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Posts Tagged ‘West End Gallery’

“Islander”

Posted in Quote, Recent Paintings, tagged , , on July 5, 2013| 2 Comments »

GC Myers Post Card 350 small

My annual show at the West End Gallery opens in three weeks, on July 26th.  This year’s show is titled Islander.  Below is a short statement that I wrote for this show:

 

I am an islander. 

But I don’t live on an island. Never have and probably never will. 

No, my island is a metaphorical place, one that exists in the creative ether of my mind. An island that is completely apart from and immune to the outer world that exists across the deep surrounding waters. Self-sustaining and self-ruled, a blank slate on which I can create my own reality. 

It’s a place free from the ire and pettiness of others. Free of strife and injustice. and filled with the quiet of solitude. Filled with color, warmth and emotion. 

An island of creation and peace. 

But there is a paradox in being an islander. While trying to remain separate, it becomes abundantly clear that we can never really exist as totally independent from the outer world. Actually, to the islander those bonds to the outside world become even more apparent and important. The isolation only serves to heighten our recognition of our inclusion and connection to the world. You begin to recognize them as lifelines, bringing those things to the island that you cannot create in yourself. 

Try as one might, one can never live in isolation from their own humanity. I think the best you can do is to create an island that you can visit periodically to revitalize yourself. And that’s what I believe I see in the work for this show– paintings that take me away for a short while from the outer world and place me on that peaceful island. 

For that short time, I am truly an islander.

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No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend’s or of thine own were; any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.

John Donne

Meditation XVII, 1624

 

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Just Over A Week to See “Observers”

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on June 28, 2013| Leave a Comment »

GC Myers- In Clarity While I am busy at work in the studio preparing for my show which opens in a month at the West End Gallery in Corning, I wanted to remind everyone that my show, Observers, at the Principle Gallery in Alexandria will still be hanging there for the a little more than another week, until July 7.  If you haven’t had a chance and would like to see this show, I suggest you make your way to beautiful Old Town Alexandria and take a peek before it comes down.

The painting shown above, In Clarity, a 10″ by 20″ canvas, is part of the Observers show along with the title piece, shown below.GC Myers- Observers frm sm

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A Belated Nod to Tom Gardner

Posted in Biographical, Influences, tagged , , , , , on February 18, 2013| 2 Comments »

I listened to the Out of Bounds interview yesterday with a squirming knot in my stomach.  Fortunately, it seemed to go okay and  most of the knot subsided immediately.  Not all of it, however, as I had a lingering, nagging feeling about  an omission on my part that I need to correct .  When Tish Pearlman, the host of the show, asked about the time when I first showed my work to  the gallery owner at the West End Gallery she didn’t use his name.  As I listened yesterday, I kept saying to myself as the interview went on, ” Say his name, for chrissake!“, hoping that I was about to utter the name.  I was positive I had used his name during the interview.

But it turns out that I had not.

 

Tom Gardner's Artemus the Buffalo Bursting from Rockwell Musuem

Tom Gardner’s Artemus the Buffalo Bursting from Rockwell Musuem

The name was Tom Gardner, who owned the West End Gallery at that time with his then wife Linda Gardner, the current owner who I did mention during the interview.  Besides owning the gallery, Tom has  been a mainstay  and engine of the art scene in the Finger Lakes  region for decades.  He is well known for his oil paintings with collectors all over the country, his teaching of aspiring painters and his public sculpture.  Visitors to downtown Corning are well familiar with his sculpture of the buffalo, Artemus,  that bursts  through an upper exterior wall of the Rockwell Museum of Western Art there.  Or the Dali-esque melting clock that adorns the front of the West End Gallery.

Tom Gardner- Amish Drive-By

Tom Gardner- Amish Drive-By

He is a non-stop ball of creation and a great and amiable character, to boot.  You can’t walk twenty feet down the street with him  in Corning without someone stopping him to talk or someone yelling at him from across the street.  It was this amiability that made me comfortable enough back in January of 1995 to bring in my milk crate filled with scraps of paper and board for him to critique.

As I said during the interview as well as many times during  gallery talks through the years, my life would have been vastly different if not for Tom’s willingness to look at my work with an open mind.  I really don’t know where I would be right now if Tom had not seen something that day and had not encouraged me.    I don’t even know if I would have continued painting for long if he had told me there was nothing there.  I doubt very much that I would be in my own studio, writing this blog.   I’m sure I would not be as contented in my life as I now am and,  for that alone, I am forever indebted to Tom Gardner.  Even if I do absentmindedly overlook mentioning his name on a radio interview.

Thank you, Tom, for opening a door of opportunity for me when I wasn’t even aware that there was one in front of me.

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The Art of Mark Reep

Posted in Favorite Things, Influences, tagged , , , on February 6, 2013| 3 Comments »

Mark Reep Issue -Blue Canvas CoverThere’s a great article in this month’s issue of Blue Canvas, a quarterly magazine that is distributed worldwide and features articles and interviews with some of the finest artists around the globe. The article that I mention concerns the work of Mark Reep, an artist who has shown at the West End Gallery since 1995 and lives in Lawrenceville, PA. It’s a wonderful article that focuses on Mark’s process and the motivation behind the mysterious places that populate his unique artistic world. It shows several pieces of his beautiful black and white work , including two full page images. Just a great opportunity for the rest of the world to see the work that the folks around here have been lucky enough to have right under our noses for these last 17 years.

Mark Reep - Stone of Turning

Mark Reep – Stone of Turning

I have always felt a kinship with both Mark and his work. We started showing at the West End Gallery around the same time and our work was different than much of the other work in the gallery at the time, both of us focusing on landscapes that originated internally, based on creating a world based on feeling and emotion rather than one that represented the world around us.

Mark’s pieces were moody and mysterious small pieces, meticulously crafted with a laborious stippling that created magnificent depth and detail. They rewarded the viewer who stopped and deeply pondered the work with a stillness and quiet that was almost spiritual in its nature, all the time filling you with questions. Where does that path lead? Who lives in that stone house perched atop that high cliff? How do I get there?

Over the years, there has been an incredible consistency in his vision, even as his process has evolved and the world that he portrays has expanded. I never get the sense that his created world is not real because of this great commitment. As a result, his world is always distinctly his own, something I really appreciate and struggle for as an artist.

Mark Reep- All the Silent Years

Mark Reep- All the Silent Years

I have to admit to being awestruck by Mark’s work over the years, perhaps more than any artist I have ever shown with. And that includes some truly great artists. Maybe it’s because I know of his commitment to this work, his unwavering belief in it. Maybe it’s because I see its timeless appeal, something that makes me believe it will only become stronger as the generations pass.

Maybe I don’t know exactly why. But I am thrilled that Mark’s work is being seen on a worldwide stage. It is well deserved. I have often felt that we took his work too much for granted on a local level, that we didn’t see the diamond in our presence. And his work is a diamond.

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2013 Show Dates

Posted in Painting, tagged , , , on January 24, 2013| 2 Comments »

GC Myers Bright OutlookThe dates for my two annual shows have been set.    Friday,   June  7th, is the day that my  solo  show at the Principle Gallery in Alexandria, VA opens and at the end of the next month, on Friday, July 26th,  my show at  the West End Gallery begins.  Show titles and other details will be forthcoming.

I have had long runs at both of these wonderful galleries, this being my fourteenth show at the Principle Gallery and my twelfth at the West End.  This is sort of unusual in that it’s often difficult to have such long runs of exhibits at a single gallery without exhausting  the market for your work.  The fact that I have been able to have these long runs is something that I take great pride in because it’s a testimony to the continuing growth and evolution of the work through the years which has continually attracted  newer collectors at these established galleries.  I use this as a spur to keep pushing forward and during periods where I am experiencing the doldrums I only have to remind myself of those people who come to these shows to get my engines revving again.

We shall see what this new year brings for these shows.  The piece at the top is a smaller new painting, 6″ by 8″ on paper, called Bright Outlook.  I hope this painting’s title applies for the coming year for us all.

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A Quick Look Back at 2012

Posted in Biographical, Technique/History, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on January 2, 2013| 4 Comments »

GC Myers- The Internal Landscape 2012I’ve been hobbled a bit over the last couple of weeks by a pinched nerve in my neck that has made any work (or sleep) almost impossible to accomplish. Hopefully, it will soon fade and I will be working feverishly again.  But while it has kept me from work, it has not prevented me from thinking back on 2012 and what it meant for my work.  It was truly a great year for it, one that will be hard to replicate.

Four solo shows in galleries.

In June, there was A Place to Stand at the Principle Gallery in Alexandria, Virginia.  It was my  thirteenth solo show at a gallery that has meant very much to my career.

July found my show, In Rhythm, opening at the West End Gallery in Corning, New York.   I started my career at the West End and this show, my eleventh there, may have been the best of the lot.

Inward Bound opened in October at the Kada Gallery in Erie Pennsylvania.  I have  been  showing with the Kada for what will be seventeen years  in early 2013 and had a show there every two years since 2004.  This was one of my favorites there or anywhere.  There was a wonderful review in the Erie paper that I featured here.

December found me on the west coast with an opening of my show, The Waking Moment, at the Just Looking Gallery in lovely San Luis Obispo.  It was my first show with this long established California gallery with whom I began a relationship earlier in the year.  They have done an absolutely terrific job in exposing my work to folks from LA to San Francisco.  It was a pleasure meeting the collectors and staff out there I look forward to a long term partnership with them.

Of course, the biggest event this year was my first ever museum exhibit, Internal Landscapes: The Paintings of GC Myers, at the prestigious Fenimore Art Museum in Cooperstown, New York. It opened in August and just closed this past Sunday,  A fitting end to a great year.  The show featured a group of my work from the past several years including the new The Internal Landscape , shown above, which is the largest piece I have painted and one that I featured on this blog early in the year as it was being completed.  The response exceeded my expectations in all regards and remains the high water mark  in my career to date.  It has given me a new perspective on what my work is and what it might be.  A great experience, all in all.

In between shows, there were gallery talks as well as my work being featured on the cover of a new CD, Lowe Country.  Plus, several of my paintings found their way to Uganda to hang in the US Embassy there, accompanying the new ambassador.

Along the way, I met scores of great folks who shared their stories with me.  Many thanks to everyone I encountered as well as more thanks than I can ever fully express to all of the  staff at the galleries and at the Fenimore who gave me the gift of this year.

As I said, it was year that will be hard to match.  But as soon as I am able, I will be trying to do just that. Or more.

 

 

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A Fine Kind of Flattery

Posted in Favorite Things, Neat Stuff, tagged , , , , on August 15, 2012| 1 Comment »

Back in February of this year  I wrote here  about a friend telling me of a group of folks at the Corning Senior Center who meet weekly to practice the art of marquetry, the inlaying of wood to create pictures.  He told me that there were some there who regularly copied my work with their work.  I have not had a chance to visit the Center yet but mentioned the marquetry group a couple of weeks ago at my Gallery Talk at the West End Gallery, explaining how flattered I was by this.

Afterwards, a friend in attendance, Kathleen Richardson, said she was in and out of the Center on a regular basis and would check it out.  A few days later Kathleen, who writes a blog called Corning NY Step by Step which documents her discoveries as she walks about the city, posted an article documenting the work of one of the folks who practiced the marquetry of which I had spoke, a woman by the name of Nellie Telehany.

Nellie Telehany at Work

There were several photos showing Nellie at work and a piece in process, including showing how she would transfer the composition from an image printed in the newspaper by tracing it on  an overlaid clear sheet of acetate.  It was great to see how well she captured the essence of the paintings with her work and I have to admit to being very flattered, thinking how neat it is that this piece of marquetry will be around somewhere for many years to come.  If my paintings are my children, then these must be grandchildren. Cheri, my wife, was even more effusive in her praise of the work– more so than she is for my own work!

Thanks, Kathleen, for looking up Nellie at the Senior Center and showing her work on your blog.  And a big thank you to Nellie for making such lovely work from my images.  I love your work and hope you’ll continue.  I look forward to meeting you someday soon and seeing your work.

 

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Captain

Posted in Favorite Things, Recent Paintings, tagged on August 7, 2012| 2 Comments »

There is usually a piece or two in most of my gallery shows that never get the attention that some of the other paintings despite the fact that I often think they are really strong and are often some of my personal favorites.   It may be that the strength that I’m seeing is based on a different criteria than that of the average viewer.  Maybe I am influenced by my knowledge of the history and process of the painting.  Or maybe it is one of those instances where a painting has to find the place and time to shine fully.

The painting above is one of these pieces.  Called Captain, it is a 12″ by 36″ canvas that is part of my current West End Gallery show, which hangs there until the end of August.  It was a piece that really hit for me when I was painting it.  I liked the color and motion of the trees in the foreground that reminded me of dance.  The Red Tree seemed to be standing back,observing and supervising the movements of these dancing trees.  A sort of choreographer or dance captain, from which the title is derived.

There’s a lovely color harmony in this piece, at least for my eyes.  There is a mix of contrasting  richness and transparency in the colors that makes the piece very musical for me.  I can’t explain this fully and it sounds a bit goofy to even write this but seeing this painting reminds me of a piece of music, the dancing trees turning into  notes that hover and dance above the lines of the musical staff.

Maybe it’s this lack of a single explanation that makes this painting an enigma for me.  I see a lot of things here and hope that someone someday discovers it for themselves.

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Aftermath

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged on August 3, 2012| Leave a Comment »

Had my Gallery Talk at the West End Gallery yesterday.  I wanted to take this opportunity to thank everyone who turned out.  It was a great group who engaged in discussion almost immediately, asking questions and offering observations.  They heard many of my familiar stories, such as the one about me as a child of about 9 seeing a woodchuck who had died next to the old barn across from our home.  His body desiccated over the course of that summer and a vine grew his carcass, lifting it a few feet into the air.  It was a  striking image that several decades later led to my Red Chairs hanging in the trees of my paintings.

Some of the observations offered interested me.  One, from a man who has followed my work for many years,  thought that this new group of work displayed an emotional anger behind it, which at first caught me off guard.  But the more we talked, the more I had to agree that these were indeed painted in response to things that bothered me , frustrated me and angered me.  It was obvious that they acted as a sort of pacifiers for me against the outer world.   It was interesting that he could sense the anger behind them.  I don’t see it myself, focusing more on the tranquil aspects although I know that the darkness around the edges and behind the placid colors refer to deeper and darker emotions.

Of course, time dictated that there were stories that were left untold, that there were subjects that were not broached.  I always fret about that afterwards, that there were things I wanted to discuss but somehow lost my train of thought during the talk or that there were questions that I didn’t answer fully enough before being pulled in another direction.  At least I have this forum to fill in the voids that I may have left yesterday.

But overall, it was a good talk and I couldn’t be more appreciative of those who attended or those who have followed my work over the years.  My work is nothing without their participation and feedback.  Thank you for taking part in this journey.

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Golden Time/ Talk

Posted in Biographical, Recent Paintings, tagged , on August 2, 2012| Leave a Comment »

This tryptych , Golden Time, is part of my solo exhibit, In Rhythm,  currently hanging at the West End Gallery in Corning, NY.  I’m doing a gallery talk there today at noon where I will talk about this painting and many of the other pieces in this show.  I will also talk about my upcoming exhibit at the Fenimore Art Museum as well as any other subject that may arise.

I have talked a number of times on this blog about my gallery talks, about how they usually don’t have a set form and rely more on interaction with the audience.  Reacting to questions and comments sets the course of the talk, which I think both the audience and I find more appealing than a set lecture .  It gives the talk an organic feel, something I also try to find in my own paintings.

Of course, there are stories that are my old standards that I have to tell for those who aren’t familiar with my work or how I came to it.  How a fall from a ladder turned into a career.  What the story is behind the Red Tree and the Red Chair.  How I ended up showing my work at the West End, the first place to display it.  These standards round out the body of the talk, giving it fullness.  But for me the best part of these talks are the questions that I have to really struggle to answer, questions that I couldn’t foresee in the run-up to the talk.  These give me a chance to sometimes find a new perspective on what I am doing, to see the work with new eyes.  I can’t tell you how exciting that is for me to see new things or re-see old things in a new way in my work.  I often come away with a renewed vigor which carries me for quite some time in the studio.

So, if you can make it to the West End Gallery today, stop in and ask away.  Maybe we will both hear something new that we can take away with us.

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