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Posts Tagged ‘Red Tree’

Worldshaker

Posted in Quote, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , , on March 23, 2015| 3 Comments »

GC Myers Worldshaker smStill affected by a lingering cold, I was struggling this morning to write about the new painting above, an 18″ by 18″ canvas titled Worldshaker.  I went back in the archives of the blog to look for inspiration and came across a term– native voice— I had used a few years back in a blog entry.

This particular blog entry used a Picasso quote– It took me four years to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a child — to describe my own decision years before to not follow tradition in my painting.  Instead I would try to paint in a way that would be as natural to me as breathing so that whatever came from my efforts would automatically have my idiosyncrasies and my fingerprints built into them as well as the unaffected honesty of a child’s vision.

Looking around the studio now at the canvasses, some finished and some in various states of progress,  that lean against any available wall space I can see that native voice very plainly.  Looking from piece to piece, I can see that each is very much imbued with my own voice, plain and simple.  No attempts to be anything other than what they are: a testament to one person’s existence.

And maybe that’s where this painting and its message enters the conversation.  Perhaps we all have the chance to shake the world in some way, even if only a small way,  if we can all dare to speak honestly with our own voice.  We think of change as a great sea tide but it often begins as a ripple of a thought uttered by a lone voice.

Let it be your voice.  Shake the world.

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Quote of the Week/ Limits

Posted in Biographical, Painting, Quote, tagged , , , , , on March 19, 2015| Leave a Comment »

GC Myers- Archaeology-Rainbows EndThe thing I am most aware of is my limits. And this is natural; for I never, or almost never, occupy the middle of my cage; my whole being surges toward the bars.

–Andre Gide

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I chose this week’s  quote from the late French author Andre Gide, who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1947, because as an artist I find myself sometimes wondering about my limits, questioning whether I am pushing myself enough into new territory.  Gide uses a cage in his metaphor with his limitations being the bars that keep him from moving forward.  He is not content to simply accept these limits sitting contentedly in the center of his cage. No, he is always pushing and pulling at the bars, seeking to get past them.

In the past, I have expressed this same desire to press past my limits with a metaphor where the artist climbs ever upward until they come to a plateau where they are comfortable and safe.  It is a place where they could easily live out the remainder of their days with little worry, living an easy life by retelling stories that made up the journey up to this point.  Many might not even notice there is still a mountain hovering above them to climb, if they just dare leave the comfort of the easy plateau.

Gide’s cage is my plateau and while he is trying to break through his bars, I find myself still questioning if I have the nerve to start climbing.  Oh, there are first steps, tentative meanders up the path but only far enough that I am within sight and  can return easily to my safe haven on the plateau.

When does the real trek upward begin?  When does one begin to thrash at their bars?

Where are you in your own cage?

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I used a painting from several years,  Archaeology: Rainbow’s End, to illustrate this post.  For one thing, I just like this image.  But more importantly, looking at it seemed to remind me that one’s creative past is often buried and gone from sight.  Or at least, should be if one is going to continue growing.  Like the tree in the painting, you grow from that past existence  being nourished by it.  But you don’t live only in that past.  You must move upward like the Red Tree in this painting to find clear air.

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Way of Peace

Posted in Motivation, Painting, Quote, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , on March 16, 2015| 2 Comments »

GC Myers- Way of Peace smStop looking outside for scraps of pleasure or fulfillment,
for validation, security, or love —
you have a treasure within that is infinitely greater
than anything the world can offer.

-Eckhart Tolle

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I call the new painting above Way of Peace.  It is a 30″ by 40″ canvas that is now showing at the West End Gallery.

I am really drawn personally to this piece, very attracted by its peaceful quiet and the depth of its inviting warmth.  I like the way the path leading into the scene seems to transform into a stream, as though there is a moment as one struggles along the path toward their own inner reality when resistance fades and it becomes easier to proceed ahead.  Less struggle and more fluid and free flowing.  More natural.

I think the words at the top from Eckhart Tolle mesh very well with the message I find in this piece.  It is one that is a common theme in my work: that real discovery is found within our self. And I think this painting oozes with that message.  It may seem to be a representation of the outer world and if that is how you see it and that satisfies your appreciation of the piece, that is perfectly fine.  Absolutely nothing wrong in seeing it that way.

But for me, it is in fact an aspiration-based self portrait constructed on an inner landscape.

Sounds like a mouthful but it’s pretty simple at its heart.  Think of what you might picture for yourself if someone asked you to paint a picture of of who you are or hope to be. Some might paint a straight portrait.  I picture myself and my aspirations in the landscape and this piece is very much how I see it.

However, there are some miles to go before I get there…

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Quote of the Week/The Singular Heart

Posted in Quote, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , on March 12, 2015| 3 Comments »

GC Myers The Singular Heart smAll the knowledge I possess everyone else can acquire, but my heart is all my own.

–Goethe, The Sorrows of Young Werther  1774

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One of the primary factors in my finding my way to art was the fact that whatever I created would be all my own, a reflection of what I felt was my own truth.  Art, painting in my particular case, was the one place in this world where I could have total control, the one place where I could set the rules and chose what criteria would satisfy my own needs.

I would be using materials and knowledge available to everyone else, just like the knowledge referenced in Goethe’s quote above.  But what made art so appealing was that there was the opportunity to take these materials and knowledge and transform them into something quite different than the person sitting next to you equipped with the same materials and knowledge.  For some, it is an academic exercise that uses the materials and knowledge by the book with little of their own self invested.  For others, it is a battleground in an existential struggle to be heard, to have their voice have meaning of some kind.

The real difference between these two comes from how much one is willing to totally reveal their self in this work, how they interpret the materials and knowledge they are given, and how much of their heart and soul they are willing to put on display.  For me, having my own heart evident in my art was always an existential effort– if I couldn’t make something that was uniquely my own then I would not be pursuing it for long.

You know, this is a pretty simple quote on the surface but it is one that makes me struggle in discussing my own relationship to it.  Perhaps I should just let Goethe’s few words stand as they are and let the new painting at the top of the page, a 24″ by 48″ canvas that I call The Singular Heart, speak for me.  After all, that is what the whole thing is about– a heart that is all one’s own.

 

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In the Window/ Redux

Posted in Favorite Things, Painting, Technique/History, tagged , , , on March 11, 2015| 2 Comments »

GC Myers-In the Window- Flower of DoreenI wasn’t going to do a re-post on the blog today but when I was going through some images I came across an image from a series that I did in 2005 called In the Window which had my typical landscapes with the Red Tree as seen through a window in various interiors.  This series was pretty well received but never found its way into my regular rotation of work.  It remains an isolated series from that time but is one that is very close to me personally.  I guess an example of this fondness might be that there is one piece in the series, the one above bears my late mother’s name.  Its title is In the Window: Flower of Doreen.

Seeing that her birthday is next week I felt like I should pay her a little tribute here.  She never witnessed my work in a gallery, never knew that I would find a career doing this.  But I think she would be pleased  by the fact that her name lives on in a painting and that the flowers she planted many years ago are doing well.

Here’s what I wrote several years back along with a few more examples from this series at the bottom:

GC Myers- In the Window- EverpresentA question asked of me this weekend inspired me to go back into my archives and pull out the images of a few pieces done several years back.  I was asked if I used this time of the year as a starting point for new work and I said that I often did,  using it as a time to begin new ideas that I want to try.  I explained that it was important for me to continue trying new things as it excited me in the studio and that this excitement was important to all of my work.  This new work provides a vibrancy that permeates all my work and helps me find the new in compositions that I have painted in the past.

I explained that I liked to try new concepts in series in most years and that some are more embraced than others and become part of my regular painting vocabulary for years.  The Red Roof series is such a series.  I have painted examples in this series for several years and it has become ingrained.  The Archaeology series is another. 

Other series last but a season.  While they may be popular from a sales standpoint,  they soon exit my routine.  The In the Window series is an example of such a series.  Done in 2005, they were a series of paintings that featured simple interior scenes with large windows that were highlighted by examples of my typical landscapes.  The idea was that the interior scene acted as a setting to show the landscapes in a different manner, much like the setting for a piece of  jewelry dictates how a gem is seen.  The gem here was  my landscape.

GC Myers- In the Window: Dream AwayThis painting shown on the left, In the Window: Dream Away, was the first piece.  It seemed to jump off the paper on which it was painted.  Very vibrant.  The setting of the window pushed the scene of the tree atop the mound overlooking the water out of the frame and seemed to intensify it.  I was immediately taken with the concept and a number of others soon followed, including the one at the top.  These pieces sold pretty well but they eventually lost steam for me from a creative standpoint.  While I still felt that they were vibrant , I sensed that I had done as much as I could with the concept and didn’t want it to become labored and tired.  My excitement was passing and I wanted to stop near a peak rather than at a low when the work was completely played out when I was viewing it as a toil rather than a joyous activity.

I still feel excitement personally when I see these pieces from this time and I know they are of a certain time for me.  I want them to stand as they are in my body of work.   As I described this this past weekend, I explained that the interesting thing about stopping a series is that it creates a finite number of pieces within it.  They become more distinctive over time, more representative of a certain time in my own artistic continuum.  So while these series, such as the In the Window series, are short-lived they have a longer viewpoint.

GC Myers- In the Window- Full PotentialGC Myers- In The Window: Worlds Beckon GC Myers- Inthe Window: The Searcher GC Myers- In the Window:The Vigil GC Myers- In the Window:Home Land

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Perseverance

Posted in Painting, Quote, Recent Paintings, Technique/History, tagged , , , , , , on March 9, 2015| 1 Comment »

GC Myers- Secret of All TriumphsPerseverance, secret of all triumphs.

–Victor Hugo

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Sometimes sticking with a piece that is in trouble pays off.  The painting shown at the top, a 20″ by 20″ canvas that is yet to be titled, was started several weeks ago.  All of the major forms, including the deep blue sky, were blocked in the transparent colors that I use in my wet or reductive work–that is where the paint is put on thickly then absorbed off of the surface until it reaches a tone that fits my eye.  But it just didn’t ring out, had an awful flatness that just made the whole thing dull.  The colors in the foreground were muddied and blah.

I looked at it for weeks.  Actually, I didn’t look at it that often because it just didn’t have anything to pull me to it.  I got to the point that I avoided looking at it at all.  Finally, I decided to scrap the whole thing.  Paint it over in black and start with an empty slate.

Tabula Rasa.

So I took it down into the basement of my studio where I do apply my gesso and do other sloppy work.  I pulled out a thick brush of black paint and slapped it across the sky and worked it back a few times.  The strokes didn’t go into the lower sections of the painting, remaining only in the sky.  I stopped and took in it for a second, the black brush poised to swat across the center now.  The contrast of the black against the colors made the fields pop a bit, gave them a little life.

Just a little.  Maybe there was something there, a flower that could blossom if I just stuck with it a little longer.

So finished the sky in black and in a few days brought it back to the easel.  Each stroke of color that went against the black surface of the sky brought it more and more to life.  When the sky was close to being finished, I went back into the lower fields, glazing them with new layers of color that took away some of the dullness that had plagued them.  The sky had a pop now and the lower fields were catching up to it.  But the central field between the curved horizon and the large mound on which the Red Tree would stand was still an awfully dull green that sucked the life from both the top and bottom.  A sucking vortex.

Maybe this wasn’t going to work after all.  One element so out of kilter could kill the entire thing, break its fragile life force.

After a while I thought that the black had worked so well in the sky, why not break it out in that central field.  Go completely in a different direction with it– make it a red field that would pop in the center of the piece and give contrast to both top and bottom.  Instead of sucking life from it, it would now give it life. And sure enough, it brought everything together.  Even before the trees made an appearance, it was ebbing with life. And when they did appear, it felt complete and alive.  All that I can ask of it.

Now I can’t stop looking at this piece that once made me grimace.  Perseverance pays off in the end, as it usually does.

PS:  Now that I look at this piece after writing this, I believe I will title this painting Secret of All Triumphs. Thanks for the inspiration, Mr. Hugo.

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Streaming Peaceful

Posted in Quote, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , , on February 27, 2015| 4 Comments »

GC Myers Streaming Peaceful smHe who lives in harmony with himself lives in harmony with
the world.
    – Marcus Aurelius

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This is a new painting that is  titled Streaming Peaceful, a  24″ by 36″ canvas that is part of a group of paintings that should be arriving today at the Just Looking Gallery in San Luis Obispo on the Central Coast of California.  This very much a signature piece for my work in form and content, a deep landscape under a gradated sky with the Red Tree holding central  focus.

But for me the central aspect of this piece is the placid feel that emanates from it.  It has a rich and supple feel that I find brings immediate calm as soon as my eyes lock on to the image.  Even at this moment as I write, there is an instant sensation as though I am releasing a deep breath when I shift my gaze upward on the screen to this painting.

And that sense of being near some sort of core of peacefulness is what I am looking for in my work, at least in my own personal relationship to it.  I have maintained this quite a few times over the years here that my primary personal goal in painting is not in mere representation, not in pure design or technical prowess.  No, what I want, my ultimate goal,  is to simply move myself with the work to an inner point where I am finally calm and at peace with the world.  For me, feeling that calming envelope surround me is all I truly seek in my work.

Everything else is secondary.

And  this piece hits that mark– for me.  I can’t speak for others.   We all seek different things and have differing reactions to art.  What others see or feel in this is their experience alone and that is as it should be.

But, like it or not, I am at peace in it.

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A Seat at the Table

Posted in Quote, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , , on February 20, 2015| 2 Comments »

GC Myers- A Seat at the Table smMan is a part of the world, and his spirit is part of the spirit of the world.  We are merely a peculiar mode of Being, a living atom within it, or, rather, a cell that, if sufficiently open to itself and its own mystery, can also experience the mystery, the will, the pain, and the hope of the world.

– Vàclav Havel

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The Red Chair normally represents memory for me.  Often it is the form of familial memory with the chair lifted by the branches of what seems to be its family tree.  But in this newer painting, an 18″ by 36″ canvas that I call A Seat at the Table I see it as being part of a larger family unit, as a piece of the entirety of the world and the universe.

Oh, it may only play a small part but it is a part nonetheless, a link in the chained mesh of all things.  It belongs.

It has a seat at the table.

And that’s an important thing to remember for each of us– that we do belong, that we play a part in serving to hold together this universe.  We are not universes unto ourselves however much it sometimes seem.  We best function in our parts when we seek to serve others and in some way strengthen our part of  this universal mesh.

So play your part and involve yourself in the world, in the universe.  You do have a seat at the table, after all.

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Bring the Light

Posted in Recent Paintings, tagged , , , on February 16, 2015| Leave a Comment »

GC Myers Bring the Light smallThis is a new painting, 18″ by 18″ on canvas, that was finished a couple of weeks back  titled Bring the Light.  It features the Red Tree high atop a promontory  amid a sunburst of light, across open fields from two groups of Red Roofed houses, one still yet to receive the light.

It’s an interesting piece, one that has me studying it quite a few times a day here in the studio.  On one viewing, there seems to be a lot going on here but then  it begins to read simply  as three wavy bands of color– the sky down to the tops of the green-leafed trees then down to the purples and blues of the foreground.  The road acts as a connecting ribbon and the houses and Red Tree as staple-like connectors, all holding the piece together.

On another viewing, it appears more narrative, like a storyline crafted from the description in the first paragraph, and on the next viewing seems to be a study in depth into the picture, with multiple planes and receding lines.

It could be confusing but the central focus of the Red Tree framed in light pulls it together for me, creating a harmonious feel and unifying the many disparate elements of the picture.  That’s a role and a purpose that fits the Red Tree well in much of the work, this piece included.

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Hasten Down the Wind

Posted in Music, Painting, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , on February 9, 2015| 3 Comments »

GC Myers-Hasten Down the Wind smThis is a painting  that I finished over the weekend.  It’s 10″ by 30″ on canvas and is titled Hasten Down the Wind.  If that sounds familiar you probably remember the old Warren Zevon song from the the 70’s most famously covered by Linda Ronstadt on her album with the same title.  It was a pretty big album at the time.  I just always loved the imagery in that phrase– hasten down the wind– and thought it fit well with this piece.

The song is about the end of a relationship, where the girl recognizes that nothing is working for them any more and the guy finally grudgingly admits it as well, telling her to leave , to go hasten down the wind.

I see this in this painting with the Red Tree reluctantly holding onto those leaves as they struggle to depart on the wind even though it knows that it has to be this way, that they must leave.  There is something bittersweet yet liberating in this idea that sometimes things are just not meant to be.  We often hold onto things–people, ideas and hopes and dreams– that don’t truly fit with who we are with the thin hope that things will somehow change to match our perceptions.  But recognizing that this is not meant to be and letting these things go allows us to perhaps find our truer selves.

In short, we sometimes have to lose things to reveal who we really are.

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