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Posts Tagged ‘Sunday Morning Music’

The Man Who Couldn’t Cry

Posted in Biographical, Early Paintings, Music, tagged , , , , , on November 1, 2015| 2 Comments »

Gc Myers -Exile Series 1995 smNovember sneaks in on a gray and damp Sunday morning this year.  It’s one of those months that bring about mixed memories.  Some, like those from Thanksgivings from the past , are warm and fuzzy while others bring much different emotions.  For instance, next week marks twenty years since my mother died.  Hard to believe that it’s been so long, a thought that comes to mind every year at the beginning of November.

I try to not remember Mom in terms of those last pain-filled months leading up to her death, instead focusing on better days and moments that I hold in my mind.  Despite that,  November reminds me of those last days and I find myself digging through the files to look at some of the images from my Exiles series that were painted back when she was going through her final days in 1995.  Looking at them now brings back a rush of emotions and memories, some that I try to avoid most days.

But ultimately, you can’t avoid those things we all must experience.  Life has its own way and we have to accept what it gives us as a gift.  Perhaps those painful moments and the tears we shed are proof of the preciousness of that gift.

I don’t fight back the tears in November.  Like any gift, I accept them now with what I hope is gratitude.

That brings us to this Sunday’s musical interlude.  I have chosen Johnny Cash‘s cover of the Loudon Wainwright song, The Man Who Couldn’t Cry.  I really like this version of this song about a man who finally learns to cry,  becoming a real human.

Have a great Sunday.  And if you feel like crying, go ahead…

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Dimming of the Day

Posted in Favorite Things, Music, Painting, tagged , , , , on October 25, 2015| 3 Comments »

GC Myers-Dimming of the DaySometimes on a Sunday morning I find myself surfing around on YouTube trying to find a song that strikes me just right, something that wants  to be shared  as my Sunday morning music.  Today it started in one spot that had me listening to 60’s music then the blues and prison songs from the 1920’s and 30’s that influenced them then back to other newer versions.  Then I somehow found myself listening to funk and acid jazz— actually, a term I had never heard before so I couldn’t resist at least a short listen.  It wasn’t for me so I moved on and before I knew it I was back at one of my favorites, Richard Thompson.

I chose one of his classics, Dimming of the Day, a song that has been covered many times by a multitude of artists.  Just a beautiful song.  This version is from its original incarnation when he was still recording with his then wife Linda Thompson.

But looking for an image to accompany the post my eyes fell on the painting shown at the top.  Originally titled Fragments, it was back in the studio after a few years making the rounds of the galleries.  It’s one of the pieces that I feel strongly about  but doesn’t find a home quickly.  There have been a few of these through the years and this one always made me wonder what it was about it that kept it from finding that home.  But looking at it while this song played made me realize that it needed a different title, one that perhaps fit it a bit better.  And Dimming of the Day seemed so right for it, both in tone and meaning.  Why not?  So I changed the title this morning and this painting is now  the same as the song.

And it feels complete  to me now.

Here’s the song from Richard and Linda Thompson. The track finishes with a beautiful instrumental track, Dargai.  Enjoy and have a great day.

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Starry Night

Posted in Favorite Things, Music, Video, tagged , , , on October 18, 2015| Leave a Comment »

Vincent_van_Gogh_-_Starry_Night_over_the_RhoneThe first heavy frost of the season lays on the ground this morning and the remaining  orange and golden leaves on the trees cling tenuously.  The air is sharply clean and there’s beautiful light outside the studio .  I would like to sit and simply absorb it for a long time but there are things to do.

But I will take some time to listen to this week’s Sunday morning music and watch the images in the accompanying video.  The song was stuck in my head this morning as I walked through the woods to the studio.  It’s one that I haven’t heard in some time and when it emerged it just  demanded a listen.  It’s Vincent from Don MacLean from back in the 70’s.  It is, of course, about the life and paintings of Vincent Van Gogh.  It’s a lovely song plus the video has a nice group of Van Gogh images– not a bad way to ease into a cool Sunday morning.

Enjoy and have  a great day.

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Every Picture Tells a Story

Posted in Favorite Things, Music, Painting, Quote, tagged , , , , , on October 11, 2015| 4 Comments »

mark_rothkoIt is a widely accepted notion among painters that it does not matter what one paints as long as it is well painted […] There is no such thing as good painting about nothing.

—Mark Rothko

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I have often said, often without much grace, that the subject for a painting is secondary, not really that important so long as the painting says something, expresses feeling and evokes emotion within the viewer.  I think the work of Mark Rothko is a good example of this sentiment. They are simple of blocks of opposing colors set one over the other or, as in the case of the piece above, one alongside another.

Seemingly without subject.

Seemingly about nothing.

But as Rothko states, there is no such thing as a good painting about nothing.  And this is a good painting.  It allows the viewer’s own emotions into its space, lets their own story become the story and subject of this work.  That space is the subject and purpose of this work.

So, every picture does tell a story.  Some dictate the story, forcing the viewer to follow a set storyline through the picture as though they were the plot of a murder-mystery novel.  Others do so like a song or poetry, evoking feeling with a suggestion or a gentle nudge.  The viewer here is complicit in the fulfillment of the art.

For myself, I prefer the latter but have enjoyed works with more obvious subjects.  Perhaps not as deeply felt but enjoyable nonetheless.  I still question where my work falls on this scale.  I am sure it has been both and I know I am much more satisfied when it appears more poetic.  But being able to dictate the nature of the work is often beyond me.  It sometimes appears in the poetic form seemingly on its own, without my direction.

And that is most satisfying.  And elusive.

All this being said is mere pretense for this week’s Sunday Morning Music.  It’s a cover of Rod Stewart‘s classic song, Every Picture Tells a Story, done by the Georgia Satellites back in 1986.  I always liked their version of this song and hope it’ll kick off your Sunday on a high note.  Have a great day!

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If Not Now

Posted in Current Events, Music, Opinion, tagged , , , , on October 4, 2015| 2 Comments »

Onion Article Oct 2015Another week with another tragedy that seems more and more uniquely American.  Is this what is what people mean when they say American Exceptionalism?

The airwaves are filled as always with the same expressions of shock and outrage from public figures, which leave me cold.  It happens so frequently that there is almost a standard protocol for reaction in place for the media and public officials.  You know as soon as this happens what the outcry will be and how it will fade in several days except for those who lost family and friends in the gunfire.

Until the next time,  which unfortunately will not be too long in coming.  So we wait and shrug our shoulders, saying, like The Onion headline above, “There’s no way to prevent this.”

And there isn’t so long as we refuse to make difficult decisions.

Maybe putting off hard choices is our exceptionalism.  We are wonderful in that capacity.

That brings me to this week’s Sunday musical choice.  It’s  fittingly titled If Not Now from Tracy Chapman from way back in 1988.  Maybe if we hadn’t kicked that can down the road back then…

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La Rumba D’el Jefe

Posted in Music, Painting, Video, tagged , , , , , , , on September 27, 2015| 5 Comments »

GC Myers- Floating Melody smSunday morning.

It’s been a strange week spent trying to get some chores done around the studio and our home but not actually achieving as much as I had hoped.  Most of my time has been spent thinking about some concepts that I am trying to move forward with in my work.  A lot of this has to do with using different materials in a way that seems organic and not forced– one of the differences between art and craft.

Sometimes I will form an idea that seems like the perfect direction to head but once I extend my thinking through it I find that the result that I imagine is so much less that I had originally foresaw.  I begin to see the idea becoming too crafty and just that thought puts a serious damper on my enthusiasm for the concept.

So I continue to roll things around in my mind, trying to find that elusive edge which I can grab on to and run with.  This is a bigger part of what I do than one might imagine.  It’s never just a matter of physically placing yourself in the studio and mechanically moving materials through a process to produce paintings.  The mental aspect is the hardest part of the process, hard to describe and even harder to master.

It was put best by iconic painter L.S. Lowry when asked what he was doing when he wasn’t painting.  His response: “Thinking about painting.”

So I am here this morning, thinking about painting.  But I am my own master, my own boss, which makes a nice intro to this week’s selection for some Sunday Morning Music.  It’s a song from nuevo flamenco guitarist Jesse Cook and friends called La Rumba D’el Jefe— The Boss’ Rumba.  So, give a listen, maybe move your feet a little bit and have a great Sunday.  Me? I’ll be thinking…

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Sunday on a Mastodon

Posted in Music, Video, tagged , , , , , , , on September 13, 2015| 1 Comment »

Heidevolk Sunday on a Mastodon Vulgaris MagistralisIt’s a pretty busy Sunday morning as I am in the midst of prepping for a two day workshop I’m giving this week in Penn Yan followed by my annual Gallery Talk at the Principle Gallery in Alexandria next Sunday.  More details on that in the next few days.

So while I am a little tight on time this week I wanted to keep up with my habit of playing some Sunday music.  This week is a bit of an oddity and is nowhere near where I thought the song might end up.  I stumbled across this video from a a Dutch group called Heidevolk which  translates as  “heather folk.”  They consider themselves to be a pagan folk metal band and base their music on Germanic mythology and ancient pagan themes.

Yikes!

Not what I envisioned for this morning but this song and video made me laugh and I found myself myself kind of half singing along by the end.  It’s called Vulgaris Magistralis and is about some sort of mythic figure  who hides from sight like a Yeti  but comes out to ride around on his mammoth.

And on Sunday he rides a mastodon.  So if you’re out there today and get cut off in traffic by a guy on a hairy elephant, be careful– it might be Vulgaris Magistralis.  And his road rage is epic.

Have a great day!

 

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Crawl Up and Die

Posted in Early Paintings, Favorite Things, Music, tagged , , , , , on August 16, 2015| Leave a Comment »

GC Myers Early Work mid-1994It’s Sunday morning which means I usually play a little bit of music.  This morning I didn’t have anything in particular in mind so I went to YouTube and just punched in something general then let myself be led by  randomly choosing from the selections that come up on the right side of every video.  It’s amazing where this will sometimes take you, sometimes to music that you know really well and other times opening new horizons.  Today it led me to a song that I have always liked by the Stray Cats from back when they were leading a little rockabilly resurgence in the 1980’s.

It wasn’t one of their hits from the time and I’m not even sure it is on any of their widely released albums.  But it is one of my favorites from their songs.  It’s called Crawl Up and Die and has a nice build up and finish, the perfect thing to kick off a sleepy Sunday morning despite the somewhat gloomy  title.

While trying to find an image to accompany this post and song I came across the old piece above from back when I was still forming a voice and working on processes.  This is among my earliest attempts at my reductive process where I put on a lot of very wet paint and pull off what doesn’t belong.  Kind of like carving in paint.

I wasn’t sure at this point where I was going with my work and was still considering straight  representation.  While I don’t think this is a bad piece, especially from where I was in my evolution, it didn’t have enough to make me want to move further in this direction. So I moved down a different path and, fortunately, it was the right choice.  I do like the mood of this piece however and feel it fits the title here.

Have a great Sunday!

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Everything Stops For Tea

Posted in Favorite Things, Music, tagged , , , , , , on August 9, 2015| 3 Comments »

Long John Baldry - Everything Stops For Tea a.jpg-for-web-xlargeSunday morning and I just finished my coffee/protein get-me-started drink and now am working on my first cup of tea for the day.  Something soothing in the whole idea of tea. Maybe it’s the slowness of it, the steeping and sipping  associated with it that attracts me. One of my favorite moments of the day is finishing my cup of tea after breakfast and holding the china cup, feeling the warmth radiate through its thin walls.  There’s something meditative in that.

That brings me neatly to this week’s Sunday morning musical choice which features tea as its central theme.  It’s a song called Everything Stops For Tea from the 1972 album of the same title from the late British blues/rocker Long John Baldry, who in the early 1960’s put into motion the careers of a number of what were to be large stars such as Elton John and Rod Stewart.  I liked this album from the moment I first saw it– must have been the colorful cover that is at the top of the page here.

But I loved the music as well, especially the title track which is Baldry’s cover of a song made popular in Britain in the 1930’s by Jack Buchanan,  a Scottish actor/singer known for his debonair man-about-town roles in the theatre and on film.  Oddly enough for a song concerning one of the most British of things, the song was written  three Americans– Maurice Sigler, Al Goodheart and Al Hoffman.

Regardless, it’s a fun song that I often find myself humming at odd times.  Give a listen and maybe have a cuppa while you’re at it.  Most of all, have a great Sunday.

 

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Some Kinda Love

Posted in Music, Painting, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , , , on July 5, 2015| Leave a Comment »

GC Myers-Heartshare smSunday morning on a holiday weekend but no holiday here in the studio yet.  No, not for another week or so as I get ready for my Home+Land show that opens in just under two weeks, on July 17 at the West End Gallery.  It’s been crazy busy the last couple of weeks but I am seeing the results coming clearer now and I think it has a real pop to it, one that has me getting excited to see the work hanging in the gallery.

There’s just something about seeing the work spaced on the gallery wall and not propped up in various positions around the studio that makes me see it as something apart from myself, something in and of itself.  It’s a bittersweet but exciting moment for me when I see a painting that has taken on personal meaning for me in the studio, like the one shown above, Heartshare, on the wall of the gallery.

It really lays claim to its own identity at that point and my time with it is close to an end.  It has become what it is and takes on the characteristics of the viewer, perhaps symbolizing things that I never saw or imagined in it myself.  That’s the mystery and beauty of this thing called art– sometimes one thing takes on many different meanings for different people.  There are no absolutes.

Well, it is Sunday morning and time for a little music so I thought I’d carry through on the theme of the painting at the top.  Here’s a song  called Some Kinda Love from the Velvet Underground.  Formed by Lou Reed and John Cale, the Velvets were one of the most influential bands of the mid-60’s.  A good rhythm to start your Sunday.  Have a great day.

FYI: The painting at the top, Heartshare, is 16″ by 20″ on canvas and is part of a series of paintings I’ve done over the last several years based on the myth of Baucis and Philemon.

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