GC Myers- RedTree

The pessimist resembles a man who observes with fear and sadness that his wall calendar, from which he daily tears a sheet, grows thinner with each passing day. On the other hand, the person who attacks the problems of life actively is like a man who removes each successive leaf from his calendar and files it neatly and carefully away with its predecessors, after first having jotted down a few…

He seems to me to be headed for his ideal fate, which is compulsive psychosis dashed with a jigger of psychopathic irresponsibility and violence. — Jack Kerouac, On the Road (1957) This morning, I was looking for an image of the painting, Soul Boat, from my 2019 series, Multitudes. In doing so, I came across this photo this morning from a post back in 2022 that showed the painting on a small…

Early Interior (1994) To defend painting: One has to believe in what one is doing, one has to commit oneself inwardly, in order to do painting. Once obsessed, one ultimately carries it to the point of believing that one might change human beings through painting. But if one lacks this passionate commitment, there is nothing left to do. Then it is best to leave it alone. For basically painting is…

For I do not exist: there exist but the thousands of mirrors that reflect me. With every acquaintance I make, the population of phantoms resembling me increases. Somewhere they live, somewhere they multiply. I alone do not exist. ― Vladimir Nabokov, The Eye (1930) I am still well under the weather though it feels like I am making progress. But still enough that it was hard to focus this morning…

The Durable Will (2020)- Coming to the Gmeiner Art & Cultural Center Yes! to this thought I hold with firm persistence; The last result of wisdom stamps it true; He only earns his freedom and existence Who daily conquers them anew. –Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Faust, Part 2 Man, I did not want to write anything this morning. I have been dealing with a sinus infection that makes it feel like…

Something Beyond— At West End Gallery The two ways of contemplation are not unlike the two ways of action commonly spoken of by the ancients: the one plain and smooth in the beginning, and in the end impassable; the other rough and troublesome in the entrance, but after a while fair and even. So it is in contemplation: If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts; but if he will…

Wherever the Wind Takes Me – At West End Gallery “The object of art is not to make salable pictures. It is to save yourself. The fools who write articles about me think that one morning I suddenly decided to write and began to produce masterpieces. There is no special trick about writing or painting either. I wrote constantly for 15 years before I produced anything with any solidity to it…. The…

American Music– Jan 1995 No matter how corrupt, greedy, and heartless our government, our corporations, our media, and our religious & charitable institutions may become, the music will still be wonderful. ― Kurt Vonnegut, A Man Without a Country (2005) This passage from Vonnegut sticks in my mind in recent times, especially as the World Cup moves into its final rounds. There are things that…

As anyone who has ever been around a cat for any length of time well knows, cats have enormous patience with the limitations of the human mind. –Cleveland Amory, The Cat Who Came for Christmas (1987) I posted this photo of Momopotamus on Instagram on the Fourth of July.  I don’t normally post photos of our cats, I try to respect their privacy. But with her looking at me from her normal perch on…

  Jubilee Waltz (2023) Soon we shall die and all memory of those five will have left earth, and we ourselves shall be loved for a while and forgotten. But the love will have been enough; all those impulses of love return to the love that made them. Even memory is not necessary for love. There is a land of the living and a land of the dead and the bridge is love, the only survival, the only…

Laughter has something in it in common with the ancient winds of faith and inspiration; it unfreezes pride and unwinds secrecy; it makes men forget themselves in the presence of something greater than themselves; something… that they cannot resist. –G. K. Chesterton, The Common Man (1950) In the wake of yesterday’s post about mental health issues and how coping with it often inspires our art, a…

Passages: Toward Order (2023)- Coming to the Gmeiner Arts & Cultural Center It is the stretched soul that makes music, and souls are stretched by the pull of opposites-opposite bents, tastes, yearnings, loyalties. Where there is no polarity-where energies flow smoothly in one direction-there will be much doing but no music. –Eric Hoffer, Between the Devil and the Dragon This painting from a few…

Railroad Ave (1994)   The sky was dark and gloomy, the air was damp and raw, the streets were wet and sloppy. The smoke hung sluggishly above the chimney-tops as if it lacked the courage to rise, and the rain came slowly and doggedly down, as if it had not even the spirit to pour. –Charles Dickens, The Pickwick Papers (1837) It’s been really interesting, even enlightening, going through my…

Light and Wisdom (2018) We shall not cease from exploration And the end of all our exploring Will be to arrive where we started And know the place for the first time. ― T.S. Eliot, Four Quartets A large portion of my painting year thus far has been devoted to looking back at earlier work, caused, as I have explained too many times before, by my recent health issues. Though it has been mentally…

J.C. Leyendecker 4th of July Saturday Evening Post cover 1930 If you can’t say something nice, don’t say nothing at all. –Thumper, repeating the lesson taught to him by his father in Bambi (1942) Well, it’s the Fourth of July here in the United States of America. Our 250th, which should be cause for celebration among all the people of this country. It’s been a rocky road at times but for our…

The Internal Landscape (2012) There is a place called ‘heaven’ where the good here unfinished is completed; and where the stories unwritten, and the hopes unfulfilled, are continued. We may laugh together yet. –J. R. R. Tolkien, letter to his son, Michael, June 1941 The other day I wrote an entry here, The Paintings We Don’t Paint, that was primarily about artists receiving unsolicited advice…

Trio: Waiting For the Fire (2002) When a child is born its sense-organs are brought in contact with the outer world. The waves of sound, heat, and light beat upon its feeble body, its sensitive nerve-fibres quiver, the muscles contract and relax in obedience: a gasp, a breath, and in this act a marvelous little engine, of inconceivable delicacy and complexity of construction, unlike any on…