Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Posts Tagged ‘West End Gallery’

Sixth Sense

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

Moment Revealed — At West End Gallery

We have five senses in which we glory and which we recognize and celebrate, senses that constitute the sensible world for us. But there are other senses – secret senses, sixth senses, if you will – equally vital, but unrecognized, and unlauded… unconscious, automatic.

–Oliver Sacks, The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat

Maybe that’s the purpose of art, to prompt us to some sort of sixth sense, one that otherwise goes unnoticed and underutilized in our usual five-sense lives. It is something that we don’t even know that we have been needing and missing until we are awakened to it.

This sixth sense enables us to detect the many dimensions which exist between and beyond that which we observe with our five senses, adding depth and richness to our sense-limited world. 

And art does just that, serving as the activating agent for this sixth sense and beyond that, acting as the connecting link between the known and the unknown. I believe that is what is taking place when one is moved by art in any form.

It transports you into dimensions beyond the five senses. 

And that’s where the good stuff is…

Here’s a song this morning about one type of sixth sense from Irish singer/songwriter Imelda May. With a style that covers many genres of music including jazz and rockabilly, she wasn’t on my radar until just a couple of years ago. I stumbled across a video of Robert Plant and her performing a rockabilly-Big Band rave-up of Led Zep‘s Rock and Roll that I very much enjoyed. I’ll throw that on below as well.

Read Full Post »

Time/Breathe

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on May 4, 2025| 2 Comments »

As In a Dream— At West End Gallery

Humans are amphibians — half spirit and half animal…. As spirits they belong to the eternal world, but as animals they inhabit time. This means that while their spirit can be directed to an eternal object, their bodies, passions, and imaginations are in continual change, for to be in time means to change. Their nearest approach to constancy, therefore, is undulation—the repeated return to a level from which they repeatedly fall back, a series of troughs and peaks. 

–C. S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters (1942)

Taken from C.S. Lewis‘s satirical novel, these are the words in a letter from a senior Devil, Screwtape, to his nephew, Wormwood, who is a not yet fully a Devil, only a Tempter. I like its description of humans as amphibian creatures who attempt to exist in both the world of the timeless spirit and of the timebound physical world, with their only consistent trait being that are constantly changing.

I kind of see things in the same way. I don’t know if that would have made me a Devil in Lewis’ eyes. Doesn’t really matter, I guess.

Anyway, I am still on break but felt that I still had to share a piece of Sunday Morning Music. It’s become so ingrained and obligatory that it would nag at me if I didn’t at least make this small effort. So, without further ado, here’s a bluegrass take on Pink Floyd‘s classic Time with a short foray into their Breathe Reprise at the end. This is from the Kalamazoo, Michigan-based Greensky Bluegrass. a modern bluegrass group that feels more Phish-y than Bill Monroe. I like their treatment of this song and I very much like their name. Sounds like a title for one of my paintings. Maybe it will be someday. Who knows?

Now, have to run– time is short for this amphibian….

Read Full Post »

Thanks!

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

I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought; and gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder.

–G. K. Chesterton, A Short History of England (1917)

Many, many, many thanks to everyone who came out yesterday morning for the painting demonstration I gave at the West End Gallery. I know how precious time is so the idea that such a lovely group of people chose to spend a good portion of their Saturday watching me work blows me away. It was wonderful group that was attentive, inquisitive, gracious, and fun, with friends coming from as far away as Toronto, Syracuse and Binghamton for the event. 

I was nervous at the prospect of painting in front of a group, but these folks quickly alleviated my jitters with their easy laughter and questions.  I started the demo with a 12″ by 16″ canvas that had been prepped with multiple layers of gesso then a final layer of deep purple paint. Since I was determined to get as far into the painting as I could during the demo I painted faster than I normally would in the studio. I had decided that I would employ a blockish style in the sky that I sometimes use as it would get maximum surface coverage in the shortest time. The blocks were slapped in in multiple colors that often had a flat appearance to me at first.  That would be rectified in subsequent layers.

I had a vague idea of how I would compose the landscape below the sky but that was thrown out the window as I worked. Adjusting on the fly is often the case with my work. I opted for a simpler landscape with patchwork fields that is seen in much of my work. I asked the group if they would prefer the landscape with hills in the distance and they said yes to that. I blocked those in and then began shaping the landscape with payer of lighter colors.

I hustled along and finally decide to finish up with the prerequisite Red Tree. Of course, I had inadvertently forgot to pack the particular red that has been the staple for my red trees for the past 25 years. But as I said, art is seldom done under perfect conditions and often requires working with what is at hand. I ended up using a crimson that was a little heavier bodied and darker than I would normally use.

Without getting into all the details, the piece was more or less finished after a little before 1 PM. I was as surprised as anyone. I hadn’t anticipated getting anywhere near completion on this painting.

All in all, I am very pleased with the result. The image at the top shows how the demo piece turned out. Though it has a look of completion, it needs a bit of work before I would call it done. There are a number of areas in it that need to be refined and just looking at the painting now I see a number of small changes and adjustments that will be made. That includes reshaping and repainting the crown of the Red Tree which is not quite as expressive as I would like. As I said, I was hurrying a bit at the end in order to get to some form of completion.

All in all, I think the demo went well. I think it gave some insight into how this type of my work comes about and how creative decisions are made along the way in making any piece. It showed how the work seldom if ever proceeds in a straight line from beginning to end and that it is the ability to adjust and adapt that transforms a piece. 

Thank you once more for everyone that showed up yesterday. You made my task much easier and, while I can’t speak for you, you made it fun for me. And as fun is sometimes a rare commodity these days, I really appreciate that part of yesterday.

And a special Thank You to Jesse and Lin at the West End Gallery for coaxing me out of my cave for the day. Maybe we will do it again sometime in the future. Maybe with the other style, the wet work in transparent inks, that I began my career with. We’ll see…

Here’s this week’s Sunday Morning Music. It’s Bonnie Raitt’s cover of Thank You (that fits the theme here, right?) which was written by Isaac Hayes and famously recorded by the great Sam & Dave.

Thank you!

Read Full Post »

Painting Demo Today!

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on April 26, 2025| Leave a Comment »

I am giving a painting demonstration this morning at the West End Gallery in Corning. It begins at 10 AM and ends somewhere between noon and 1 PM. I realize that most folks will not be able to make it to the gallery today so I thought it might not be a bad idea to share a blog post from a number of years back, from early 2013, that gives a glimpse into how I work, though it doesn’t show the entire process from start to finish. For today’s demo, the painting I will be working on will be smaller than this and will be a simpler composition that will hopefully allow me to get further along in the process in the allotted time.

There will be other differences, of course, but you will have to be at the West End Gallery this morning to see that. The doors open at 9:45 so that attendees can claim a seat, which are limited in number, if they wish. Or they can stand and go back and forth between the artists that will be giving demos today. I will be painting on the 2nd floor of the gallery and painter Gina Pfleegor will be in the Main Gallery beginning at 10 AM. We will be joined around 11 AM by Trish Coonrod who will be working on the 2nd floor with me. And at 2 PM watercolorist Judy Soprano comes in take over and finish out the day. It should be informative, interesting, and maybe even a little bit of fun. Hope you can make it!

gc-myers-feb-2013-1

This is a new piece that I started over the weekend.  It’s a fairly large canvas, 24″ by 48″, covered with layers of gesso then blackened before I began to lay out the composition in the red oxide that I favor for the underpainting. I went into this painting with only one idea, that it have a mass of houses on a small hilltop. That is where I began making marks, building a small group of blocky structures in a soft pyramid. A little hilltop village. From there, it went off on its own, moving down the hill until a river emerged from the black. An hour or two later and the river is the end of a chain of lakes with a bridge crossing it. We’ll see where and what it is when it finally settles.

I like this part of the process, this laying out of the composition. It’s all about potential and problem-solving, keeping everything, all the elements that are introduced, in rhythm and in balance. One mark on the canvas changes the possibility for the next. Sometimes that possibility is limited by that mark, that brush of paint. There is only one thing that can be done next. But sometimes it opens up windows of potential that seemed hidden before that brushstroke hit the surface. It’s like that infinitesimal moment before the bat hits the pinata and all that is inside it is only potential. That brushstroke is the bat sometimes and when it strikes the canvas, you never know what will burst from the rich interior of the pinata, which is the surface of the canvas here. You hope the treats fall your way.

One of the things I thought about as I painted was the idea of keeping everything in balance. Balancing color and rhythm and compositional weight, among many other things, so that in the end something coherent and cohesive emerges. It’s how I view the process of my painting. Over the years, keeping this balance becomes easier, like any action that is practiced with such great regularity. So much so that we totally avoid problems and when we begin to encounter one, we always tend to go with the tried and true, those ways of doing things that are safest and most predictable in their results.

It’s actually a perfectly fine and safe way to live. But as a painter who came to it as a form of seeking, it’s the beginning of the end. And as I painted, I realized that many of my biggest jumps as an artist came because I had allowed myself at times to be knocked off balance. It’s when you are off balance that the creativity of your problem-solving skills is pushed and innovation occurs.

It brings to mind a quote from Helen Frankenthaler that I used in a blogpost called Change and Breakthrough from a few years back: “There are no rules. That is how art is born, how breakthroughs happen. Go against the rules or ignore the rules. That is what invention is about.”  

 You must be willing to go outside your comfort zone, be willing to crash and burn. Without this willingness to fail, the work becomes stagnant and lifeless, all the excitement taken from the process. And it’s that excitement in the studio that I often speak of that keeps me going, that keeps the work alive and vitalized.

It’s a simple thing but sometimes, after years of doing this, it slips your mind and the simple act of reminding yourself of the importance of willingly going off balance is all you need to rekindle the fire.

This is a lot to ponder at 5:30 in the morning. We’ll see what this brings in the near future.  Stay tuned…

gc-myers-feb-2013gc-myers-feb-2013-wipgc-myers-feb-2013-2wipgc-myers-game-of-life-small

Read Full Post »

Contradictions: Reality/Unreality

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on April 25, 2025| Leave a Comment »

Between the Sea and the Sun– Now at West End Gallery

Beauty is a terrible and awful thing! It is terrible because it has not been fathomed, for God sets us nothing but riddles. Here the boundaries meet and all contradictions exist side by side.

–Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

I’ve been thinking about contradictions lately, mainly in those contradictions that exist between our perceptions and reality. Most of us can easily see these sorts of contradictions in ourselves. Well, at least I think most of us can. Actually, for all I know, maybe most folks don’t see any difference in how they see themselves and how they really are. That would explain a lot.

But manly I have been thinking about contradiction as it occurs in art. I think the passage above from The Brothers Karamazov articulates this pretty well. Often art creates forms of beauty that challenge us with contradictions between what we know in our mind and what we perceive with our senses.

For my work, it comes in forms, colors, sizes, perspectives, omissions, and other aspects that one knows, when one really considers them, are unreal. They do not or cannot exist in reality in the way they are shown. The contradiction comes in the fact that this unreality is often perceived as a reality by the mind.

I realized this for myself a long time ago. The work always translated as reality to me, whether there were blue treeless hills, brightly colored patchwork fields, giant suns, or trees whose proportions sometimes defied perspective.

It basically straddled the boundary between reality and the totally fantastic, that area where those two contradictory terms meet and coexist. Unreality becomes reality. That area where what the mind knows (or believes) is nonsense begins to make sense.

As I have said in the past at Gallery Talks while groping to explain this, I never questioned the reality of what I painted. It always translated immediately in my mind as being reality.

It just was, despite all evidence to the contrary. The coming together of reality and unreality, which might well be used to define all art.

You know, I wasn’t planning on writing anything this morning and this thing just popped out. I hope it makes sense. Maybe it’s art because in my head it does…

Okay, I have to go get stuff around for tomorrow’s painting demo at the West End Gallery. It begins at 10 AM and goes to around 12 and maybe a little later, depending on how it is going. If it’s going well, I might keep working. If not, I might set the damn thing on fire right then and there. Just kidding– I would take it out of the gallery before setting it ablaze. Hope to see you there!

Here’s a song that caught my eye this morning. I didn’t think I had ever heard of it before, but the chorus made me think I had heard it at least once or twice. It sounded familiar. It’s a 1966 song called Painter Man from a group called The Creation. This group claimed that their music was as much visual as it was musical and sometimes had a member of the group painting while they played on stage.

Read Full Post »

Demo Prep/ Sand Dabs, Five

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , on April 24, 2025| 2 Comments »

Eye to the Future— At West End Gallery

You can have the other words-chance, luck, coincidence,
serendipity. I’ll take grace. I don’t know what it is exactly, but
I’ll take it.

— Mary Oliver, Sand Dabs, Five

I am getting ready for a painting demonstration I am giving on Saturday at the West End Gallery, beginning at 10 AM. This event is part of the Arts in Bloom Art Trail of Chemung and Steuben County which involves open tours of artists’ studios and events such as this in the area’s art galleries.

As I mentioned before, I seldom paint in front of people and am a little self-conscious as a result. Even more so when at one point on Saturday painters Trish Coonrod and Gina Pfleegor will also be showing off their prodigious talents. Both paint in a more traditional manner at a very high level of skill. I think of Trish’s talents as one would of a grandmaster pianist and Gina’s as that of a highly trained operatic soprano or a golden voiced chanteuse.

Me? I think of myself as a guy with an old and out of tune guitar who knows maybe three or four chords. Sings a little off key. What I lack in skill I try to make up for with the 3 E’s— effort, emotion, and earnestness. 

I do whatever it takes to find something on that surface in front of me. It’s kind of like the line at the top from poet Mary Oliver— I’m forever looking for serendipity or, on those special days, grace to show up before me in the paint. There’s a lot of time when its appearance is an uncertainty and it can take some time to coax it out into the open. 

My hope is that it will choose to show up during the few hours I will be working on Saturday. I am still trying to decide if I should have a plan on how or what I will paint or if I should just let serendipity and grace decide for me. I am leaning toward the latter just because that path can sometime be the most exciting.

We’ll see what happens Saturday morning. I am hoping grace shows up for a brief visit.

I am sharing the rest of the Mary Oliver poem, Sand Dabs, Five, from which the line at the top was taken. I think that I could apply much of what it expresses to what I am trying to say as an artist., particularly those final lines.

 

Sand Dabs, Five

Mary Oliver

 

What men build, in the name of security, is built of straw.

*

Does the grain of sand know it is a grain of sand?

*

My dog Ben — a mouth like a tabernacle.

*

You can have the other words-chance, luck, coincidence,
serendipity. I’ll take grace. I don’t know what it is exactly, but
I’ll take it.

*

The pine cone has secrets it will never tell.

*

Myself, myself, myself, that darling hut!
How quick it will burn!

*

Death listens
to the hum and strike of my words.
His laughter spills.

*

Spring: there rises up from the earth such a blazing sweetness
it fills you, thank God, with disorder.

*

I am a performing artist; I perform admiration.
Come with me, I want my poems to say. And do the same.

 

Read Full Post »

Tango/ Passionata

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

Passionata–Now at West End Gallery. Corning

“It’s a tango.” Marco maneuvered me out among the dancers. “I love tangos.” “I can’t dance.” “You don’t have to dance. I’ll do that dancing.” Marco hooked an arm around my waist and jerked me up against his dazzling white suit. Then he said, “Pretend you are drowning.” I shut my eyes, and the music broke over me like a rainstorm. Marco’s leg slid forward against mine and my leg slid back and I seemed to be riveted against him, limb for limb, moving as he moved, without any will or knowledge of my own, and after a while I thought, “It doesn’t take two to dance, it only takes one,” and I let myself blow and bend like a tree in the wind. “What did I tell you?” Marco’s breath scorched my ear. “You’re a perfectly respectable dancer.”

-Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar (1963)

I am busy this morning and was planning on skipping the blog today. But this song, Tango, from jazz great Diane Reeves came on and I immediately felt like it should be shared. It’s a wordless song and for Reeves the composition serves as a sculpture’s underlying armature that she fills in with her improvisational skills. I’ve heard a number of performances of this song and each has its own distinct feel. It is the same song but always unique. It almost feels new each time, and in reality, it is.

I’ve often described my painting in similar terms. There are compositions that I fall back on over and over again, but they are never really the same. There are so many varying and constantly changing factors that go into each piece that I would be hard-pressed to recreate any piece in the same way twice. The color choices change, sometimes subtly and sometimes in much more drastic ways. The textures change. My brushwork changes, often as a result of the change in my brushes as they age from use. What I see as the focus of the painting shifts, sometimes altering everything.

And to top it off, I seldom do anything exactly the same way all the time. This sometimes makes things feel exciting and new in the moment. And sometimes, it can be frustrating. Like so many things in life.

Just wish I could paint as well as Diane Reeves sings.

I have seen this song called Tango du Jour which no doubt is a nod to each performance’s uniqueness. Whatever you want to call it, it’s a tour de force. This is from a 2013 performance in Istanbul.

Read Full Post »

Reminder: One Week to Demo

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on April 19, 2025| 2 Comments »

After all, the best part of a holiday is perhaps not so much to be resting yourself, as to see all the other fellows busy working.

–Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows (1908)

Next Saturday you can be the one to take a little break and watch some other fellows busy at work.

I am busy this morning but wanted to remind everyone that I will be doing a painting demonstration at the West End Gallery on Saturday, April 26. My demo begins at 10 AM and runs to about 12 noon. Maybe a little later than that depending on how the painting I will be working on is progressing.

As I mentioned earlier, I seldom paint in front of people and fewer people than you might think have actually seen me at work. Being self-taught with a process that is constantly shifting in one way or another makes me both self-conscious and a little protective of my process. But I thought this might the time to break out of that pattern and give folks a glimpse.

Depending on how it goes, it might be the only opportunity you’ll get! But I am determined to make it work out okay so I think it will be a bit of fun. Hope you can stop out next Saturday.

There’s a reason I mentioned being self-conscious about doing this. There will be two other extraordinary painters showing off their talents at the same time. The marvelous Gina Pfleegor will also be giving a demo beginning at 10 AM while painter extraordinaire Trish Coonrod will also be starting her demonstration beginning at 11 AM. It’s intimidating for me but for you it’sa great opportunity to see three painters with distinct styles working in one space at the same time.

And to sweeten the deal, later in the day the talented Judy Soprano will be giving a demonstration of her highly skilled watercolor technique, beginning at 2 PM.

There will be a lot going on at the West End Gallery next Saturday so put it on your calendar. Like I said, take a little break from your own work and come out to watch some other folks working hard.

I wanted to share a song about work here. I was contemplating the old Johnny Paycheck song, Take This Job and Shove It, but felt that was little too pessimistic. I like my job, after all. So, I am going with a song that isn’t specifically about working but is way more upbeat. This is Workout, from an Ed Sullivan Show appearance by the great Jackie Wilson. It kind of makes sense since I look at every painting session as a kind of a workout, a flexing oof those painting muscles.

Just don’t expect that kind of dancing next week, okay?

Go to go now– I have a painting workout waiting for me. Hope to see you next Saturday at the West End Gallery!

Read Full Post »

The Solitude Hoarder

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on April 17, 2025| 1 Comment »

Peak of Solitude— At West End Gallery

Loneliness is the poverty of self; solitude is the richness of self.

–May Sarton, Mrs. Steven Hears the Mermaids Singing (1965)

Some of the most serious problems with our society stem from the hoarding of great wealth by the ultra-rich. Their constant need for more and more can only be fulfilled by sapping the wealth from those economically beneath them. But I’m not here to bitch about the super-wealthy today.

After all, there are problems that come with one hoarding anything. As it is with wealth, this drive to attain and hold on to more and more of anything generally causes a deprivation of something else. Everything we choose to do or attain has a cost of some sort.

We give up one thing for some other thing. If I do this, I won’t be able to do that. This might result from the cost in time, comfort, money, attention or almost any other thing. Time and money tend to be the biggest factors, or at least it seems so as I write this now. I will probably think of other examples moments after I post this.

I am a hoarder of solitude.  It is my precious in the same way the Ring of Power was for Gollum. I hold greedily onto it and am always seeking more and more. And also like Gollum, when I am without it, I am frantically seeking to regain it.

And I am willing to pay almost any price for it. I have paid for it with the relationships and time I might have with others or loss of opportunities and income for my work, among many other things. 

And the older I get, the more precious it becomes because solitude’s main currency is time, an ever-decreasing asset.

That may sound pretty sad to many of you. Maybe even a bit crazy. I get that and I can offer little if any defense or rationale to sway your opinion. Because when I am in the midst of my gathered solitude, what others think seems inconsequential. 

I think only another hoarder can understand that.

Here’s a lovely guitar version of Astrud Gilberto’s Corcovado also known as Quiet Night of Quiet Stars

Read Full Post »

The Bears/ Demo Update

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on April 16, 2025| 4 Comments »

“Oh well, bears will be bears,” said Mr. Brown.”

― Michael Bond, More About Paddington

We’ve been visited just about every night recently by a family of bears, Mom Bear and her 3 young ones. I believe they are yearlings, probably not far from the time when they will be set out on their own by Mom. The photo above was from the night before last, right around 7 PM. It was a little earlier than their usual as they normally come under the cloak of darkness to invade our bird feeder, so I was able to get a few shots of the group. This shot was taken from a window in our dining area.

We normally get visits from bears several times a year. They usually tear down and empty our suet and hummingbird feeders or destroy two hanging feeding platforms that I continuously remake from old picture frames. Our large main feeder is on a pole that is about 9 feet off the ground because over the years bears had destroyed a few of our previous feeders on the shorter post that was then in place. We wrapped the pole with stovepipe because the taller post alone didn’t dissuade the bears from climbing up to get the feeder. You can see how crunched and dented the stovepipe now is from years of their attempts to climb it.

This group has made our feeder a regular stop on their dining schedule lately, to the point that I now go out as it is getting dark to stow away our platforms and the suet. They came this night before I had chance to get out there. Mom was not really feeding this time and seemed to be just showing the gang the ropes. She was super attentive to noises up in the woods and down the driveway and would sometimes lumber off to a point higher in the yard to sit and watch over the young ones. 

We gave them quite a while to feed off the fallen seed on the ground. But when one of the little guys finally stretched up and was able to grasp one of the platforms, spilling the seed all over its head, we decided it was time to head out to disrupt their party before they destroyed the platform and crushed the suet cages.  Merely opening our backdoor caused them to scatter, Mom and one of the small ones quickly heading up into the forest and the other two setting down through the yard toward our pond in full sprint mode. They might seem to lumber around but when they need to move their speed over open ground is startling. I don’t know that many large dogs could run faster.

We were worried that they might be separated but a few hours later they were all together again and revisiting the bird feeder.

We enjoy having them around even though they tend to periodically tip over our garbage and compost bins or invade our feeders. Or when Mom leaves big piles of, uh, let’s just call them calling cards all around our yard and bird feeder. Though I admire their resilience and love seeing their natural beauty, I find myself worrying for them. They have such a hard existence that it’s easy to overlook their occasional transgressions.

After all, bears will be bears.

I also want to remind everyone that I will be doing a painting demonstration at the West End Gallery on Saturday, April 26. My demo begins at 10 AM and runs to about 12 noon. Maybe a little later than that depending on how the painting I will be working on is progressing.

Gina Pfleegor-Unbound at West End Gallery

This event is being held in conjunction with the Arts in Bloom Art Trail of Chemung and Steuben County which involves open tours of artists’ studios and events such as this in the area’s art galleries. I mentioned in the earlier announcement for the demo that painter Trish Coonrod will also be giving a demonstration of her immense talent beginning at 11 AM but failed to mention that the wonderful Gina Pfleegor will also be giving a demo beginning at 10 AM.

So, at one point you can see three painters with three distinct styles at work.  I’ll certainly be taking a break or two from my own demo to watch Trish and Gina ply their talents as I am big fans of both.

Hope you can come out to the West End Gallery to spend some time with us, maybe ask a question or just chat while I smear paint on stuff. Could be fun.

Trish Coonrod- Still LIfe with Eggs and Shot Glass, West End Gallery

Read Full Post »

« Newer Posts - Older Posts »