and human beings — they all have their own true music.”

—P.L. Travers, Mary Poppins Opens the Door

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Think what you will but I love the Mary Poppins stories.  It seems like every chapter has a philosophical lesson or message, an urging to see the world in a different way.  There is usually a reminder that things are not always what they seem, that what we see and know is only a small part of the whole, that there are worlds and worlds around and beyond us.

Fittingly, it’s very much the theme of my recent work and upcoming show at the West End Gallery.  The painting, a 24″ by 12″ canvas, shown at the top is part of that show and is titled Listener (The True Music).  I  had Mr. Twigley‘s workshop, and that particular snippet from the book above, in mind when I was working on this piece.  The idea that everything has its own true music, its own truth, resonates with me.

I don’t exactly know what my own true music might be.  There have been songs and sounds that often bring me to tears so my guess is that my true music might reside in the chanter of a bagpipe, in the low vibrations of a cello or in the twang of a guitar string.

Or maybe it’s in the sounds of a lone voice singing Amazing Grace.

Or the voices of a large chorus united in Ode to Joy.

Or maybe it is simply in the sound of the wind as it moves the top of the grasses of the fields and in the leaves of trees.

Sometimes, as I walk through the woods to my studio, the trees moving in the wind rub and seem to make loud squawks and voice-like sounds that make me stop and try to hear what they might be saying.

Maybe that’s my true music.

I am not sure but I will continue listening.

What is your true music?

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Joyous One

Posted in Motivation, Quote, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , , on June 24, 2016| Leave a Comment »

GC myers- Joyous One smThis is the true joy in life: the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one, the being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap heap, the being a force of nature instead of a feverish selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.

-George Bernard Shaw

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Joy was the word that first came to mind when I finished this new piece, a 16″ by 20″ canvas that is part of my show that opens next month at the West End Gallery.  There was just a feeling of realized joy and happiness throughout it, the kind that Shaw described above in his play Man and Superman.

I think the feeling he describes must be one of the greatest joy in this world: to find a purpose into which you can fully throw your whole being for all of your time on this planet.

 A purpose that gives you a place to stand and rise above the selfishness and pettiness of those, including yourself, who would drag you down.

A purpose that allows you to tap into some greater force in order to gain energy for your toils.

A purpose that lets you deny the cynicism that sometimes shows up in abundance in this world.

A purpose that serves you endless joy in what seem to be empty moments.

A purpose that even finds the joy in tears.

I think there is a purpose for each of us.  Finding it is not always a simple matter and some of us will never find the one purpose that is truly our own.  We may not be willing to give enough of ourselves to something that is beyond our own needs and desires.  We might still find some joy in our life but it will no doubt be short lived.

For me, it has been painting.  At first, I found this surprising because I often viewed it as being selfish in nature.  My perspectives.  My emotions.  It was even called self-expression.  But the purpose came from having others find comfort and happiness in their reactions to my expression.  Their joy fed my joy.

But there are days when I still find myself losing sight of this purpose, when it is a struggle both in the studio and in the outer world and I feel drawn back down to less positive feelings.  But I will be somehow reminded of that purpose and that joyful feeling returns.

That happened the other day.  A gallery owner called and told me of a person who had bought a painting of mine that they had desired for quite a long time.  In fact, this person had come into the gallery for this painting and it was gone, having been returned to me.  I sent the piece back to the gallery and when the person returned to get it, they started crying in joy.  I can’t even express how this makes me feel outside of saying again that their joy fed my joy, their tears became my tears.

Those moments make my time alone in the studio seem more special and filled with purpose.  They make me that joyous one, if only for a while.

And that is good enough for me…

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