GC Myers- RedTree

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…

The Omnipresence- Before and After I see the spectacle of morning from the hilltop over against my house, from daybreak to sunrise, with emotions which an angel might share. The long slender bars of cloud float like fishes in the sea of crimson light. From the earth, as a shore, I look out into that silent sea. I seem to partake its rapid transformations; the active enchantment reaches my dust,…

Give Me One Reason– At Principle Gallery We give advice by the bucket but take it by the grain. –-William R. Alger, A Dictionary of Thoughts: Being a Cyclopedia of Laconic Quotations (1875) You should really… Have you ever thought of trying… Why don’t you… There are probably a lot more beginnings to sentences than these three examples that are heard on a regular basis by any person toiling in…

Solitude and Reverence– At Principle Gallery You can best serve civilization by being against what usually passes for it. ~ Wendell Berry, A Continuous Harmony: Essays Cultural and Agricultural (1972) What passes for civilization? According to Google AI (whose info I trust as much I would a monkey with a hatchet) citing the National Geographic Society as a primary source, historians and…

Chasing the Elusive— Now at West End Gallery Don’t swallow bleach Out on Sandymount beach, I’m not sure I’d reach you in time my boy. Please don’t bungee jump Or ignore a strange lump And a gasoline pump’s not a toy. — Lisa Hannigan, Safe Travels, (Don’t Die) Wasn’t sure what I wanted to write this morning. Actually, I seldom know what I am going to write when I head across to the studio in the…

In Rhapsody– Available through West End Gallery But I believe above all that I wanted to build the palace of my memory, because my memory is my only homeland. — Anselm Kiefer I don’t usually like to share quotes from other artists without also highlighting their work. However, since I have shared this quote from artist Anselm Kiefer as well as other posts featuring his work, I thought I would…

Archaeology: The Silence of the World— Now at Principle Gallery My sight with the clouds’ Unimpeded rest in changing moves Across the sky: the aged in endless Unbecoming are at peace. —Kathleen Raine, Ah, many, many, are the dead… (1978) I wrote here a couple of weeks back about another Archaeology painting and how are lives will be told in the very distant future by little bits and pieces left…

I have a room all to myself; it is nature. It is a place beyond the jurisdiction of human governments. There is a prairie beyond your laws. Nature is a prairie for outlaws. –Henry David Thoreau, Journal January 3, 1853 [From 2015] At last weekend’s Gallery Talk at the West End Gallery I was asked if there was work that I do for myself alone and I replied that there is, that I sometimes do small…

Ecclesiastes (1995) To everything (Turn, turn, turn) There is a season (Turn, turn, turn) And a time to every purpose under heaven A time to be born, a time to die A time to plant, a time to reap A time to kill, a time to heal A time to laugh, a time to weep — Turn! Turn! Turn!  Pete Seeger (1959) The painting above was painted in 1995 and for probably the last 27 or 28 years been in a closet,…

Into the Blue Tangle- Now at Principle Gallery We are one of only three species on our planet that can claim to be self-aware, yet self-delusion may be a more significant characteristic of our kind. –Michael Crichton, Prey (2002) I often find myself worrying about self-delusion. Some of it comes from our delusions about our abilities and powers as humans to master and control nature or the new…

Night’s Dream– At Principle Gallery The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it’s indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it’s indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it’s indifference. -Elie Wiesel, interview with U.S. News & World Report, October, 1986 I’ve been sitting here for quite some time now, staring at the quote…

Edge of Doubt- At Principle Gallery I hope you live without the need to dominate, and without the need to be dominated. I hope you are never victims, but I hope you have no power over other people. And when you fail, and are defeated, and in pain, and in the dark, then I hope you will remember that darkness is your country, where you live, where no wars are fought and no wars are won, but where…

Dark Eye of Quiet (2019) “…that country where it is always turning late in the year. That country where the hills are fog and the rivers are mist; where noons go quickly, dusks and twilights linger, and midnights stay. That country composed in the main of cellars, sub-cellars, coal-bins, closets, attics, and pantries faced away from the sun. That country whose people are autumn people, thinking…

Eye to Eye— Now at Principle Gallery I would rather live in a world where my life is surrounded by mystery than live in a world so small that my mind could comprehend it. –Harry Emerson Fosdick, Riverside Sermons (1958) I came across a page of quotes that resonated strongly with me from Harry Emerson Fosdick, who lived from 1878 to 1969. I had never heard of him and his last name reminded me…

Exiles at Gmeiner Art Center Wellsboro PA January 1997   Nourish beginnings, let us nourish beginnings. Not all things are blest, but the seeds of all things are blest. The blessing is in the seed. –Muriel Rukeyser, The Green Wave (1948) The blessing is in the seed… Everything we accomplish or attempt has a seed, a beginning. My career path as an artist had such a seed, which was when the West…