What's Neil Painting This Week?

Unknown Places

2011-12-14T12:04:00.000-08:00

This week I am working on a 30 x 48 inch vertical Saguaro landscape for some clients in Scottsdale, AZ. I was never a great fan of narrow, vertical paintings but I find that I like them better and better the bigger the size gets. A 30 x 48, trusting you place the subject matter on canvas well, is a large, plunging vertical and it creates a great feel of size and verticality.

I wanted to be honest with folks reading this blog that the reason there are not thousands of blog posts by me is that I typically reserve my comments for when I actually have something that I think may be useful to say. These people who tweet or blog every time they brush their teeth or take out the trash just drive me nuts. I think that anytime you write something you should at least litmus test it in your mind to see if it's either vaguely amusing - therefore providing a little brightness to someone's day who could use it - or it should be useful and shed a little light.

I have written at great length about originality in art, and the need to seek and express new sensations that are both personal and universal at the same time. (Frequently, if a piece of music, literature, or art is only one of those things - it's not very good, in my opinion.) A couple of weeks ago I found myself enthralled by a book about the 1789 mutiny on the ship The Bounty. The book was the more recent title by Caroline Alexander. Though the book has some long, tiresome descriptions of the sailors captured and put on trial for their roles in the mutiny...what interested me most was what happened to the mutineers who went on to settle Pitcairn Island - a remote island outpost in the Pacific. It was very interesting to read about how a group of Englishmen, with some Tahitians that they essentially kidnapped - created a small society on this remote island, far detached from any part of what was the modern world at the time. What followed after those men settled on Pitcairn and burned the ship - was a fractious period where many of them killed one another, or were killed by the Tahitians that they settled the island with.

What I am getting at here was the realization that I had to admit to myself that one of the most interesting periods of history, in my eye, was the colonial period. One favor, however, that modern history and a common regard for human rights has given to us is to also realize that for Europeans to settle in places like America, Africa, South America, and the South Pacific, the wholesale disenfranchisement and often murder of the natives was required, and even celebrated by some. This should not be painted for anything other than what it was. Jared Diamond's fabulous book "Guns, Germs and Steel" did a great job telling this story. However there did emerge from the colonial period in history something unique and of use to everyone, including artists. The entering into spaces and places unknown to the Western World.

It is not, of course, that natives of all continents didn't do this as well. They have always done this - what was compelling in this case was what Europeans did when they ventured into new places with the technologies of their ocean going ships and the written languages and narratives that could capture and record what the far off world was really like, for the enthrallment of people of all nations.

If I had been alive then I might have been a willing participant in the age of exploration - but what was revealed to learned eyes came at the cost of the genocide and subjugation of entire regions full of native peoples. Whatever light was shed, cast a pall of darkness at the same time. I would have loved to explore and see such amazing places as they were being revealed - but I could not have raised my hand in anger against anyone who was there before me. Europeans had, far too often, convinced themselves that any kind of horror was justified if so called 'civilized' men were the culprits.

I should say also that my interests in 'unknown spaces' has found a great deal of enjoyment in the exploration of space and the planets. When a space probe opens it's lenses for the first time on planets like Mars, or moons like Titan - I am one of the first to want to see what they see.

Even when I was a kid I would explore wooded areas around where I lived for miles and miles. Until I knew every tree, and even until I could guide my friends great distances through the woods in the dark. It was all great fun to me...

However much a stretch the comparison might be - I think it is still useful. The same drive that would make someone disembark from a ship, or travel with Lewis and Clark across the American West, or penetrate the deepest jungles of Africa or the Pacific - the same interest and curiosity should exist within the heart of the artist. With all the world of knowledge at our backs, it seems to me that the canvas is still an unknown space, and we are getting to know our world, interior and exterior, each time we set out to explore that imagery.

Happy Holidays to Everyone!

www.neilmyersart.com

Fortunate Tunnel Vision

2011-09-09T13:20:00.000-07:00

This week I am working on a large 36 x 48 in. oil painting of a blooming desert spring scene - based on a photograph by the amazing photographer Paul Gill. This is the fourth Paul Gill image that I have painted, and all I can say is that his vision is a twin of my own - being that he looks for scenes in a landscape nearly identical to the ones I look for.

I found myself thinking about something that I was writing earlier this week - a sort of idea of artistic tunnel vision. I remember Paul Stanley of Kiss saying something to the effect that if you really want to succeed, stop listening to people! At first that comment seems counter intuitive. But when you stop and think about it, the realization comes that if you are really reaching - if you are going for something creative, bold, and original - you need the strength to cling to your own vision and see it through. You need to be able to shut out certain noises and criticisms and focus hard on what you feel you have to do.

I relate to Paul's advice quite well - because I have shared with a few artists my own loathing of the traditional settings for criticisms. I mean this mainly in regards to artists criticizing others' work. I have long preferred the harsh critiques of myself to myself - and that also of my wife, who is equally unsparing. Because it seem to me that when a group of artists sit around and take apart a painting - which is like taking apart a piece of sincere emotion - they are bringing to the table their own preferences about what art should be. And thus leveling their aim at the artwork of people who may not share their personal sensibilities - all the while trying to bend the art being critiqued to something of their own vision. In this way it seems to me that the artist-critic seems to want to take possession of a work they are looking at. Burn it with their own brand, so to speak.

And it is not to say that I think a work escapes criticism - not at all. When it hits a gallery wall or makes its way into a magazine or publication, you can damn sure be certain that it will be critiqued. I expect and welcome that. But what arrives there for the critique is nothing other than a product of my own visions - and it has been bent or altered to suit nobody but myself. In doing that, I feel nearer to my own vision of what a painting should be. Because it seems to me that when you feel that you are doing something truly different, you have to put the idea forth to the public directly, with the hopes that it will connect with sensitive individuals. This has happened for me, and for that I am very fortunate. But I am also sure that it happened because I was stubborn and persistent in not allowing my ideas to be diluted and watered down to suit other artists.

What Paul Stanley really knows about creativity is implicit in what he said about not listening to others; because if you would have told a member of the public in 1972 that in the following year a band would emerge, wearing kabuki style white face paint - with smoking guitars, spitting blood, fist pounding rock anthems, etc etc - they might well have laughed at you. But so many years and a zillion album and ticket sales later nobody laughs at the original KISS idea that Paul Stanley was a part of.

Now you might like KISS or you might not, but you can't even BEGIN to argue that they are somehow unoriginal!

That's creativity!

www.neilmyersart.com

Oasis by the Shore

2011-08-22T13:51:00.000-07:00

This week I am working on a painting of the Saint Francis of Assisi church in Taos, New Mexico. The amazing photographer Paul Gill granted me permission to attempt some paintings from his photos, and this painting is one derived from his photo. Paul is one of the most talented photographers in our region, and has a wonderful knack for finding the most drama and color in our Southwestern Landscape. Visit his website at: http://paulgillphoto.zenfolio.com/

I wanted to write a brief note to share a wonderful place that I was fortunate enough to visit a few weeks ago; Torrey Pines State Reserve. ( www.torreypine.org ) This is a stunning place where a large stretch of Southern California coastline has been set aside because it is one of the few remaining habitats of the rarest pine tree in the United States, the Torrey Pine. This 2,000 acre preserve sits right on the coastline within the city limits of San Diego, CA. My wife and son and I went there in the early morning and hiked several trails - one leading down to the coast, above beautiful cliffs that plunged right down into the blue of the sea. It was really special - and all the while I was there I kept telling my wife what a great treasure it is to have an unspoiled stretch of Southern California coastline - very valuable real estate - kept wild and natural as it would have appeared before the rapid development of the area. I urge anyone with some time to visit Torrey Pines and take a walk there. It was a beautiful little oasis in a Southern California that is frequently little more than a sea of cars and fumes and crowds of people.

Also, for those of you who are closer to my area, you should try to visit Catalina State Park - the Arizona Poppies are blooming along with several other species of wildflowers and the banks of washes and other areas are now coated with lovely shades of pale-pastel orange and yellow. Even some purples and whites mixed in. If you can brave the heat before the monsoon rains, there are some amazing scenes to be sketched, painted, or photographed.

www.neilmyersart.com

The Tao of Buckethead

2011-07-01T12:53:00.001-07:00

"There are lots of different ways to get from the bottom to the top. It's kinda like digging a hole."
Buckethead

I've always said that I am interested in artists who are hard to categorize. It has seemed to me that if an artist is too easily pigeonholed, or too easily described, then they are frequently less original. This formula, I'm sure, has exceptions - but not that many. Some of you may know that about 1 inch below art in my own heart is music, and just like in painting - I'm always looking for musical artists who are very original and very hard to define. One of the foremost is the virtuoso guitarist Buckethead.

I saw a live Buckethead performance at the Rialto theatre in Tucson, just over a week ago. I found that when you mention to friends that you went to see a musician called "Buckethead" they immediately look at you like you are crazy! Yes, Buckethead has become world famous for wearing a Kentucky Fried Chicken bucket on his head - and a white mask that would make Michael Myers or Jason Vorhees feel very simpatico. There is humor in the character of Buckethead, and that's not to be missed. It's a temptation of the absurd, no doubt about it. But before you get a chance to laugh too much or write this guy off as a gimmick - listen to him play. He is truly stunning. One of the greatest guitarists I've ever seen. After hearing his show, I told friends "His mellow stuff is more mellow and more beautiful than anything you'll ever hear. His fast stuff is so fast it's hard to believe than a human can play like that, and do so with such accuracy and power. His funky / weird stuff can be a cacophony of the strangest sounds you've ever heard coming from a guitar."

A little research into the international man of mystery they call Buckethead will reveal that his name is Brian Carroll and that one of his mentors is the incredibly talented guitarist Paul Gilbert, of Racer-X, Mr Big fame. Though there is much left to the mysterious when you attempt to learn about Buckethead. He is perhaps one of the only performing artists today who has a personal mythology. Grew up in a chicken coop. Chickens scratched his face off, etc etc. He almost never speaks. When he does, he speaks thru a severed head mask he uses like a puppet head. Yes - it's all a bit out there. Maybe that's where creative artistry has gone these days - however, again, before you get too stuck on the trappings of Buckethead - listen to his playing. Then, the temptation to laughter goes away immediately, and you realize that this man is a deadly serious, talented musical artist.

While listening to Buckethead play in Tucson, I had the thought "there is another lesson of creativity; ie, you have to be THAT good to stand out from the rest." But it's not enough for me to keep repeating how good this guy plays - log on to youtube and check out some of the posted videos. There is even a guitar lesson with him talking, and demonstrating guitar moves that most players can only dream about.

It shouldn't be missed also that Buckethead played lead guitar for Guns and Roses for 4 years, and played on a number of songs on GNR's Chinese Democracy CD. Wikipedia has the count that he has released 32 studio CDs.

Perhaps the key to Buckethead is that you can't really figure him out. But he never ceases to be a curiosity for us all. We can also conclude that if he weren't such an amazing guitarist, the Bucket and mask would be the subject of ridicule, and I think it would be easier for people to dismiss him. However his guitar blistering abilities will continue to force people to think twice before they ascribe some kind of circus-freak sideshow disdain to him. You can't do that with this guy - because talent may come in unusual packages, like a chicken bucket and mask - but that talent deserves respect just the same.

http://www.neilmyersart.com/

What Gets in the Way

2011-05-11T12:40:00.000-07:00

This week I have just finished three new paintings - a new Tumacacori mission painting that shows the mission from a distance through the shade of the trees, as well as two smaller works - one of the Tucson Barrio and another of the Sutherland Trail in springtime. Spring here in southern Arizona has been a wonderful inspiration to paint things as bright as paloverde blooms and brittlebrush flowers that are all around us.

The other day I found myself thinking about the kinds of things that get in the way of an artist doing their work. Oh sure, we have all been privy to those occasional feelings of "if I could have only..." and for the most part I think that's a useless emotion. I always loved a beautiful line from the Live song "Run to the Water" that goes "today we lived a thousand years, all we have is NOW." But at the same time I realize that obstacles do exist, and though I have tried not to make too big a deal out of it, the biggest thing that gets in the way of what I want to do in my life is, and has been, my health.

Some of you know - some may not, that I have had back pain for many years. This little adventure came to a head in the middle of 2009 when a schwanomma tumor was found in my spine, right in the middle of my back. It was actually growing inside the sheath of my spinal cord, and gradually had pressed my spinal chord down to a very fine filament which was all the remained to transmit nerve signals to my lower body. 4 days after it's discovery I was rushed into surgery, and was delighted that the surgery was a success. Recovery was slow and painful, but I gradually got back all the feeling that I'd lost in my legs, and the terrible ordeals of nausea, weakness, shaking, etc in my lower body was gone. But back pain persisted and still does to this day - partially because we know that my last MRI revealed inflammation still in my spinal cord. However I am able to do about 80% of all I could do before, and as it regards life in general - things have gotten much better. Still, on many days I paint, activities as menial as squeezing paint out of the tubes and putting it onto the palette can start the pain. A dull, stinging pain that weakens the muscles in the center of my back and makes it hard to breathe. So many paintings of mine - how many I couldn't know, have been produced while in regular, and sometimes very extreme pain. I've never wanted the works to reflect pain, mind you. I've always preferred that they represent a rejection of a pain-filled mentality. A striving for something beautiful despite the discomfort experienced while making it. I told my wife a few months ago that few people will likely ever appreciate how much physical discomfort has gone into the making of my paintings - yet this is so mostly because I try to de-emphasize it. Some know about it, some don't. Yes, I am a chronic pain sufferer. And I am also very aware that many people have to endure physical ordeals worse than mine, and that has to make you keep perspective.

But, the story doesn't end there. (I wish it did, ha!) In 2007 I had a golf ball sized cyst removed from my jaw. It had corroded a good deal of my jawbone and required surgery to take out. Add 2 more dental surgeries. Countless abscesses in my crowded teeth - more than I can count. Swollen jaws because of it. Add bad eyes - so bad that I can't see beyond the tip of my nose without strong contact lenses. (Just like a painter to be so blind, right) Add a deviated septum in my nose that makes it hard to breathe, and hard to sleep. Add periodic sleep troubles and the resulting exhaustion. Add lactose intolerance. Add tinnitus, ie, chronic ringing in my ears - also a disturber of sleep. And that's just what I can think of...not that the details of each of these things are important, per se. The overall result is that getting me ready and healthy to paint requires all the coordination of a space shuttle launch - and frequently I have painted when I felt horrible, lower than dirt.

At the same time - painting in spite of all these things has been something that helped me through the worst of moments. A mere 2 weeks after my back surgery in 2009 I was back to work on "Giants of the Desert III", stiff, barely able to move - and thinking to myself so this is what it feels like to be cut inside.

I could not go without saying that in addition to painting pulling me through all this discomfort - my lovely wife and son have had the same affect. The fact that I take care of our son during the week has forced me, on many days, to forget my own aches and troubles, and concentrate on taking the best care of him that I could. He was so much good therapy, because a kid just wants to be a kid - to have fun and go to the park and do kid things. My desire not to have him miss these things made me pick myself up, time and time again.

But that's life, isn't it? We could wish to be beautiful, or taller, or to have spines without tumors in them - but wishing alone would never do. The key thing is simple, plain old wisdom. That we do the best with what we have, and that's the most we can ask for. In my case, trusting the best of my paintings are preserved and appreciated by the countless collectors who have bought them - then the pain that marked their creation won't have defined them, and it won't have defined me.

www.neilmyersart.com

The Artist's Life - The Truth

2011-04-17T10:36:00.000-07:00

This week I am working on a 30 x 48 inch panoramic painting of Montrose Canyon, a steep, rugged canyon in Catalina State Park, very close to our house. The painting is now into it's 2nd week, and when I think of the way that works of mine can stretch out, I still marvel sometimes at those artists that do works (many of them pretty good, no doubt) in 2 or 3 hours! My paintings can commonly take up to 3 weeks to do, depending on size. The big "Arizona the Beautiful II" that was sold at Marshall-LeKAE Gallery took a full month to finish - with nothing else on the easel and no diversions. Something that was on my mind this week was to perhaps share a little truth with you guys about the real state of an artist's life. I remember an article in a Tucson newspaper about how the state was displacing some low-rent artist studios in downtown Tucson, and what suprised me was not the content of the article, but the veritable torrent of abuse that flowed from the commenters logging on to the news site and basically just calling artists bums, lazy, get a job you loser type things. The reason I say this is quite shocking because I can tell you that almost all artists I know work very, very hard at their craft - some of us all the time. Sometimes no days off, nights, weekends, the entire bit. And when you do your taxes and look over your accounts at the end of the year, there is often a feeling like a protracted punch in the gut - and that feeling means that you could only be doing this if you love it. In art, you don't know when you are going to sell work, so you spend as little as you can get by with most of the time. When you do sell work, you have to immediately look at your obligations, how much for supplies to keep things going, how much for advertising and countless other required things - put tires on the car and buy yourself a couple of pairs of jeans, and then buckle down again. It is difficult, and it is uncertain, but it seems to me that if a person chooses to do this, as I have, and many others have - we make a sincere choice because we feel we almost have to. It's by no means a choice based on laziness or avoidance of work - on the contrary, it's a lot of work, with uncertain rewards and uncertain recognition. You have to love something if you are going to carry that much uncertainty and, oh yes - don't forget! Make beautiful and lasting works. And I think these things are mostly true for the other mid-career level artists, like myself. The others I know don't live in any fancy manner. Beautiful works, you may be suprised to know - come out of very modest, badly lit apartments. Paintings are carried around in old cars, and most of us don't wear gucci :) (Ok, now let's be fair, I probably wouldn't be caught dead in Gucci even if I could afford it.) Or the other thing is that artists have to have some other mode of income or stability alongside of their artwork. In my own case, my lovely wife has a normal job that keeps our family balanced - and I return the favor of her hard work by taking care of our son Liam during the week. A lot of artists I know have side jobs or trades to help them get thru - or the love of a partner who will feed them when things are slow. I worked part time at Barnes and Noble for quite awhile after moving to Arizona. But don't take any of this as a complaint - by no means. This is just the reality of a life that I and some of my friends live. I've been very fortunate to have been published in magazines, have my work collected by serious art collectors from all over, and to have been supported by wonderful galleries and sales people who really believed in the work. I do quite well, overall. However the uncertainty is always with you. So for anyone who might be tempted to stereotype artists as some kind of lazy bums, I'd suggest they ask themselves if they would deal with such a life and still be able to make beautiful works? Because there is no way to understand the life of the artist without understanding that you accept the difficulties that come with it - and the only people with the willpower to see it thru are the ones who can pull that plow and make something beautiful grow around them, despite everything else beating down on them. It is not a business for the lighthearted. But when it works, when things click - there is NOTHING like it in the world!

Always a Good Time to Say Thanks

2011-04-03T15:24:00.000-07:00

This week I am working on a slew of projects, mostly doing touch up work on paintings that were completed over the past month. Seven paintings are finished for my upcoming group of works themed on France and Provence in particular. Those paintings are getting their final touches as we speak, and as soon as I have some of them ready to be viewed, I will post them. What is most important to me is to take the chance to say thank you to the wonderful collectors and art lovers who have made March 2011 one of the most amazing months in my art career. At last count 15 paintings have sold, due in large part of the exposure my work received in the March 2011 issue of Phoenix Home and Garden Magazine . I've had the great good fortune to gain an entirely new group of collectors as a result of my inclusion in this beautiful magazine - and I once again send my thanks to the editors and staff of Phoenix Home and Garden. Some new things that I am working on; when the touch ups on the France paintings are finished, hopefully in the next few days, I will plunge ahead into new Spring and Summer themed Arizona works. This season I am hitting the trails, and walking in those wild, hot, snake infested thorny areas where the greatest paintings come from. I had realized recently that my a combination of my health troubles, which were acute from 2008-early 2010 had actually meant that I was not hiking as much, and therefore not taking photos and getting those original images for new works. Now, thankfully I am in better health, and I have already been out into new areas of Catalina State Park - and I'm planning a couple of new works based on scenes from a very cool part of Arizona that not so many people know - Texas Canyon. Texas canyon is an amazing canyon full of giant, round, tumbledown boulders. A rough and beautiful place. I'm all too excited to get the images onto canvas. Here in Southern Arizona spring is most certainly upon us - the birds are singing and the flowers that have the guts to bloom, despite our lack of rain, are popping out all over the place and coloring our landscape of ochres and sienna and greens. The first Paloverdes are blooming as well, and it will not be long before the land around us will be bathed in that lovely blazing yellow. Any of you folks who are able, be sure to get to Cobalt Fine Arts to see the 3 person show that I am in down there. And be sure to visit the old Tumacacori mission while you are there... ...now back to the studio!

Moving into 2011, New Horizons on the Canvas

2011-01-19T11:41:00.000-08:00

This week I am working on the 2nd painting is a series of paintings themed on Provence and the South of France. This one is my first rendition of Olive Trees, a subject so beautiful, and so dear to the two painters I admire the most, Jean-Claude Quilici and Vincent Van Gogh. Along with the director of the Marshall-LeKAE Gallery, I've hit upon doing a small display - a small late summer show of 8 to 10 paintings, all themed along the lines of the places in Provence that were painted by Van Gogh and Cezanne. Some of you may know that I spent a six months in Aix-en Provence as a student in 1996, and have seen many of these places with my own eyes. I am excited to do some paintings inspired by this beautiful and historic region. I too have walked this hills and the alleyways frequented by Cezanne, Van Gogh, and many others - and their charm was not lost on me, and still affects me to this day. A lot of what I have done in my paintings of the American West was to take an inspirational spark from the Provencal colorists, and plant it here in the American soil.

We are also in the process of organizing a three artist show at Cobalt Fine Arts in Tubac, featuring myself, Paul Sheldon and Fred Collins. The opening reception is planned for March 26th, and one of my featured paintings, "The Flowers of Fall" is already sold, but will be on display for the opening.

Also, I'd like to remind everyone that I will be featured in the March issue of Phoenix Home and Garden Magazine, and I encourage you all to, pick up a copy. The staff and editors of Phoenix Home and Garden have been a delight to work with, and I am very happy to be featured in this sharp, beautiful publication.

As a last note, I wanted to take a moment to ask all of you to remember the recent victims of the terrible shooting here in Tucson. On that day, my wife and son were shopping at another store only 500 yards away and they saw emergency vehicles rushing past them as they were driving home. Typically, I'm not one given to big pronouncements on this blog - and it is pretty clear that there have been deep political underpinnings to both this act of murder as well as the consequent debate over what it has meant. But I am among the camp who believes, without a doubt, that we have calm down and learn to be civil to one another again. I always loved what Edward Murrow said, "we must not confuse dissent with disloyalty". I do believe that voilent speech does affect people who are already angry and disaffected - for whatever reason. We therefore owe it to our children and our neighbors to stop letting anger dominate our discourse. This great land of ours will survive the discussion. And let's do all we can to also assure that a duly elected official can fulfill the roles that they have been elected to do - without the threat of violence against them. Gabrielle Giffords and the other victims, both living and dead, did not deserve to have their lives shattered by bullets.

Our hearts and are with Mrs Giffords and the other victims, as they recover, and as the families of the lost mourn and make the effort to go on with thier lives.

Let's remember our neighbors in Tucson.

http://www.neilmyersart.com/

Fiji, From the Eyes of an Artist

2010-10-27T13:42:00.000-07:00

I have heard it said that travel is lethal to every form of ignorance known to humankind. True enough. When I was a small boy I was fascinated by the globe at my great-grandmother's house, so much so that she wrote my name on the bottom of it and promised it to me when she passed on. Today that same old brown globe sits on a shelf just to right of my desk, where I am writing this, and it is currently turned in such as way as to show the vast South Pacific, with New Zealand, Fiji, New Caledonia, Vanuatu, the Solomons, and countless other islands featured. As some of you may know, my wife and I lived in New Zealand for four years, and we both share a love and fascination with the locales of the South Pacific. Such a love of the region took us to Fiji just a week and a half ago - and I though it might be nice to recap some of the sights and sounds of Fiji for the readers of this column.

Let me first say that as it happens that you have to sometimes get thru the nightmare to arrive at the dream - this was the case in our trip down to Fiji. A short time after takeoff from Los Angeles, a man on the airplane had a violent seizure. Doctors were called for (luckily 4 of them were on the plane), they consulted and advised the captain to turn the plane around back towards LA, where the nearest hospital could be found. So what was supposed to be a 10 hour ride to Fiji turned into a 15 hour ordeal with a cranky toddler. For all those parents out there, you can well imagine what that was like with an 18 month old boy! However there was one shining spot on the trip itself - my wife and I thought we recognized a lady who was on our flight from Tucson to LA. Both of us tossed it around in our minds, and then as we were about to get off the aircraft it hit us...she was one of the actresses on the show "Private Practice". It was Amy Brenneman. At some point when we were at baggage claim at LAX we ended up again beside her and her family; both she and her daughter were watching our son Liam take his chance to run around and play with the luggage and she said "He's so cute!" At that point I said "Pardon me Ma'am, but are my wife and I imagining things or are you one of the ladies from 'Private Practice?' She nodded yes with a smile. I shook her hand and said "Nice to meet you", and told her how much we enjoyed the show. I've never been one to gush over celebs or actors, but running into someone like Amy Brenneman makes life interesting from time to time. I worked in hotels for many years, and enjoyed meeting some pretty interesting people in entertainment and politics.

In any event, after the 15 hour ordeal from LAX to Nadi, Fiji, we finally arrived. Wiped out but wide eyed, as you can imagine. The taxi ride in from the airport to the resort was one of the most eye opening things - and it reminded me a lot of Vanuatu. Though Fiji clearly had better infrastructure that Vanuatu, many part of it were still quite poor and many Fijians life without comforts that we all take for granted. Even as simple as running water. It's also eye opening to see how dirty and unkept poor towns can be. With little money to keep things clean or pave sidewalks and do necessary repairs, again these are all things we don't even think about in America and many western style countries. But if the towns may have been a little rough and life rudimentary - Fijian's more than made up for it by their warm welcome and beautifully friendly attitude.

Of course we stayed on a resort at Denarau Island, so yes we enjoyed Fiji on the high end. But there were many acts big and small that even resort employees didn't need to do. For example, the Fijian greeting "Bula" was common among everyone you'd meet on the resorts and other places. It was such a warm greeting that after awhile, you'd hear the guests children saying "Bula!" to staff and to others. Another amazing thing about Fijians is their love of family. Our son got kissed by more strangers during his week in Fiji than in his entire life before! Passing security on the way OUT of the country, he got kissed on the cheeks twice by ladies working there. At the resort, one of the doormen actually learned the baby sign for "more" so that he could ask Liam if he wanted to ride on the golf cart with him! One of my best memories of Fiji will always be standing with Liam in front of the Sheraton at Denarau Island and seeing this big, dark Fijian man pull up on a golf cart, look at Liam right in the face and put his hands together making the baby sign for "more"! What was clear was how much the people of the island love children, even those who are not their own. Quite a contrast to how kids are sometimes treated as nothing more than a nuisance to some in our culture.

Of course, being a landscape artist, it was the landscape that filled my eyes everywhere we visited. Fiji was green in many places, but still parched brown and dry in others. The islands were in desperate need of rain by the time we arrived, and the rains that plagued us for the first 3 days of the trip were quite welcome to the locals. In the countryside stretched near endless fields of sugarcane, a huge part of the Fijian economy. Cassava and others things were grown as well. But sugarcane, by it's very presence, appeared to be king. During the days when it rained the entire landscape took on a bit of a foreboding aspect - and when you looked on the fields and mountains in the dark, ominous clouds, it looked almost scary. But the break of the rains after the 3rd day opened up the Fiji that all the tourists know - gleaming and beautiful. Tropical, green, and alive.

We took 2 day trips that got us off the resort and out into the Fijian countryside. One was a trip to the Garden of the Sleeping Giant, a lovely botanical garden nestled in next to dark, volcanic mountains. There we browsed some of the most lovely orchids you've ever seen, as well as a lily pond in the middle of the jungle - something that seemed more a product of a fairy tale that realty. Even in the rain, the scene was beautiful. With dark, volcanic hills towering above the dripping wet jungle below.

Our 2nd day trip was out to a resort island called Robinson Crusoe Island. Here was a long, lovely island that was still quite small and quaint. The boat ride out there, winding its was through mangroves and other lovely scenes was equally memorable. The island itself is a small tourist island, and when we arrived we were treated to traditional greetings as well as a Kava ceremony. Kava, as some of you may know, is a drink that is enjoyed my many different island cultures in the South Pacific, but it has the most ritualistic significance for Fijians. Kava is offered as a gift of respect between tribes, and also when one wants to visit a Fijian village it is considered proper to offer a gift of Kava to the chief. In the old days, if the chief accepted you were safe - if he did not, then you better run like hell because you might be dinner for the tribe later that evening!

While on the island I went out for a snorkel while my wife and son enjoyed the beach. Snorkling was difficult on the reef which was probably a mile or so offshore, however it was still a great experience even when fighting the currents. All the colors of the fish and corals below were wilder and more intense than any artist's palette.

While I was there, I found myself thinking of something that I had told art lovers before - that I love lots of different scenes that I find around the world. I love the jungles equally as I do the deserts. Mountains as much as the seashores. I have been called a Southwestern painter because of where I live, and I don't altogether reject that notion - because my work has blossomed best in Arizona, New Mexico, and the American West in general. Just the same, though - a jungle in Fiji or a seashore in New Zealand are equally beautiful and interesting to me. Many people aren't aware that I've done 2 paintings of the giant Moai of Easter Island - and they were some of my favorites - both sold. I once told my wife when we were discussing unusual or exotic landscapes how much I enjoyed strange places, or visually challenging places, but I also said "of course the most radical landsapes aren't here, they are on other planets." Which might well explain my own fasciantions with the pictures taken by space probes of Venus's surface, and those on Mars, the moon, and Saturn's moon Titan.

Overall, I would rate Fiji an incredible experience. Travel is something that is good for the soul, and I'm sure that it's absolutely necessary for an artist. The challenge to the eye that travel brings for an artist is crucial to helping them understand their own work, and rise to the challenges of tackling new scenes that they have the good fortune to experience. Stagnation is an enemy for an artist, and the thrill of new places is often the perfect antidote. Fiji did that for me, and I hope to go back again.

www.neilmyersart.com

Keeping it New

2010-10-08T12:21:00.000-07:00

This week I am working on a large 30 x 40 in landscape from one of my favorite places in Arizona - Catalina State Park. As luck would have it, it seems that something is blooming there almost all the time, and some of the most extraordinary yellows can be found among the flowers lining trails like the Sutherland Trail.

Recently I finished reading the book "The Genius in all of us" by David Shenk, and in that book the author makes the very compelling argument that talent - or what some may call 'genius', is something that is much more the product of work, conditioning, and overall concerted effort - and that the old adages about a person being born with a certain ability are over exaggerated and often just plain wrong. He details sports figures, and countless others that had surprisingly humble beginnings, and who honed their crafts to such an extent that they become the best in their respective abilities.

With the information in this book, it seems to me that one could say that ability is something that is developed and made. Art is no different. I might concede that as a young man, I was moved by art on a level of instinct, before I had any other conceptions or ideas about it. But my own experience in becoming an artist, and becoming an exhibiting artist with some good credits to his name - that has been a product of nothing but work, work, work. I think sometimes people get the idea that the artist is a listless person who just daubs a few things on canvas and tries to swindle the world into thinking it's the work of genius. Nothing could be further from the truth. My mentor, the artist Jean-Claude Quilici, said in an interview that "painting is a manual craft, and you learn it by doing it." Well said. Sure there are prodigies in art, like anything else (I was not one of them :) however the book also details how prodigies are the result of people being in certain situations that allowed them to be taught well, and for their skills to grow at a very early age. Mozart's father was a music teacher...surprise surprise. Picasso's father exposed him to thorough lessons in art and draftsmanship. Even my mom taught me about drawing and shading and such - and I was not without some roots. Growing up as I did, looking at her drawings and paintings from the 1970s.

As I was thinking about this book, my conception of my own painting style lead me to conclude that it was horribly rigid. That is, what I do, I do the same way almost every single time. By no means is the image the same - but the execution, and my own learning about my craft had solidified into something like iron - inflexible. Always there but without the air of experimentation. So when I read in this book about how one of the characteristics of successful people is that they are never satisfied with their current skill level - I decided to devote at least a portion of my time to artistic experimentation. I bought pastels and have begun experimenting with them, and am looking to do both watercolors and a few figure paintings - mostly portraits. I've completed 3 portraits and 4 pastel paintings, and subsequently found myself enjoying what I was doing - because it was new and fresh, and for the fact that I was having to challenge myself to learn how to get adequate effects from the new mediums.

The other day as I was in the studio staring at the three portraits I had completed, our 18 month old son walked in and pointed straight at my self-portrait and said "Da da!" with a big smile on his face. And even though a tough assessment has led me to conclude that my portraits are a bit amateurish and need work - I find myself thinking that if my self portrait was immediately recognizable to an 18 month old boy, then there must be at least enough content there to keep working on it and refine it. Few people know that one of my first art sales ever was a portrait of the painter Renoir. Funny how we circle back to our roots, isn't it?

To me, the best artists adapt themselves to multiple mediums, and that is something that I want to continue to work on and explore. It goes without saying that my oil on canvas landscapes have built my art career - and I would not presume to know if galleries I show with would have the desire to show watercolors and pastels by me. But all I can know for now is that the experimental urge is good to for me, good for my sanity - and I believe that it will ultimately be good for my art.

www.neilmyersart.com

The Music of the Doors, A Statement of Art

2010-07-23T13:02:00.001-07:00

This week I have just finished a new painting of an orange tree dangling over Oak Creek in Sedona. A heavy, colorful piece that has all the peculiarity of one of my works - where even the water or the leaves give off the feeling of weighing a hundred tons.

Those who have read my blogs will know that I am a great appreciator of what seem to me to be true and powerful artistic statements, even if the aritsts in question are not oil painters or visual artists. I've long admired the Candyland-like fantasies of the architect Gaudi. And among a legion of amazing artists that I admire and respect are found countless musicians. One of which stands alone, The Doors.

The first and most obvious thing about The Doors is the persistence and the longevity of the music that they created. "Unknown Soldier" could tell the story of an American soldier in Afghanistan just as well as its implied references to soldiers and the militarism and violence of the Vietnam era. The cry "What have they done to the earth? What have they done to our fair sister?" that rings out in "When the Music's Over" could well tell the story of an oil-stained gulf coast beach today. It could well be a statement in agony over the destruction of so many irreplacable natural habitats on our planet.

Timelessness demonstrates the power of an artistic statement. Those statements that are too much a product of the time that they were expressed in tend to dissipate with the passing of that particular time. The music of the Doors is powerful because it is an inter-generational commentary by sensitive individuals, who were deeply concerned with the art of what they were saying. Some regard Jim Morrison as an American poet - and I share this feeling. Though it should not be overlooked that Robbie Krieger wrote some of the Doors' best known songs, most notably the immortal "Light my Fire." If you read Morrison's published notebooks and poems, such as "Wilderness" and "The American Night", then you realize that his sensations and words were not always a product of the rational, but in the images that they created, powerful visions were let loose on the consciousness of those who read them in print - and those who heard them in Doors concerts. Morrison was reported to have said that "real poetry doesn't say anything, it just ticks off the possibilities."

Frequently, when I allowed myself to think about my own paintings in a deeper way - I articulated in my mind a dual standard that I always wanted to strive for. That standard was beauty and originality. I think the Doors and their music also lines up nicely with this idea of a creative aspiration. Of course many of the lyrics and sentiments in the music of the Doors were dark, even darkened Dionysian visions of America and our reality. But I don't count that as ugly - I think that's beautiful. Disturbing images, or even disturbing songs can stir the mind to beauty just as much as an any other cliche of beauty can. And songs like "Summer's Almost Gone" as well as "Crystal Ship" are indeed quite beautiful on the surface. It has seemed to me that the poignant words of Morrison, and the carnavalesque feeling of Ray Manzarek's organ went hand in hand in making songs that could range you for the depths of joy, sadness, confusion, even apocalyptic sensations.

What does the music of the Doors say to artists of all varieties? Primarily, I think it drives home, with punishing insistence, the reality that there really is NO substitute for originality in the creative arts. When you realize how much timeless substance exists in the songs of the Doors, you realize that a true statement of creation - as I've mentioned above, is timeless and inter-generational. So if you wish to hang your hat with the gods of the creative arts - it should be obvious that you ought to aim for the timeless and the original. Take a lesson from the Doors, and the fact that we are still talking about them today.

www.neilmyersart.com

Expressionism vs. Realism

2010-06-30T12:10:00.000-07:00

"The man who deals with originality is desperately needed, but seldom wanted. For along with his promise of victory he lets loose the shadows of chaos."

David Hare writing about Jackson Pollock

This week I have just returned from beautiful Bryce Canyon, Utah - and I am working on several new paintings including a new Pueblo and a New Mexico landscape derived from a photo taken near the Guadeloupe Mountains.

I have recently heard an open discussion, sometimes friendly and sometimes not - coming from artists who are vociferous in their defense of realism. Some are saying that what is needed is a new movement that has been tagged as "Novo Realism". Several things, I think, are going on here and are worthy of talking about further.

I think that what bugs many realists is the possibility that artists who work in either expressionistic or abstract styles are not well trained. Realists are mostly classically trained, they paint from life, they go out into the field and do plein air studies, etc. They are the ones that are toiling away on reproductions of plaster casts, and going to great trouble to hone their skills so that what emerges on canvas is a fair representation of the real world. Realists know what they have done to train themselves, and they feel that art is being sold short when somebody either abides too loosely to reality, or when they don't abide by it at all. There is a reason why Jackson Pollock, as an abstract expressionist, was on the receiving end of a ton of scorn when he pioneered his "all over" poured paintings. The same process goes on today when realists look at the world of art. You could think of this situation metaphorically by saying that realists are like classical musicians, trained in violin, piano etc. Such musicians may look at a Rock and Roll guitarist and think "How can he fill an arena with screaming fans with just a few barre chords?" Mr Rock and Roll taught himself, and people are going nuts over him. As a guitar player, I sympathize with this thought, when I think about guitarists like Toni Iommi of Black Sabbath, who wrote some of the greatest rock / metal songs with very simple progressions. Complexity does sometimes represent talent, but not always. Sometimes the forms in which one operates are so laden with previously held assumptions that there is little room for the artist themselves to get out. That is why I am an expressionist, and why it suits my temperament much more than realism.

Also, we should be a bit more honest about realism. What do people mean when they are painting realistically? In the most basic sense, they mean to say that they are painting something that is a fair representation of the way the thing they are depicting really looks. But when we see a beautiful woman stretched onto a sofa, with soft light coming thru the window and forms rendered like Sargent or Whistler may have done - I don't exactly subscribe to that being real in the purest sense. We look at the woman on the sofa, we know it's a woman on the sofa - fine. But while one might want to paint those wistful and comforting realism scenes, nobody is making much of an effort to paint an unemployment line. Nobody decides to do a portrait of a devastated family who has just lost their health insurance. Few people, some have done so - but few people have the courage to paint subjects from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. I don't see plein air artists lining up to paint large gobs of oil washing up on the shores of Florida, Alabama, and Louisiana. And I sure don't see galleries or collectors wanting to show and buy these things. So what is depicted, and what is most approved of for the viewer, is a style of work that is real in look, but rarely ever real in any situational sense. This is no crime, by the way. But I interpret realism in a pretty unrelenting sense. However, I assert that art is a free engagement process. If a collector wants to buy realistic works, and the artist wants to produce them - I hope all involved go away happy. But realism is only one kind of tree in the forest. There are others, and all make the colors and shades we adore.

Another way to think of a discussion of Expressionism and Realism is something like a filter. A realist uses a dense, heavy filter - for the look of the subject anyway - and the individual touch of the artist is usually minimized in realism. An Expressionist, like myself, prefers a filter that lets only some of the subject through, and the rest is a product of gesture, light, color, and the temperament of the artist. A Realist would say that much of that applies to them as well - but an Expressionist departs sharply from this mold by not worrying too much if the rock in the landscape doesn't look like any rock that one has seen before. The rock, for an Expressionist, is a product of gesture and feeling.

I would share with realists the fact that I too respect training in art - whether that be self training or proper studio or school training. However I don't insist on this as an absolute necessity. The ancient cave paintings as Lascaux, which I adore very much, were painted by people who carried with them nothing more than the wish to express something meaningful about the world around them. And of course there is a long line from those primitive people to the Michelangelos and Raphaels of the world. But all were operating on the same instinct to make art meaningful. I find no battle between them. Neither should there be any battles between realists and expressionists. Like the trees of the forests I had mentioned - you don't hear the Oaks telling the Bristlecones to go straighten their branches if they really want to be a tree. You don't hear the Cedars ask the Paloverdes why on earth their bark is green...all forms independent and meaningful are appreciated. All are trees, no matter what the difference of forms. And bear in mind I do not argue for artistic relativism. The ability to say "that's a bad painting" is crucial if we are ever going to know what a good one is. That why I draw the line at "meaningful" forms, and expressions of art that have communicative ability. That's also why I have struggled endlessly with artists such as Barnett Newman - because despite my clear expressionist sympathies, I smell a cop-out when I see a single stripe down a huge canvas - and I resent the implication that I'm not cultivated enough to get the meaning. I'm not even sure Newman knew what he meant, or even meant to express.

So, as mentioned, I see no conflict here - other than the one we stir up unnecessarily. But if I were to offer one thought, one little tinge of competitive spirit between Expressionists and Realists, this is what I would say; if one were to hold a major exhibit of Vincent Van Gogh, arguably the greatest expressionist and pioneer of the style - if one held a retrospective of Van Gogh's greatest works, I would suggest that it is very likely that Van Gogh would bring in more interest, more media coverage, and more attendance than any realist painter, living or dead. He at least proved the value of deeply held emotion, expression and love of color on canvas. And the crowds that follow his works prove his impact.

As an Expressionist, Van Gogh stands tall - with contemporary artists like Jean-Claude Quilici, to show the power, popularity, and creative energy of art when the painter departs from the path of realism, and plows into the wild forest beyond.

www.neilmyersart.com

Home Fires & My First Book

2010-06-01T12:41:00.000-07:00

This week I am working on a seascape of Big Sur, in California. My wife has been telling me for years "Do more seascapes!" So I painted a small painting of Lanikai Beach in Hawaii for her, and I started the larger Big Sur painting for me. With the heavy impasto of my style, it is a challenge to create all the visual effects that one is liable to see on a turbulent coastline - but it is doable and if well worked over it can make a great painting.

A month ago I had the pleasure of visiting my home state of North Carolina, and getting to introduce our 1 year old son to the larger part of my family that he had not yet met. We had a wonderful time seeing everyone again, especially because it had been almost four years since we'd previously visited. There were lots of great meals, lots of sitting around and talking and catching up. I got to spend a little time in my dad's house, the house where I grew up - and during one visit I went out back to our old workshop, where my brother had a lot of his woodworking tools and where we used to play as kids. I don't know if I remember correctly, but I believe the old building used to be some kind of outbuilding or tobacco barn - used when my dad's house was a farmhouse and the surrounding area were just fields. Anyway, I dug around through the old building, and looked behind a shelf to see a faded piece of paper. I looked closer and saw that it was an old drawing that I had done of a WWII fighter plane. It was so faded the lines were almost indistinct and the paper was brown and crumbly. But I saw the lines that I had made in this drawing that had been hanging there in that place for over 20 years, exposed to the cold and the heat, but still there, faintly. And when I looked to the right of where the drawing was, there was a calendar on the wall that said 1988. Sure it's a cliche, time goes fast - but 1988, yes indeed, like it was five minutes ago.

Of course, on May 1st I was at Lenoir-Rhyne University to receive their young alumni "Rising Star" award, for my contribution to the arts. And lucky for me I had a chance to reconnect with a couple of my old professors, one of whom was my dear friend Dr. Augustin Quilici. It was really great because we walked right up to one another and fell into conversation just as we always did, and I was pleasantly relieved that my French wasn't as bad as I feared it may have been - after many years of not speaking it regularly. I was very pleased to learn that Augustin Quilici is, in his retirement, following a bit of an old dream of his own - to paint pictures! When I was a student in college he had several paintings around that he had done - and they were quite good. But a concerted effort was always difficult for him to make because he was a full time professor, and he understood as well as anyone the time and patience that it took to make a style and create great art. But he had set himself a studio in his home, and he is back to work. I always joked with him that there were "two Quilici painters" i.e., Jean-Claude Quilici, his well known cousin, and Augustin Quilici.

We also had the pleasure of spending some time at the beautiful Raffaldini's Vineyard, near Swan Creek, NC. Since our previous visit Raffaldini's had opened their new villa, which is unparalleled in it's beauty and location. Sitting on top of a gently sloping hill, with views of the mountains all around - I gladly declared that Raffaldini's is one of the most beautiful spots in Western North Carolina. Beautiful enough to rival other lovely places like Biltmore Estate and Stone Mountain. And it is no afterthought that the wine is of superb quality. I wonder how those purveyors of wine in California and other such places are taking the fact that a North Carolina vineyard is winning awards alongside the wines of Napa Valley? It's wonderful to contemplate. My sincere congratulations to Jay and Maureen Raffaldini for making such a wonderful place, and if you happen to visit the vineyard, ask to do a tasting with Paula Shores. She's my mom, and she'll have you laughing and enjoying good wine before you've even had a chance to think about it.

Back here in Arizona, we're getting our courage together to survive another long, hot summer. Days are crawling up into the high 90s F, and pushing 100 now. Time to retreat into the studio and work hard by a beautiful, well lit window.

Lastly, some of you may know by now, but I'd like to let the readers of the blog know that my book "Neil Myers Paintings, 2002- 2010" is now available directly from the printer at Blurb.com. You can click on the link:

http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/1336674

There you'll find an online preview of the book and order your copy. The initial reviews from those who've gotten their copies are all really good - and I'm extremely pleased with the result of the book. Blurb.com is a great source for artists and photographers who would like to publish their work.

Going Home

2010-04-25T12:52:00.000-07:00

This week I have just finished up a lovely new painting called "Yellow Fields, Catalina Spring." After taking a hike with an old friend from college, and enjoying the particularly beautiful spring we've had here in Southern Arizona - I remembered standing by a trail and seeing what looked like a sea of yellow and gold poppies glittering in the sun. And I had the impression in my mind of just solid blocks of yellow - without reference to the thousands of individual poppies that made up the view. An overall effect of yellow settled on my vision and I thought it could be painted that way. I'm quite pleased with the result, though it is perhaps a bit more abstract than some of my other paintings of the same areas.

The other big news is that my wife and son and I are all getting ready to go back to North Carolina this Thursday. It has been around three and a half years since we have visited, and in that time I have not seen anyone from the North Carolina side of my family, except my mom and grandmother. It's going to be a lot of fun to introduce them to our son, who most of them have not met, and show him around the places where I grew up. I was explaining to him what green grass was the other day - telling him that it only grows in Arizona in places were there is sufficient water, usually irrigation. "Where daddy grew up, it grows everywhere!" I told him...a point largely lost on my busybody 1 year old.

One of the reasons for our visit is that I will be recieving the "Rising Star Award" from the alumni association of Lenoir-Rhyne University in Hickory, NC. I was a student at Lenoir-Rhyne and have my degree from there - and I had a wonderful four years of experiences that have always left me holding Lenoir-Rhyne in great esteem. So it is a fine compliment to receive an award from the University, and I am looking forward to visiting there again. I will also be donating a painting called "Rhyne Building, through the Trees" that will ship to Lenoir-Rhyne a little later in the summer to be featured at a spot on campus that is yet to be determined.

It is a funny feeling getting back to visit one's roots. For 11 years I have lived outside of my home state of North Carolina, and to be honest - life being what it is, there has been very little in me that looks back. Life, to me, always seemed to be primarily focused on where you are at the time - and for the years that we've been in Arizona this has been our reality. But still there is something you understand instinctively when you go back to the places where you once were; when you see the old high school football field where you watched Friday nite games. When you see the parks and places YOU played when you were a kid. When you see pink dogwoods blooming and remember climbing the trees. When you hear the soft southern drawl of the people from North Carolina and realize that you are back among your own. It can't help but be something understood, because I guess even the trees understand the roots and the ground that they came from.

Sometimes it's not lost on me that I have been the oddball son who disappeared into the American West! I think of the untold thousands who saw their family members get in wagons or on horses and make their way out to gold fields, ranches, and all manner of wild and open ranges. I have seen so many amazing things in my life and I wouldn't change any of it. Being from small town North Carolina was crucial in one particular way; that is, it made me intensely curious about the outside world. To other people, the small town life is more about comfort and familiarity and that's all they really need and that makes them happy. To me, on the other hand, it only made me want to know about the wider world.

So here is a toast to the Tarheel state and all the family and friends we are looking forward to seeing again. And OF COURSE I will have my camera ready, always on the lookout for a new landscape that I can paint.

As I sign off I do want to send condolences to my own extended family - we lost our uncle Brian Walters on the 22nd of April. Brian was a good man and he will be greatly missed.

And as that Bon Jovi song went - "Who says you can't go home?"

www.neilmyersart.com

My Favorite Artists Who are Not Oil Painters

2010-02-25T04:52:00.000-08:00

This week I am working on a painting of the Rhyne building at Lenoir-Rhyne University in Hickory, North Carolina. I learned just recently that Lenoir-Rhyne, which is the university both I and my wife graduated from - that they are going to be awarding me their "Rising Star Award" for young alumni. After having such wonderful memories of my 4 years at Lenoir-Rhyne, from 1993 - 1997, I told them I would like to give them a painting provided that it would be well displayed. It is not certain as of yet, but it may end up in their library or alumni house.

Just the other day I was talking to the artist Paul Sheldon, and concluded that it was not really an accident that so many artists play music. For many of us it's a way to blow off steam. However it can also feel like what comes out thru music is the same kind of feeling that comes out through the paintings - only the means of expression are different. I've played guitar since I was about 13 years old. When my grandpa David Walters died in 1987, I was given his guitar - which I still have today, and I learned to play on it. He was quite a player and I heard that he used to play on radio shows with his friends.

So thinking about other artists who are NOT oil painters, here are some of my favorites...

1) Justin Rutledge. This guy is a poet with a guitar. I don't know anyone who would dispute this. A number of years ago I heard him on NPR, looked him up, and have been an admirer of his music ever since. Turns out, he enjoys art - and he and I are now friends by correspondence. If you were to describe Justin's music to anyone it would be difficult, because I've never heard anyone like him - but when you hear songs like "This Too Shall Pass", "Penny for the Band" and "Everyone's in Love" etc, it's easy to get hooked. He has a masterful sense of music and melody, with hands down the best lyrics that I've heard in music today. He has a new CD that will be released on May 4th called "The Early Windows", and I urge everyone to check it out. www.justinrutledge.com . You can find him on Myspace and Facebook as well.

2) Ansel Adams. I suspect that there are some people who have a kind of nostalgic view of Ansel Adams, as his images have become so much a part of Americana. But behind those stunning black and white photographs was a deeply complicated, sensitive, and extremely artistic person. I feel that all landscape painters, like myself, should do a study of Ansel and his way of working - his way of framing an image in the picture and his keen eye for granduer both big and small. Some of his images are so clear, so sharp and lucid - and then you can look at the date and see something like "1939" or "1941". It's astounding he got such images from old photographic technology. And his legacy of activism and environmentalism is truly inspirational, as he was one of those people who took it as a personal thing to fight hard for the preservation of our pristine wild places in America. Here is one of America's finest artists period, and I suggest all landscape artists make a good study of Ansel and it will make them better painters. www.anseladams.com .

3) Antoni Gaudi. My main feeling with regards to Gaudi is a true reverence for someone who bucked the conventional in the most extreme of ways - often in one of the most conservative art forms, that of architecture. Gaudi's structures seem to go from candy land childlike visions to the towering and awe inspiring "Sagrada Familia" in Barcelona. The fact that one could make buildings that seemed to undulate and flow like liquid - and that these were viable buildings that could stand the test of time - that is extraordinary. He is a true original.

4) Frank Lloyd Wright. Another true original in the field of archetecture. His homes and structures have frequently given me the feeling that I was looking at buildings that were easily 50, 75, or even a 100 years ahead of their times. Like Gaudi, Wright allowed himself the full reign of his imagination, and even though I hear that some of his buildings are not structurally stable, they leak, and have other problems - as an artist and an individual he was incredibly significant. It also emerges, once you learn a bit about him, that he was not always a nice guy - especially with regards to his family life. But the artist is there, and though I wouldn't want him for a dad and probably not even for a friend, he was unique and therefore notable.

5) KISS. The rock band Kiss has been a cultural phenomenon in America since the early 1970's. The reason I mention them as an artistic inspiration, is that they were the biggest and most flamboyant proponents of a kind of rock-theatre, the idea in general being to heighten the experience of a rock and roll concert by making the performance theatrical. Face makeup, explosions, dripping blood, flaming and smoking guitars, drum risers, etc - Kiss took some of the things they loved best about the act of performance and did it to the n'th degree. And to their credit they have countless fantastic songs that have stood the test of time even without regard to their performance style. I must admit, I've always preferred the original Kiss with members Paul Stanley, Gene Simmons, Ace Frehley, and Peter Criss. And I've recently soured a bit on Kiss recently because it has become abundantly clear that Gene Simmons is a massive egoist, who seems much more interested in stuffing dollars into his pockets than being a musical artist. This is not an issue of confidence, mind you. Most of us creative artists have to be stubbornly confident in order to create things. Arrogance, or, one could say, the belief that gravity doesn't affect you anymore - that does not make you a good artist. That makes you a bullheaded primadonna. But despite all this, I rank KISS very high on that list of original creative artists.

6) Carl Sandburg. The poetry of Carl Sandburg took a grip on me when I was in college, and that grip has never let go. His beautiful free verse style seemed to me to be an improvement on the groundbreaking work of Walt Whitman. Sandburg's work is something rooted very firmly in the soil of America, in the city streets of our towns and deeply connected to us generally. His work comes across, to me anyway, as a hybrid of prose and poetry. Sandburg once offered a definition of love as "The touch of two hands that foils all dictionaries." He was a true creative person, and someone who was dedicated to their own vision of poetry.

7) Jack Kerouac. I must admit that I go back and forth on Kerouac's work. And by that I mean that his form of spontaneous prose seemed at times to be rambling and rolling along with so little object as to just be words - and at other times it seemed to be some of the most sensitive and descriptive work since Proust. (Truman Capote once said of Keroauc's work "That's not writing! That's typing...") However the entire spectre of bop prosody was very original. It was at its best in works like "On the Road", "Big Sur" and "October and the Railroad Earth" and was less effective in other works. But it was original and thus retained an inherent power and freshness which has assured Kerouac legacy. Ginsberg, the poet, does get credit in this same spirit of work - but Kerouac was the most visionary of that group of writers. In 2008, a stroke of luck allowed me to see the original "On the Road" scroll that Kerouac wrote the book on - at the Palace of the Governors in Santa Fe, New Mexico. What a pleasure to see the breathless stream of words that Kerouac produced, that went on to be one of America's legendary books.

8) The Drive by Truckers . Around 2003 a good friend of mine gave me a CD by an Alabama band called the Drive by Truckers. I put it in the player in my car and immediately fell in love. I've since seen DBT twice in concert, met and spoke to Patterson Hood (who has a painting of mine that I sent him awhile back) and have not ceased to be impressed by this roughshod group of Southerners who seem to embody intelligent rock music with biting social commentary. DBT music is often narrative driven and full of stories - quite the antidote to a world full of jingles. Via DBT I also learned of an amazing songwriter who ranks equally good named Jason Isbell. I've spent time with Jason at two of his shows, and he's a great guy and a terrific songwriter. He used to be a member of DBT where he penned such knockouts as "The Day John Henry Died" and "Never Gonna Change," and he now tours and records with his band the 400 Unit.

9) Deanna Johnston. Back in 2005 my wife and I were watching the TV show "Rockstar INXS" and a blond lady stepped up to the mike to do the song "Should I Stay or Should I Go" by the Clash. When I heard this lady sing, I sat up straight. This woman had a power, a force like I'd not seen or felt since listening to Janis Joplin for the first time. Her voice had a punch that hit me immediately, subtle, powerful, and memorable. Her later performance of the song "Long Train Running" on the show literally blew the roof off the place. Sometime later I got in contact with Deanna and we have been friends by correspondence for around 4 years. Deanna continues to make great music and I would especially suggest you check out her EP of original songs "GFN", available at www.deannajohnston.net .

These are just a few musical, literary, and architectural artists that inspire me. All of them have a quality of distinction that is important to appreciate in the creative act. I've long believed that the impulse to create is more or less universal in most of us - however some grab a mike, or a guitar, or a drafting board or a pen to express it. Art is vast, for sure, and that's a fertile and beautiful landscape we can all appreciate.

www.neilmyersart.com

Ten Years After, a Decade Between Canvases

2010-01-07T11:28:00.000-08:00

This week I have finished doing a touch up job on a painting of two bouquets of wildflowers. This 36 x 36 inch painting was actually done in 2008, but I had hung it on my wall, feeling that - even after it was signed and initially considered done, that it needed something else. Trouble was, I didn't know what it was then - so I put it on my living room wall for around a year and now that I've just done the rework, I'm glad I did. A very mediocre work is now a tolerably good work, and so naturally I found myself reassured that it would not have been the right thing to put the work out in a gallery in 2008.

We have just celebrated the holidays, and a hair's breath after came the new year that is also leading us into a new decade. Of course every self-indulgent blogger with a keyboard and an itch in their brains is gonna take a moment and be philosophical about where they've been, and what has happened in the course of the previous ten years. As I explained to my infant son, that a year is actually quite meaningless in the cosmological sense, or in the greater sense of the world. In the span of the universe, a year isn't even one zillionth of a grain of sand on the beach of existence - however it is the human mind that assigns meaning to time as it relates to time on earth. I always liked the line from the Kansas song "Dust in the Wind" where they sing "nothing lasts forever but the earth and sky." And when I think of this I think of the beautiful rock peaks of the Catalina Mountains that gaze down on our home - and I remember that they looked exactly the same, virtually unchanged, as they did in old historical photos taken over a hundred years ago. The mountains care very little for human time.

So when I rewind ten years and remember where I was as we entered the year 2000, I was actually standing in the middle of Quay Street in downtown Auckland, New Zealand, with my wife and two friends, screaming and yelling with the thousands of revelers - and toting around a bottle of 101 Southern Comfort. That night I saw a long parade of craziness - a drunk girl walking on broken glass on Queen street. Another guy hurling a whiskey bottle from to top of the Hobson street bridge - and it actually HIT a guy down below on the shoulder. I got kissed by some random girl yelling "Happy New Year!" (Jelena didn't hold that against me...I didn't have a chance to fight the girl off! ...Or did I even try :) And I remember calling my mom later that night to let her know that the Y2K business didn't mean anything - everything was still functioning, in New Zealand anyway - and so it seemed the world would continue after all.

Around that time I was doing a handful of paintings of the North Shore bays in Auckland, trying to fancy myself a new Monet who was going to capture the various times of day on canvas, as the light glanced off the sea. But I quickly bogged down in not being entirely satisfied with the effects I was getting. I then began to do more writing than painting, and this trend continued, for the most part, until sometime in 2002. Jelena had been giving me subtile hints, like buying me canvases and leaving them on the seat of our car - and I began to rethink painting and have some original ideas. And when I showed some paintings to friends where I worked at the Sebel Suites - they started immediately wanting to buy them. And I sold them for some almost criminal bargains - being only too flattered at the time that people were crazy enough to pay what they did for those works. One painting, a painting of Otago on the South Island of New Zealand - even caused a prolonged argument between Jelena and I because she insisted that we keep it, even after several friends wanted to buy it. And we still have it today; it hangs in our living room.

So I guess we can say the seed had been planted - or more correctly, RE-planted at the end of our stay in New Zealand, in 2002 and early 2003. When I came to New Mexico in 2003, there was something firmer and more determined, and more vibrant in my works. Even I noticed it, and found myself curious to move along with it and see how it went. Now after countless shows and sales and successes, it all seems like a million years ago. And it's only with effort that I realize that it was only 7 or 8 years ago.

I don't really know if I can look over the past decade and say that great leaps have been made in the world at large. In some respects that is always true, as science and technology advance, to whatever extent we secure our own lives, without really contributing to a fullness of life - or giving it deeper meaning. But I, like many Americans who took it personally - was a different person after the 9/11 attacks. After the shock of the experience wore off a bit, what remained was the lesson that human depravity was alive and well. And that for every brave soul who would save a friend, or even risk themselves for a stranger - the black heart of human cruelty abounds to this day. The more I thought about it, it became clear to me that if humanity persists in being unable or unwilling to surmount the differences of nation, tribe, religion, and cultural and lifestyle differences, then there is no reason to believe that the world will change in the slightest. At least not in the ways that really can affect human happiness. So in one sense we have indeed advanced ourselves with lots of groovy gadgetry and apps that turn our phones into portable back-scratchers, etc - but we have not managed to secure peace and understanding for future generations. As my writings and concerns are largely about Art, I think that only when societies stabilize and learn to coexist with some quality of understanding, then art will thrive. I should be pleased entirely if no artist ever had to paint about war again - no more "Third of May"s by Goya, no more glistening bayonets to the horizon. But I know better, and do not expect such a fortune anytime soon.

Art will go on. Jim Morrison said in an interview that the music of The Doors could not help but reflect that chaos surrounding it; a very true and profound statement when one considers he was talking about the late sixties and all the cultural and societal changes, and the Vietnam War. And the Art of 2010 will no doubt do the same. I, on the other hand, actually hope that somewhere in my own work there will be some grasp of the larger span of time, and if one looks at my work and feels the heat of nature and color, then I would be fine if no concept of time was applied to it. A mountain painting in 1910 of 2010 ought to glow in paint, so as to tell us something grander about life in general.

I've always appreciated this quote from John Adams:

"I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. My sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history, naval architecture, navigation, commerce, and agriculture, in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelain."

So let's hope that a world of "painting, poetry, music, etc" can replace the fragmented world we know today. Not for the reiteration of pipe dreams of fantasies, but for a better life for our children, and the countless generations to come. Let us work towards a foundation upon which art can rest firmly, and do its part to contribute to human fulfillment and human happiness.

I wish everyone a happy, healthy, and peaceful 2010!

www.neilmyersart.com

It's Now or Never...And it Always Has Been!

2009-11-20T07:49:00.000-08:00

This week I am working on a new painting of Courthouse Rock in Sedona, AZ. My wife and I visited Sedona for our 10 year wedding anniversary in October, and we had a chance to do some wonderful hikes and take our little son Liam along with us. For years I have been a little angry with myself that we'd always just driving through Sedona on the way to Flagstaff, but never really spent much time in Sedona or visited it's best sites. So this time we got it right, and it's no hollow irony because thats kind of thing is exactly what I was thinking about as a subject for this blog.

I remember a quote from Socrates that I read in college - he said something to the effect that the needs of the body always get in the way of true enlightenment. As I remember the context of the quote, Socrates actually meant the need for food, sleep, and shelter, basic things. And the seeking of those things took significant time away from reflection and / or the achievement of great things with the mind. After the year that I have had, with the discovery of the tumor in my back in late June, and the subsequent recovery process after surgery - I have thought about this a lot, and found myself wondering to what extent physical setbacks affect all of us, and keep us from grabbing hold of our dreams.

This question I floated to myself came right back at me just a few weeks ago, when my mom called. She sounded exhausted, and the tone of her voice told me that something was going on and it wasn't good. Of course your heart races when it's your mother - or anyone you love for that matter - and she told me that she had been diagnosed with Rheumatoid Arthritis, or R.A. as we commonly know it. She had had a lot of aches around the different joints of her body, and most especially nagging pain in one of her feet. She also told me that prior to the diagnosis, she was fearful that she was getting depressed - only to learn later that the intense feeling of depression is yet another symptom of R.A. Of course, we had a number of conversations about what to do from here, with me peppering her with questions for her doctors about her quality of life, and what could she physically expect down the road. But underlying all this, and it wasn't lost on my mom, was that she wanted me to know because, with her diagnosis, we now know that R.A. runs on BOTH sides of my family. My Grandfather on my dad's side had R.A. He was a very heavy drinker and had told family members that it was the only thing that numbed his pain. Of course in the years when he was alive, there was probably very little else BUT drinking that one could do. And we know that though my father and his brother do not have the disease, both of their sisters do. And now on the other side of the family, my mom as well.

Now of course only a selfish person would get lost in the "What does this mean for me?" question, but my mom put all this together immediately after her diagnosis, and wanted me to know because this serious condition is now, we know, on both sides of my family. My mom is 54 years old, and I am 34, so though there is an age gap - we are not talking an astronomical number of years. I had to ask myself, if R.A. were in my future, what does that mean for the here and now?

When you think of these things it goes without saying that you risk stumbling over a million overused cliches. That's why I thought of the title "It's Now or Never...and it Always has Been". Because its just true. Every one of us is guilty of banking a little bit on time. If we are 30 we say to ourselves "well I'm not 40 yet", or if we're 40 we say "I'm not 50", and so on and so on. Yet I keep thinking that we could only benefit by a redoubled effort to live in the here and now, and never to take one single moment for granted. No cliches necessary. We really, truly don't know what hazards lie in our bodies, or out there in the world waiting for us. And because we don't know, every ounce of experience should be squeezed from this day, today.

On a Monday in late June of this year, as some of you know, I had a call from a neurosurgeon telling me that I had a sizable tumor on my spinal chord. I learned all this on a Monday, and was going to be rushed to surgery on Friday of that same week. That Tuesday, I sat down to sketch out a large painting of the Gaudi cathedral in Barcelona, Spain - the "Sagrada Familia". I did it partially in anger at myself. I had been wanting to paint this amazing structure for two or three years. Over and over again it got put off so I could work on more conventional subjects that I was known for. But that Tuesday I made a promise to myself, that I would never put off things I love so long. I had all the irrational thoughts one might have just before surgery, like "If I never wake up from the anesthesia, I will have never painted that damned cathedral!" So I took that first step in keeping the promise to myself, and I am happy to report that the finished "Sagrada Familia" painting will be debuted at my December 10th show at the Tansey Gallery in Tucson.

And now, as I think of the promises I must keep to myself and my loved ones - I find myself thinking of those old photos of the painter Renoir, taken when he had begun to suffer severely from arthritis. His knuckles were huge knots, and his fingers were curled up underneath. Still he strapped his paintbrushes to his hands, and made some very beautiful works in his later life. R.A. is not the end of my mom either, and for her, like so many, the question is what to do now in order to have the best quality of life down the road.

Renoir probably would have told us, that down the line we might ALL be strapping our brushes to our hands, for one reason or another; but there is no reason that we can't still make great works. My mom, Paula Shores, still has many great works in her - of that I'm sure. And she has taught me that, no matter what, the NEXT "Sagrada Familia" ought not have to wait three years to be put on canvas.

Here's to my mom, and all the moms out there - little does it know, that R.A. doesn't stand a chance against a feisty little Southern lady. :)

www.neilmyersart.com

30 Minutes with Gary Ernest Smith

2009-09-01T12:16:00.000-07:00

This week I am finishing a new painting of Taos pueblo, seen from across the small river that flows in between the two largest buildings at the Pueblo. This is a new view, completely different than the other pueblos that I've painted, and I'll be excited to show it in December at the Tansey Gallery.

I have been thinking a great deal about influences this past month, and I should say that it has been a distinct priveldge to both know and meet countless artists that I truly admire. Among contemporary artists, the two that I would rank of the most importance in influencing my own career would be Jean-Claude Quilici - an artist who readers of my blog will know well - and Gary Ernest Smith. Gary Ernest Smith is one of the finest and most original painters now working in the west. He also shares a passion and a strong sensitivity that I have to color and the thick, earlthlike application of paint.

I did not know of Gary's work until I moved to Arizona in 2003. At that point, I saw his work in a gallery in Tucson and was deeply moved. Here was a painter that seemed to have the soil of the land in his blood. Someone incorporating the various sentiments of Monet, Maynard Dixon, Van Gogh - and who had weaved the feeling those artists brought into something else altogether - something we could simplistically call, his own style. Southwest Art Magazine ran a feature piece on Gary's work not long after I discovered him, only further adding to his many accomplishments.

But me being me, I'm never one to sit back and say "oh that's nice" and never do anything about it - so when I learned that Gary would be present at an opening for the Medicine Man Gallery in Tucson on November 19, 2005, I went there, and though I didn't recognize Gary outright, a friend of mine who worked for the gallery was kind enough to point him out to me. Gary was a wonderfully pleasant man, calm, self assured and almost serene. Looking back at our conversation, it seemed to me that Gary himself exuded some of the qualities of his work. He knew himself well as an artist, and had all the ease and confidence of an artist whose body of work spoke for itself, and whose career was one to be respected.

Gary and I talked about countless things relating to art. I remember telling him that I loved his work because he put viewers of fine art right square in the middle of fields - making them contemplate elemental aspects of the earth, and of all life that springs from the earth. He nodded with satisfaction at this comment. I also told him that even though his style was notably different, that I had something of the feeling, looking at his work, like one has when looking at the best of Edward Hopper's work. Something very American in its sentiment, solid and permanent, which invites the viewer to a quiet contemplation of beautifully cultivated fields; of bales of hay in the sunlight, or raw earth tilled and prepared for planting. I remember when I mentioned Hoppper Gary said something along the lines of "Now you're talking about my kind of artist." And he went on to talk a good deal about Maynard Dixon and how Dixon's work had influenced his own. When I became better acquainted with the work of Maynard Dixon, I too saw the connection. In addition to all that, I realized that one of the things I loved the most about Gary's work was the fact that his work did not repeat the endlessly copied themes of the cowboy painters - Gary Ernest Smith's American West was, and is, a West which seemed to be to be both in the external and internal of us. He had his own vision of the West which continues to stand out against all other painters of his generation.

At some point Gary and I talked and talked until I looked at my watch and realized that I had been hogging his attention for around 30 minutes, (get two committed artists together and they could talk all day, but an artist at his own opening likes to make himself available to chat with various collectors and art lovers) and out of politeness I excused myself, gave him my card and my website address and said "I'm not groping for compliments" , so that he would know I'm not asking him to reciprocate - that would be dishonest. And he very kindly said "Oh, I will anyway!" with a very genuine smile.

I got the idea recently that it would be interesting to have Gary answer a few basic questions about his work for this blog. Dr Sublette and Jaime Gould of Medicine Man Gallery were kind enough to put me in contact with Gary, and he graciously put down some of his thoughts about his work for me. Here are the questions and answers:

1) Your strong focus on fields as subject matter has always been striking to me. Fields seem to be representative of primal life, food, sustenance, emblems of rural life and more. Do you see field subjects in that metaphorical sense? Or do they strike you more as meaningful in the strictly visual sense? I see my field paintings as what they are but also with deeper meaning. they represent the substance of what we are in this life. Our bodies come from the dust and return to the dust. All life springs from the earth. Our source of nourishment comes from the earth. On an other level, I love the vastness of space and the quietness of standing in open fields. I wanted to try to recreate these feelings in these large paintings. I could only see the paintings in this large scale format as I wanted this sense of vastness, of being all consumed by the surroundings. I originally saw the series in my head before I painted them. Not that I saw each piece individually, but I sensed the feelings I wanted to convey. I wanted the hand of man to show in them and how preparing the earth for harvest has created life sustaining rewards as well as beautiful design elements .I knew the size of each was important and to be 6'x8', 6'x10', and up to 16' long.

2.) I have seen a handful of your large works, and when viewing them found myself reminded of something Jackson Pollock said...when he once said "when I am IN my painting". I found myself as a viewer feeling as if I was literally contained within the work I was viewing. These kinds of extremely large format works, to me, hearken back to sensations created in large works by the Abstract Expressionists, such as Pollock, Still, and Rothko; is this sensation of being "in" a painting deliberate? Or is it the reaction produced on Mr Myers alone? I definitely relate to Pollock's statement about "being contained within the work". When I start a large size painting, I start early in the morning and work straight through the first day in organizing and laying out the painting. This time often goes into the night. I take few breaks. It is all encompassing, even stopping is difficult. It is like this creative hunger must be fed. the painting is not most often completed in a day, but the compositional problems and direction is resolved. When I struggle beyond the first day of composing, it eats at me until I resolve it.I carry around imagery in my head all the time. If I'm not painting I'm thinking about it.

3.) Just as you are keenly interested in fields as subjects, it strikes me also that you like the barrier spaces, like ditch grass between rows, or any other kind of wild, overgrown spaces on the edges of fields. Could you talk about that a bit? My first attempts at painting rural America started with iconic imagery of people that worked the fields that I remembered while growing up on a farm in Oregon. The paintings were primarily of a historic nature and of a time when self reliance and hard physical work accomplished the task of making a living in a primarily rural society. My paintings began to evolve, after a few years, and the individuals begin to diminish in size and proportion until the gave way to the landscape. The paintings transformed from yesterday to today. Man's presents is still there in the cultivated land. I began to notice the edges of fields and ditch banks and saw the beauty in the common place and overlooked. I look for subject matter that is so familiar that we look past it and try to find the beauty there in. My work continues to evolve. Discovery leads from one thing to another. It keeps my art fresh and challenging.

4.) I remember, when you and I talked, that you mentioned influences on your work such as Maynard Dixon and Edward Hopper, however the quality of light in some of your works, accompanied by a softly impastoed surface you've created by palette knife - occasionally reminds me a some works by Monet. Have you looked to the Impressionists as influences, or is this a coincidental cross current? I study art all through the ages and appreciate the best of what each generation and society has produced. One cannot incorporate techniques and philosophies along the way. You pick up your favorites like Giotto, Rembrandt, The Pre-Raphaelites,Monet, Van Gogh, Gauguin, the Nabis, Modigliani, Russell, Remington TheTaos School, Maynard Dixon, Edward Hopper, Rockwell Kent and the list goes on and on into contemporary times. Some how we take all these influences, put them in the hopper and let them congeal over time, then, following our own path, get to know yourself, develop your skills and something unique of you comes out.I was told by an art professor one time when he I asked about developing a style,"don't worry about a style. Work hard. Build a body of work. Over time your work will be as legible as your hand writing.

5.) You have had a long and very successful career as an artist, is there anything nagging you that you feel you have not done, artistically? To me, what I have not done is the next painting. I stay excited to see the results of a new painting. If I discover something exciting within the process that needs exploring, that's the best. It will often become a series to explore. I don't get to this point by intellectualizing. It most often comes by discovery in something I'm working on or some special insight gained while painting.

6.) What would be the best advice you could offer beginner and mid-career artists who would like to be successful? Develop your skills, study from the great art, be the best artist you can be. Discover what excites you and explore the visual possibilities. A true work of art has all elements, principles, craft and creativity going on within it .If one thing is missing it falls short. It is said that it takes about 50 years after an artist dies to really assess their work. Does it have relevance enough to be remembered? That is for time and others to decide. We can only do our best with sincerity and enjoy the journey along the way as it is truly a rewarding and remarkable journey.

Gary Ernest Smith

* Note from Neil: My sincere thanks to the nice folks at Medicine Man Gallery of Tucson for their assistance, and to Gary Ernest Smith himself for taking his time to answer the curious questions from another artist.

Be sure to check out the beautiful book on Gary's work called "Holding Ground, the Art of Gary Ernest Smith", by Donald J. Hagerty.

Visit Medicine Man Gallery at http://www.medicinemangallery.com/ or drop by to see original works by Gary and countless other talented artists. Images used in this column are copyright Medicine Man Gallery and Gary Ernest Smith 2009.

*Image at the top of this article is "Wild Growth Patterns", original oil painting by Gary Ernest Smith, currently on display at Medicine Man Gallery.

http://www.neilmyersart.com/

Coming out of the Dark, and Looking Ahead

2009-07-22T08:21:00.001-07:00

This week I have just finished the long delayed "Giants of the Desert III". This series of works feature large, powerful images of Saguaros that I have discovered as I've been hiking around the Tucson area. The original "Giants of the Desert" depicted a stand of Saguaros on a ridge at Catalina State Park. "Giants of the Desert II" depicted a group near Skyline Drive, in Tucson. The new "Giants III" painting returns back to Catalina State Park for it's image - a group of massive Saguaros near a meadow on the Sutherland Trail.

And for me, it seems a luxury even to be thinking about these things. I did write awhile back to let you all know that my back troubles were slowing my work down and causing me grief. After about a zillion scans and trips to countless Doctors, we finally found the culprit. I had a tumor called a Schwannoma, which had pressed my spinal cord nearly flat. My neurosurgeon was impressed that I was still walking, because the scans revealed that the cord was literally pressed down to a very fine filament. On June 26th I underwent the operation to remove it, and it was successful. Thankfully I could wiggle my toes and move my feet even as I was coming out of anesthesia. Now in recovery, I am walking pretty well, doing exercises every morning and strengthening my legs. In such a situation there is only one primary goal - get well enough to be able to be an equal partner in my family. To be able to be a good husband, a good dad, and yes, by ALL means - a good painter! During the initial recovery phase, I was literally aching to paint. Now I am back at it again, working short shifts and giving my back plenty of rest. When I was in the hospital and the medication left me unable to sleep, I literally spent entire nights trying to ignore the Michael Jackson hoopla on TV, and trying to dream up new ideas for paintings. I can't bear that any time in one's life be wasted!

My initial goal is to work towards an exhibit I have coming up in December where I will be the featured artist at the Tansey Gallery in Tucson. It will not likely be as large a group of works as were put on display in January at my one man show, however I am changing the focus of this group to simply be a collection of high quality works - without trying to overwhelm the viewer with numbers. In among the Southwestern Landscapes that I am known for, will be a handful of works on more diverse subjects such as Italy, Alaska, and perhaps also the Gaudi church the "Sagrada Familia" in Barcelona, Spain. For a long time I have wanted to do a version of Claude Monet's Lilly pond, but do it in MY style...and that may emerge for this show. The theme will be something along the lines of "the Southwest and beyond", as I'll certainly do some of the regional works that I am known for, but I'd like to infuse some new blood into the subject matter.

I've always said that an artist must give themselves the time and the ability to have visions. By that I mean that the artist has to have proper time and ability to conceive of things that do not exist at present. In fact, my convalescence after the surgery to remove the tumor was, despite being physically hard as hell - also a blessing because it forced me to think about my work from every angle, and it forced me to get excited about new views of beautiful wild lands. I am practical enough to never forget that the Southwest has been the place of origin of my success so far - and I still paint Southwestern subjects happily. However the challenge right now is to continue to find NEW images in the old landscape, and they are there - certainly. You just have to look. I was reminded of this a couple of months ago when I received a beautiful stack of photos in the mail from my friend and mentor Jean-Claude Quilici. He sent ahead some images of new works of Provence he had created for shows in Hong Kong and elsewhere - and I was struck by his amazing ability to find new and interesting angles on his old favored landscape of Provence. Quilici has had artistic roots in Provence for all of his 60-plus years, and he still pulls something beautiful from the land and puts in on canvas. That is an excellent artist.

I can freely admit as well that I am obsessed with landscapes of another nearby state....California. Ever since my wife and I and brother-in law Uros (pronounced oor-ush, my wife's family is from the former Yugoslavia) took a road trip in 2006 thru eastern California and Yosemite, I have not been able to get the place out of my mind. I saw things in Yosemite than a thousand canvases couldn't satisfy. And all along the way, from Mono Lake, to the Bodie ghost town - countless amazing visions. I painted a large work called "Yosemite Valley" in 2007 and it was shown and sold at a gallery in Taos, NM. But I still feel there is more to do, and I hope in the near future to find a gallery I can work with in California, and set about in earnest doing some more CA subjects and going out there to find more.

Stay tuned to www.neilmyersart.com for new fall works as they arrive!

Art & Pain

2009-06-19T07:18:00.000-07:00

This week I am working on a sketch for a new painting in my "Giants of the Desert" series. When I am out in a landscape I often look for stands of Saguaro cacti that are visually powerful, which set a strong image in the landscape. While walking in a field where there were no trails, I stumbled across just such a stand of Giant Saguaros on the Sutherland trail at Catalina State Park, and have set out to paint them.

This week I also wanted to take this chance to thank all my dear friends and collectors who have chimed in to wish me well as I have been trying to facilitate a recovery from my back ailments. In all honestly, I ended up getting so sick from my medications that I took myself off all of them two weeks ago - and to my own surprise, I feel 75% better! I am still struggling with some issues, but the improvement is significant. This week I also found myself thinking of a gentle rebuke from my wife; when she mentioned that I talk about my ailments too much! After thinking about it, I had to admit that she was probably right. But as I was kicking myself for such negligence towards my friends and their own lives...the reason WHY occurred to me immediately. I remember once telling my wife this scenario; imagine that every ten seconds a little creature in your shoe bit you on the foot. For days, months, weeks, even years - sure as clockwork, this little monster bit your foot. Naturally your attention span would be ruined. It would be hard to have a conversation. It would be hard to be fully present in the moment. It would be hard not to fear the future if again and again you got bit. So it seems to me that a chronic pain issue is much like that - it forces the person suffering this situation to be too much IN themselves...always turning the problem over in their minds, always waiting for the next bite. Always dreading the inevitability of it. But hers was a fair rebuke, and I accept the criticism openly.

Of course when I am thinking about art, I also got to thinking a lot about art and pain. One of the most poignant examples of this, we all know, is the struggle of Van Gogh, which is well known to most people. It always seemed to me that what Vincent did which is so incredibly heroic, was that despite all the turmoil in his personal life, his own battle with insanity, poverty, loneliness, lack of love, and art in general - he somehow managed to internalize all of that turmoil, and when it exited him thru his brushes, the resulting canvases were some of the most beautiful expressionist works done by anyone. I try to fathom the extent of his suffering and it boggles the mind - but it only boggles when one realizes that despite everything, Vincent created beautiful works that were full of energy, heat, passion, and a love of the beauty of the world. How many desperate individuals, locked in mental facilities around the world could find it in them to still create such breathtaking beauty? Perhaps more than we know...but it is only in the acknowledgement of this that we can appreciate Vincent's triumph over pain. True, the waves did crash in over him eventually - but he stood the force of the tide, internally and externally, for a long, long time. Long enough to leave a body of beautiful work, and many of the late ones especially - extracted from pain and re-rendered beautiful in the world. That, my friends, that is an accomplishment!

But, as I have discussed in earlier blogs, Van Gogh's case is not exactly unique in art. Just this week I saw a fantastic documentary on the abstract artist Mark Rothko, called "Rothko's Rooms". What was most interesting about Rothko is that, after many years of struggle, he did experience the taste of true success in the later part of his life. However the struggle that was integral in his work remained. He himself said that a sense of the tragic notion of the image was always present in his mind. When one begins to try to understand, in a worldly sense, why one still feels this strong sense of tragic, even when your works are going for big money, the answer reveals itself to be that the tragic, for Rothko, was a certain state of mind that could not be affected by anything external to it. So it would not be changed by success or the vestiges of it. And when one looks long and hard at the late, dark works of Rothko, notably some of the Seagram's murals and the black works that went into the Rothko Chapel - a real sense of beauty and subtle tragedy does emerge. As if the artist were making works that were the visual and emotional equivalent of the universe before the big bang. Perhaps it should be surprising that an artist, so much IN his own mind as Rothko was - should end his own life, much as Van Gogh did. Even I know that the struggle to create has a tendency to hollow out a person.

It could be said, perhaps, that struggle and art are the same thing. The attainment of great images does not generally deliver itself on a silver platter. Rather it is always in front of you as you go chasing after it. The thrill of the chase is enough for some people. For others, the thing must be captured to be enjoyed and expressed. But you go on after it because you don't know what else to do. Most of us know we can't turn back now. We are too far down the road - so we struggle on, with bad backs - sometimes with unhealthy minds - to try to shove it all aside for a deep breath of beauty.

http://www.neilmyersart.com/

Putting the Brushes Down in Order to Pick Them Back Up

2009-04-26T14:57:00.001-07:00

This week, after a lot of struggles and a lot of fits and starts, I have finished a new 24 x 30 of the Abbey of Senanque, in France. This is one of the beautiful scenes of France, a country full of amazing subjects for paintings -with the old abbey nestled between green hills, and fields of lavender glowing in perfect rows of purple and violet.

However, I have to write a note to all my friends, family, and collectors to let you all know that I have decided to go on a very "low-work" hiatus from painting. This is my first real slowdown in work since 2003. As some of you guys may know, I have been struggling for years with lumbar-spinal arthritis. Recently I have had to admit that this chronic condition has taken so much from me that I am at risk of losing or ruining some of the most important people and enjoyments in my life. It is not my intention to bore all of you with some long litany of medical gripes. Lord knows, we've all had our problems and I happen to believe that most people don't really find a long medical confession that interesting...however I am also a believer that most of us can handle a little more truth than we are used to getting. So for all of you who want to know, I'll briefly tell you my situation.

After years of intermittent back trouble, I began to have severe problems sleeping in 2006. At first I could take an aspirin or two in the middle of the night to deal with it. Then that stopped having any effect. What was happening was that I was getting such pain in my back when I lay down flat, that it was waking me up and preventing restful sleep. Naturally, I was utterly exhausted, and the wear and tear began to show. I tried countless cures and remedies, conventional and unconventional. Acupuncture, massage, chiropractic treatment - medications and more medications. And still the problem has persisted - and has, in fact, gotten worse. Every night has been an agony of burning needles of pain, sharp and endless, coursing up the middle of my lower back. Other times I lay there in misery with dull, sore aches - as always, unable to sleep.

Recent tests have revealed that I have two bulging discs in my back, a herniated disk, and significant arthritic degeneration in the facet joints of my back. Friends who have not seen me in awhile have been shocked to find a skinny, hollow eyed version of me who limps and who stumbles and has bad balance. Now that I have lost a good deal of feeling in my right leg and some in my left foot, I have committed to an intensive course of physical therapy and rest, to try to rehabilitate the multiple, horrible problems with my back. This is what the neurological specialists have advised me to do.

So, the plan for the next 3 to 4 months is to take a very "low-work" schedule to focus on physical therapy and to be with my family, most notably my new 1 month old son Liam. If I can work myself into some kind of acceptable shape, I plan a full return to work in mid-summer. (Don't worry Jared, you'll still get your Catalinas painting, but it may take a little bit more time to complete :)

At the moment there are still an adequate number of paintings in all 3 of the galleries where I show work. And there are a handful that are drying and will soon be made available. After I finish the next commission piece I am working on, any further commissions or special projects will be given a realistic time frame for completion in coordination with the rehab of my back. I also plan to work, whenever possible, to complete the "Fire in the Rocks" book project, and will keep you all updated when it's available. My website will continue to be maintained and updated, so please don't hesitate to visit.

So, to all my wonderful friends out there who have supported me and encouraged me thru this very painful struggle, I love you guys and appreciate every ounce of your support. To my collectors and friends at the galleries, rest assured that I am not hitting the stop button...rather I'm gearing down to 2nd and will be driving in the slow lane for a few months.

My thanks to everyone - here's to a recovery of health, and to the next batch of canvases that will be waiting for a blazing rush of energy.

http://www.neilmyersart.com/

Take a Walk in Santa Fe

2009-04-18T11:02:00.000-07:00

This week I am working on a painting of the Abbey of Senanque in Provence, France. After copying some of the masterworks of Provencal artists in my college days - this represents my first return to painting Provence in a very long time. It's been a joy to work at the root-source of my idols, namely Quilici and Van Gogh. It reminds me of the quote that my friend and mentor Jean-Claude Quilici made about my work, when he said "it's too bad that Provence is so far from where Neil lives!" In all honesty, Provence is the real origin of the kind of expressionist work that I and Jean-Claude do, so it seems natural that I should come back to it at some point.

Several times this week, as my wife and I have been talking about our trips around the Southwest, the subject of Santa Fe has come up. Invariably, we start talking about how many beautiful days and evenings we've had on trips to this wonderful city. Honestly, if circumstances didn't have me based in Southern Arizona, my immediate 2nd choice for a place to live would be Santa Fe, New Mexico. We first saw the town briefly in 2003, and have made trips back there as frequently as we could manage.

There is some kind of unique confluence in Santa Fe - a kind of nexus of art, history, cross culture influences of native American, Hispanic, and Anglo American traditions. And the fact that Santa Fe is one of our oldest cities - also containing the oldest church in America, the San Miguel Mission which was built between 1610-1628. I painted the mission in 2004, and still have the painting. Santa Fe itself dates from 1610. The old churches and history are just one aspect - what seems so interesting is that the quaintness and the age of the town has been so well preserved. What is unfortunately true about America is a near obsessive need to bulldoze the old buildings and structures - but this hasn't gotten its way entirely in Santa Fe. Even the new buildings around town are built in the adobe style that was so well known to much of New Mexico and Arizona. Many of the homes around areas like Canyon Road also preserve this style. The end result is that Santa Fe still feels small, intimate, and it looks beautiful.

One obvious plus to spending time in Santa Fe is that you can walk around it. Most of the artsy parts of town, the main square, Canyon Road - these all have good sidewalks and are a reasonable distance apart. When I visit Santa Fe I find myself thinking of the terrible epidemic of obesity in America - and it occurs to me that some small responsibility for this should be placed on city planners. For example, there are many highly developed areas around Tucson (where we live) that have NO sidewalks at all. School kids get off the bus and walk home in the dirt beside the paved road. It seems to me that if you'd like to encourage your population to take an afternoon or morning stroll - or walk somewhere in lieu of driving, they need that basic convenience of a sidewalk. Even most small towns in North Carolina where I grew up had them - and it is another great aspect of visiting Santa Fe. Just park your car and walk around it. You'll find all sorts of nooks in town, with galleries, shops, restaurants, etc - places you'd have missed if you were zooming by in a car.

In 2007 I saw a special exhibit at the Palace of the Governors where the original scroll for the Jack Kerouac book "On the Road" was unrolled and put on display in a long, clear display case. Kerouac wrote the book in a frenzy of work in 1951 - and his style of writing was executed so fast that he didn't use conventional pages - he used a long scroll that could be unwound as he went. It's display was part of a special travelling exhibit taking the scroll around America. Always having been a fan of the beat generation and their new visions of life and writing - it was a special privilege to see this important piece of history on display in one of Santa Fe's most historic spots.

Another aspect of Santa Fe which I find interesting is it's inherent value as an artistic subject. Frequently on trips my wife and I wander along the back alleys of the downtown and the roads and driveways around Canyon Road - and from the photographs we took in these areas have come some of my best works, like "Spring Sunshine, Canyon Road", "Fence Shadows, Santa Fe" and "Pink Tree, Santa Fe." Visually, what is at work in Santa Fe - as you see the sunlight filtering off the adobe structures - is the same thing that is at work when you visit Taos Pueblo. Ochre and Sienna Earth colors in solid shapes, with light and shadow projected on them. Thus the homes around Canyon Road strike me artistically the same way the native American Pueblos do. And that's a great source for wonderful paintings.

When I travel, and then I think about it afterwards, I have to say that I don't remember things in a perfect stream of consciousness - but rather in individual scenes, or images. Like arriving in Santa Fe in 2007 while a soft springtime snow was falling on the town. My wife and I checked into our hotel and then walked over to a cafe with a terrace, where we watched the snow falling on some recently blooming flowers. Till all the adobe buildings were coated with white, and the town slowed down to a hush as the snow accumulated. Or I remember a gorgeous sunny morning during our trip to Santa Fe last year, where we bought muffins for breakfast and took them out to a bench on the square - sharing crumbs with the birds and watching vendors set up for the day. Travel is full of those kinds of moments, and for those of you who may be thinking about it - take it from me, those moments are very, very easy to find in a place like Santa Fe. Stay there a few days, and make a few memories of your own.

http://www.neilmyersart.com/

Trying to Make it in the American Arts Scene in a Tough Economy

2009-03-19T09:19:00.000-07:00

This week I am working on a large study of a Saguaro that was photographed at the Naranja town site, near where I live in Oro Valley. This piece promises to be one of a line of studies that I've done, featuring a large saguaro as a central point - a kind of consideration of our most iconic Southern Arizona image.

I thought that this week I would write about a subject most of us artists know pretty well right now - and that is how to try to succeed in these times of crisis.

I think that all artists must be honest with themselves and admit that when homes are being foreclosed on, jobs are being shed in the thousands, and many families are struggling just to cover medical bills and meet basic necessities - art is, naturally, one of the last things on their minds. Art is something that one has the luxury of enjoying only if the essentials of life are taken care of. And so I think that most artists must confront this issue and be ready for maximum flexibility in these leaner times.

Thankfully, I have been lucky in the fact that my own work is doing as well as ever. Sales in the early months of this year have been amazing, and I can only be grateful for the wonderful collectors who continue to buy my work and keep ME in the studio working. I have found that some essential things were necessary for keeping interest high, and for those artists who are curious, I'll share what's worked for me so far.

First of all, you have to be open to negotiate with the clients for discounts. Most luxury items like paintings are going to require this right now whether we like it or not, so you must be flexible if the client requires it. Back in October of last year when the full brunt of the credit crisis emerged - I emailed all 4 of the gallery directors that I work with and gave them a maximum possible leeway in cases where they were able to negotiate prices. Especially on larger paintings which have a higher price point. And I found that if the gallery directors and owners were quickly able to negotiate prices more freely, then they could secure the sale more easily without having to call me and ask if it was ok.

Second, my suggestion would be to think VERY hard before you raise prices in this economy. People are getting pinched hard - and it would be a bad move for sure if a painting or work of art was almost within someones range and the artist unnecessarily moved the price upward and lost sales because of it. In the current climate, the artist might have to be content with having his or her work HOLD its value, until better conditions made price increases more feasible. Another reason I would caution against this is because that if the economy got drastically worse, then you could potentially become even more out of reach for collectors of more middle class means.

Third, I think we all have to pay hard attention to our expenses with advertising. I found that one thing that has helped me immensely was the Arizona Collector's Guide. In late summer last year I bought a page ad in the Arizona Collector's Guide and it has paid good dividends for me during the entire exhibit season. I would strongly suggest this for an artist. If your area has a state collector's guide, as I know we have in Arizona and New Mexico, then you should try to buy an ad in it. The long shelf life of such things will work to your advantage. Of course advertisements in major magazines are helpful also, and I have found this to be true - but you have to allow for the fact that most of them have a shelf life of only one month. However you must remember that you typically can negotiate better deals with magazines if you run a series of ads, which is a possibility if you have the revenue to do so. From magazines, I've had the best results from ads in Southwest Art Magazine. SWA is one of the best magazines for connecting with collectors in the American Southwest. They also do a good job of fairly representing all forms of Southwestern Art, from the traditional, to the expressionist, to the more experimental work, and they have an interactive website that is easy to use for both artists and collectors.

Fourth, now this is a hard point to concede if you are an artist, but I'm going to be honest about it; this may not be the best time to go radical. Of course, all us artists are by nature people who love to experiment. But I think that for survival sake, you must temper that urge a little bit in these times. I don't think this is a time to do something that your clientele can't relate to. I know that I am working hard to find new images to paint within the contexts of the kinds of work that I am known for. This means a lot of Arizona and New Mexico, but that's ok - I love these places. I was quoted in Tucson Home Magazine as saying "I like to paint things people know in ways they've never seen before", and that's even more true now. I can only liken this to a concert performer agreeing to play most of the greatest hits for the crowd - I think a visual artist will probably do better to stay closer to their "greatest hits" themes right now.

Fifth - this is the greatest lesson of all: do great works! It bears repeating...DO GREAT WORKS! That is the first-best thing an artist can do. You must make your works as strong or stronger than they've ever been, so as to assuage the collector of any doubts he or she may have in these rough times. That is to say, make them fall in love with your work - hopefully make them feel so passionate about it that not even they let the doubts creep in. That is your one greatest move. That is the thing which is always in your control if you are an artist. So now is the best time ever to recommit yourself to doing great works. I told another Tucson based artist this and said "at least if they walk out of the gallery without buying a painting, we can make it bug them like crazy (in a good way) until they get something at a later date."

I offer these things as suggestion only. There is no single path to success in these times, and each person must find what works for them and do that to the n'th degree.

I also would like to reiterate to some politicians who see the arts as a waste - that, as another columnist said "arts jobs are American jobs". I have heard this idea being floated by nationally known political figures that funding for such wonderful organizations as the National Endowment for the Arts is unnecessary - and this literally makes my skin crawl. We have such a wonderful tradition in America of brilliant painters, writers, musicians, actors, photographers, documentary filmmakers, sculptors - and countless other artists - that if they were to be removed from American life, our tough days would be even more dull and infinitely less enjoyable. In this time where we hope we are all doing the right things to lift our people and our economy - American Arts deserve to be EQUALLY lifted, and not to be left behind. Besides, when I sell a painting, the arts supply store benefits, the UPS courier service benefits, taxes are paid on the sale, as well as income taxes by me, and the gallery and the artist and the UPS driver and the associates at Aaron Brothers art supplies and the writers and editors of the magazine where I advertise - and countless others are all employed and productive citizens because of it.

Lastly, as I sign off I would like to send heartfelt condolences to the family of actress Natasha Richardson. Her loss is a terrible tragedy for her husband Liam Neeson, her sons and her family. With her departure we have lost a wonderful actress, and a beautiful woman of breathtaking elegance, grace, and humor. Her films and performances will live on after her, and her contributions as an artist will remain with us.

http://www.neilmyersart.com/

Pastel Dust, Manet's Blue Couch, and Isbell's Poetics

2009-02-19T07:09:00.000-08:00

This week I am finishing a series of small 8 x 10 inch oil paintings depicting subjects in Santa Fe, New Mexico and various spots around southern Arizona. I am also working on a series of pastel studies - the first pastels I've done since I was a small kid. When I was maybe 8 or 10 years old my mom had me draw a bit in pastels and I even did a portrait of her, which I still have among my old collections of our drawings. I never forgot them, and decided just recently that, as an artist, I really needed the challenge of something new.

Another reason was that I bought a pastel of Venice, Italy from the Tucson artist Gabor Svagrik. This pastel was a gift for my wife for her 33rd birthday. I used to show work with Gabor at the Max Gallery, and my wife had frequently commented on his cityscape pastels - how they would remind her of her youth that she spent in her native Belgrade, Serbia. Though this piece by Gabor was a gift for my wife, I actually felt that it was a real benefit to me also - as I spent a long period of time looking at the subtlety of Gabor's handling of the pastel medium. The soft glow of the figures in the rain, brought out so well in the velvety haze of the pastel chalk. It made me remember toiling away for hours as a little boy, slashing colors and shapes in pastel onto the paper. It also made me remember the original thought that I'd had - that an artist strengthens his or her legitimacy by working in multiple mediums.

Of course, this does present it's own set of artistic challenges for me. A lot of my work is about the effect of the thick oil paints and bright colors; and neither can be reproduced exactly in pastel. Pastel does not posses the pure force and shine of oil colors, and if you lay pastel on the paper too thickly you are not doing yourself any great justice. In fact, as a medium, it seems to me to be much more about subtlety than force. Artists like Gabor, as well as masters from the past such as Monet, Manet and Degas all used pastel to enhance the warm glow of emotional effects. I, on the other hand, have to decide a crucial question, ie, "What does a Neil Myers pastel look like?"

As I've been doing these small studies over the past week, I was reminded of the greatest pastel that I'd ever seen - a phenomenal piece by Manet called "Madame Manet on a Blue Couch". When I saw the piece in 1996 in Paris, I was stunned. It was such a unique work because it was a portrait but not a portrait - in a peculiar sense. When I was looking at it, what struck me powerfully was Manet's soft portrayal of the couch itself, surrounding the central figure and almost becoming the object of the piece more than the figure. It felt like a couch that one could just collapse into. Inviting and soft, asking for repose.

When I began to think about artists changing mediums, I also remembered the late watercolors by Cezanne. These works, in my view, were utterly different than his oil paintings. What was so unusual about them was mostly that the paper was often nearly all white, and Cezanne only seemed to work to evolve certain details in the work. I have not studied his intentions behind the work sufficiently to resolve whether or not he considered most of his late watercolors finished or not. To me they look unfinished - but I do realize that he must have been bringing out what seemed to him to be essential elements; the arm of a tree, the spine of the Mont Sainte Victoire - and the images emerged as though through the white fog of the paper.

I think I will have to resolve, in the coming days, the debate over whether or not a Neil Myers pastel or watercolor will represent a break from his oil painting style. We shall see. I've always worked with a little bit of free experimentation spirit in the back of my mind, and frequently I too am along for the ride in seeing where these imagistic explorations go.

Stay tuned to http://www.neilmyersart.com/ and I'll post the first of the pastels on "the painter's closet" page as soon as they are ready.

Also, for those of you who love great music, I'd like to shamelessly plug a new self titled CD by Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit. I just downloaded it last night from itunes, and found myself sitting at my desk with my guitar, figuring out the song "Cigarettes and Wine", a beautiful tune that harkens back to other slow blues-rock songs of the past. The CD has already received praise from Rolling Stone and Spin magazine. For those of you who don't know him, the leader of the band Jason Isbell is a former guitarist/ singer / songwriter for the Drive-by Truckers - and he was responsible for penning some of DBT's most memorable songs like "The Day John Henry Died" and "Goddamn Lonely Love." I've met Jason twice when he and the 400 unit played shows in Tucson. The second time we met up he and I spent a cold half hour standing behind Club Congress in Tucson, talking about music and life. Jason's a really cool guy, a person who is very real and very level. He's a master songsmith, a real Southern-American poet. His band are a talented bunch of guys as well - the guitarist of the band Browan Lollar is an artist on the side, and he designed the graphics and images for the new 400 Unit CD. You can check Jason and the band out at http://www.jasonisbell.com/ , where you'll find all relevant info and links to their myspace where you can sample the music. I urge everyone to support great indie artists such as Jason and his band. And don't miss a chance to catch them live if they swing by your area.

Now I have go get busy getting my fingers covered in pastel dust!

http://www.neilmyersart.com/

One the Eve of My First One-Man Show, A Chance to Say Thank You

2009-01-06T12:17:00.000-08:00

This week, as I am nearing the January 16th opening of my first one-man show at the Max Gallery in Tucson, I wanted to take this moment to write a few lines to say thank you to those who helped me along the way. Not some academy awards roll the credits sort of thing, but name the people who I could not have done this without - and tell you why they have been important.

First and foremost is my wife Jelena. Many days I have worked alone in the studio all day, then she would come home and I would hear her reactions to the days work, unedited and honest. I always hope to hear that "heeeyyyyyyyy" that signals a good painting. And I land with a thud sometimes when I hear a hesitant "not bad...." as she quizzically sizes up a painting. Often I would feel insecure about some aspect of a work, a tree, a few brush strokes - but I would try to exercise a little painterly denial and put it out of my mind. Then Jelena would march right in and say "what's up with that tree?" And she would see the weak spot immediately. This criticism hurts sometimes, but a painter profits from it. The kind of loving, honest support that says you can do better. And another great gift my wife has given is the mere ability to do the work, the time to develop as a painter and the freedom to chase a dream that doesn't frequently make the one chasing it a rich man. I often tell people that we all know Vincent Van Gogh, but fewer people know Theo Van Gogh, his brother - who supported Vincent financially and emotionally, without whom he would not have been able to the beautiful paintings we all revere. My wife Jelena has been my Theo, and that freedom to paint has been the greatest gift anyone has ever given me. Thank you my dear wife, I love you very much, and I will always work as hard as possible to earn the faith you've put in me.

To my parents - I am sure that the fathers and mothers of lawyers and accountants never have to ask themselves the hard questions that the father or mother of an artist does. It is a difficult thing to assent to your child going into one of the most difficult ways of life that is out there. It would be easier to have a child do something conventional, and acceptable - and it is only great character that allows a parent to see that they have a little artist on their hands, and there is no use in fighting it. We should be thankful that Michelangelo's dad didn't steal his brushes and chisels, and instead sent him to study art. My study was my own, but my parents allowed me to do it. Thanks to my dad Billy Myers for always caring enough to make sure I was fed and out of trouble. For putting a few bucks in my pocket and some gas in the car and offering his encouragement. It was my dad who told me that "nobody who never quit ever failed" and I remembered it. Thanks dad. Thanks to my Mom also who allowed me to make my first sketches in her old sketchbooks from the 1970s. My mom was my first exposure to art, and she was never more at home than when she had a charcoal pencil in her hand and a sketchpad in front of her. My mom drew people too, not just silly sketches of stick figures. She did fine portraits that I still remember and look back on. Her paintings of flowers are always in my mind as I do my own. And in my studio, just above my easel is my mom's version of Van Gogh's famous Irises.

Thanks to my lovely grandma, Shirley Hoyle, who actually was brave enough to buy the first works that anyone ever paid me for. According to market prices on my paintings now - I dare say she made a pretty smart investment :), but she indulged my love of art and she introduced me to the fine feeling one gets when they learn that someone has paid their hard-earned money for one of your works.

To my brother, Will Myers - thanks for not killing me that day you rammed my head thru the bedroom wall. (In all fairness, we were fighting and I'm sure my big mouth had something to do with it) I've since been accused of being hard headed and can't really dispute that. It might just be that when I look at the world around me and see skies carved and brushed in thick paint - that I may be experiencing after effects of breaking a wall with my head. If so, I guess I should thank you Mr. Will. I may owe it all to you and not even know it :)

One a more serious note, I would have to make a special mention of thanks to my friend and mentor M. Jean-Claude Quilici. Jean-Claude provided the most useful thing a man in his position could have - he offered encouragement, support, good humor, and the shining example that painting is indeed a craft, which one learns over time, and often with difficulty. He clearly understood how much I loved his work, and did all he could to send me books, show invitations, posters, letters, cards, and much more. When I got the distinct feeling that other people felt that being an artist was a dead end deal - I always had the example of Jean-Claude to think of as a counterbalance - a man of great success who persisted in the search for his own path in the light of the Provencal masters. I am here to declare that I think that Jean-Claude Quilici is the greatest living artist, period - and I can not be convinced otherwise. Jean-Claude helped me to understand that something could be both beautiful and original - and that painting could be a great exultation of life and the world around us. I have been a very privileged person to actually know and be friends with my favorite artist I've ever discovered. What a great privilege to be able to say that.

Right next to Jean-Claude I must thank the other Quilici, M. Augustin Quilici, French professor at Lenoir-Rhyne University. He did more than just introduce me to his cousin's work, he also became a great friend and mentor. He offered his own generous but critical eye in the formative years of my experiments in oil painting. He bought some of my earliest works that were decent enough to look at, and I was greatly encouraged by him. He also nudged me to go to Europe, which I did in 1996 - an experience which I was not prepared for, but which I am very happy that I had. Because of that, I walked the streets of Arles, and St Remy, Paris and countless other amazing places. I saw works that blew my mind in the Musee d'Orsay and the Louvre. Most of all, what I learned from Augustin Quilici was a devoted passion for the creative arts, literary and artistic. I am also convinced that Augustin Quilici has a painter hibernating inside him - because I will let the world know that he too paints. His "Pont Neuf" that hung in his office at Lenoir Rhyne in North Carolina was a fine piece. And perhaps one day he will take up his palette and show us the other Quilici - artiste-peintre, that I know is out there.

Two other professors at Lenoir-Rhyne also provided great encouragement and friendship; Dr Bohdan Kuropas, and Dr Werner Schultz. I thank both of them for their friendship and love of art that they were all too kind in sharing. Both of these gentlemen have early Neil Myers works in their collections, and I hope they still enjoy them.

To Steven Morse; many thanks for the countless long conversations about art, for your passion for creativity and our friendship that has lasted since the 6th grade! Some artists are craftsmen with a hammer - and some with brushes.

To Judy Murphy; my entire Southwestern art career goes back to that day in 2003 when I showed a few images to her at Rosequist Gallery in Tucson, and she said immediately "Can you bring me these paintings this afternoon?" For all the "No's" that one gets in the art business, Judy had the foresight to say yes, and my success all traces back to her belief in me, when I was nothing but one more newcomer artist who had just arrived in Tucson.

I have to also thank the countless gallery directors who have shown and sold my work, who have supported me and offered me their encouragement and backing; firstly Max Mikesell, of the Max Gallery, who took me on board in 2005 staring at the works for a long time and saying "I would like to represent your work." Thanks also other gallery directors, Mesia Huttner, from Cobalt Fine Arts. Linda and David Sherer, from the LeKAE gallery, Drew from the LeKae Gallery, Anothny Sobin from Taos Fine Art - and others who have show my work around America.

One can have all the talent in the world, but they will not get all they can from it if they don't realize that their success has a lot to do with other people. When I look back over the last 6 years, that is the one thing that stands out. Time and time again, other people stepped forward and supported me and my work - and I dare say much of what I have done would not have been possible without all this wonderful support.

And I must save the last thank you for the collectors who have bought and supported my work. I once told a collector from Casa Grande, AZ, that the greatest gift someone gives the artist when they buy his or her work is that they put a little bread on the table and that allows an artist to keep working. I appreciate the passion of all the collectors around America who have been there for me year after year. You allow me to continue my work, and to me, there is no greater happiness that the new world created on blank canvas. Thank you all.

I hope everyone will come join me at the Max Gallery from 5-9pm on January 16th. This will be the largest group of works I've ever shown, and I'll be very happy to meet everyone and thank them myself for their support.

For a full online preview of the Max Gallery show, log on to http://www.neilmyersart.com/ .

Cave Paintings and Rock Art

2008-12-29T05:33:00.000-08:00

This week I am working on a 20 x 24 vertical Saguaro landscape with blooming paloverdes in the distance. I'm also busy organizing the advertisements, invitations, and the special online exhibits that will go along with my January 16th show at the Max Gallery in Tucson. I hope everyone has had a wonderful holiday season, and we look forward to a happy and fruitful 2009. This coming year will see the birth of my son, in March - and on top of all the great things that have come to pass for my wife and I, we are the MOST excited about this little man who is soon to come into our lives.

I'm currently reading a book by Gregory Curtis called "The Cave Painters, Probing the Mysteries of the World's First Artists". This is a study of the primitive arts that existed in the Paleolithic era of early man. The books spends a great deal of time talking about world landmarks such as Lascaux, the beautiful painted cave in France that features the "Hall of Bulls", which I myself painted a rendering of last year. I've always been deeply fascinated by art of this kind, and only recently did a begin to ask myself why.

There is always in me a great love and respect of the primitive. That is to say - what art would be without any social conventions or training. Paul Gauguin sought such a place where he could establish his vision of art free of western social norms, in a raw, primitive environment. Picasso, after mastering representational painting by the age of 14, spent much of the rest of his life in a process of exploration that involved some drastic simplifications, and complexities, that strayed far from his classical training - and resulted in, at least on some of his canvases, very primitive works. Picasso had a great fascination with masks - and some of the Fauvist painters looked to African crafts for inspiration in the qualities of simplicity.

I think that I respect the primitive works on some level due to my own lack of training in the arts. I took one drawing class in college and absolutely hated it. Drawing was something I enjoyed all my life, even as a small boy - and to have the act reduced to something the professor wanted to see led me to the conclusion that most art professors want artists that will just paint or draw like them. They see themselves as an ideal, and thus seek to conform others to it. I dare say not all fall into this category, but I'm sure many do.

It seems to me that primitive artists very likely didn't have the hangups that come with the rigid formulations of training. None the less, many of them displayed a great deal of talent - the ability to render colors and shapes impressively, and the ability to have an eye for composition and perspective. That is what appeals to me on canvas. The seeking of something raw and beautiful - rough and luminous at the same time. I enjoy a perfect Michelangelo or Leonardo as much as the next guy - but it never gets to the root of my own artistic feeling. My feeling in front of the canvas is a feeling that is hard and rough. My work shows it, and that's certainly deliberate.

So when I discovered through books the wonderful painted caves of France I immediately felt a connection rooted from those early artists and running right up to contemporary painters like myself. I painted a large wall-sized work called "The Dawn of Painting" which depicts one scene from the Hall of Bulls at Lascaux. I've never shown the painting outside of my home, but countless friends have commented on it. It has simply my homage to those wonderful early artists whose works still survive.

I feel it is crucial to the artist to get down to the core of what art could be - art with no hangups or framework. To answer the question of what the soul would put on canvas before it asked the permission of a professor or classicist to feel what it is feeling. An honest urge - a true expression. The cave painters did not need a university or art school to make compelling images, they just did it. Let art be as natural as the rain. Let it speak in honest ways. Drop the filters and see the uncut version. That is the language of the human heart. The cages came after.

http://www.neilmyersart.com/

Music, Art, and Originality

2008-12-11T08:09:00.001-08:00

This week I have just finished my first painting of Aspens in yellow fall colors. I am now working on 20 x 24 inch study of the mountain peaks of the Grand Tetons. Having finished most of the Arizona works for my show on January 16th, I am letting loose with the urge to paint some other western subjects that I love.

I remember my French professor Dr Augustin Quilici relaying to me the phrase "le style est l'homme" (the style is the man), and as we can assume that this is always the case in art - I found myself thinking of how much it is also true in music. In the art I have tried to make, I have attempted to create painting that would be unmistakeably my own - that there would be no debate over who made them. It was very important to me not to have my work confused with anyone else's. In the years that I have been browsing galleries I have come to the conclusion that it is easier to be a strong draftsman and absorb the talents brought out by artistic training - than it is to have an original idea and relay that idea on canvas. That is to say, I think more people can draw and paint, than can dream something truly original. And even that depends on what one wants from painting. Some artists are hyper realists, and they get the most happiness from that.

It should also be remembered that nobody who is successful is without their roots. My own roots lie tangled between the work of Jean-Claude Quilici, Vincent Van Gogh, and Maurice de Vlaminck. That is to say, your own original ideas are built on the foundation of the discoveries of those you admire. My breakthrough was to try to apply a certain vision to the Southwest that I had not yet seen. But these ideas came from a fusion of those who inspired me.

For many years music helped me to understand the qualities of distinction that were necessary in a work of art. It occurred to me frequently that songs live by their quality of distinctness - how they stand out from a background of noise and jingles. I remember hearing an NPR interview with a Canadian singer / songwriter Justin Rutledge, and they played a clip from one of his songs where the line goes "They've got armchairs in Vienna, where a man would wanna die. They've got Ludwig Van in garbage cans where the poets go to cry..." and I thought "whoa!" I still remember where I was driving when those words struck me. They stood out as more poetic, more rich, perhaps even a little strange when you consider all the pop jingles and do da do da stuff that gets shuffled around today. It was poetry in music. I became an instant fan because I realized that Justin Rutledge had done in music what I will have hoped to have done in art. That is when you hear Justin's music, you know it. I would hope that when you see a Neil Myers - you know it.

I remember Jim Morrison saying that "the doors is just a white blues band". But even as he seemed to try to find a label for the Doors, it seems they defy anything even he might say. Amazing lyrics, powerful stage performances - a deep sense of drama and a poetry of the times. Unorthodox views of how a song should be created - one of the most distinct aspects being the way that Doors music was held together by Ray Manzerek's keyboards, giving the music the quality of organ like processional - dark and lyrical.

I would also rank KISS as one of the most original super groups ever devised. Take one look at those guys and it's not hard to see that they hit on something different. No doubt about that. But if KISS had only been about 4 goons in makeup, then it would not have lasted. Those same guys proved the ability to put on an astounding rock show, and they had the near infinite capacity to write dozens of songs that are now part of our rock lexicon. I got to see the original KISS in 1996 in Charlotte, NC, so I have seen this for myself and will vouch for it.

What's interesting in music today is that the most original artists are often on independent labels, because the larger labels have become so risk aversive, indie labels are almost all that's left. American music is too much industry and too little art, that's the reason we've not had a KISS, or Beatles, or Led Zeppelin emerge in the last number of years. Because the value of an original idea in music is lower now than it was in the 60s and 70s.

But I still have my Will Hoge, Justin Rutledge, Deanna Johnston, Kathleen Edwards, Drive by Truckers, and countless others to inspire me as I paint. They paint with chords, but to me they are all full of color.

www.neilmyersart.com

"Support the Arts, Buy a Painting"

2008-11-14T08:06:00.000-08:00

This week I am working on a variety of small paintings, 8 x 10s and one 5 x 7 inch landscape. I have been telling friends that every vision for a painting that I've had in my head recently has been huge - and that I had set myself the contrary challenge of trying to do high quality small works, with all the feel of my large ones.

This week I have found myself thinking a great deal about something Jon Linton, the publisher of "Artbook of the New West" has frequently said; "Support the Arts, Buy a Painting." Jon would sign off his publisher's column in the magazine with that phrase - and perhaps it has been token phrase before the current economic crisis in America, but now it is becoming a question of survival for American artists.

Frequently I am hearing the alarm bells from all corners. Galleries struggling to make rent, buyers very hesitant. When purchases are made clients are going for small works or small handcrafted items. And it seems that the current situation in America is not just news, it is real and true economic reality, with many fine arts galleries feeling the pinch, many artists feeling the flattening sales climate, and I have been reading that even high end auctions houses such as Sothebys have been seeing works by historic masters go unsold, or be sold for much less than previously expected.

I know in the past when thanking collectors for their purchases I have said "art is not bread", in the sense that I know how fortunate a situation it is to have the luxury of enjoying fine paintings. In a situation like we now find ourselves in, most normal people will resign themselves to thinking about the basics, food, gas, insurance - the essentials. And something like art is sometimes seen as an optional commodity.

But as I have continued reading about the U.S. government's efforts to bail out our struggling banks and industries, I found myself remembering a visit to San Francisco in 2006. While my wife and I were there, we visited the historic Coit tower, and saw the amazing murals created by artists employed by the WPA. Beautiful murals, painted in the spirit and style of Diego Rivera, but exhibiting themes of America and California. And I know that when I thought about these murals later, and learned that the WPA had employed lots of artists on projects around the country, I was nearly reduced to tears. I told my wife "in the worst of times, the WPA did not forget the nation's artists." I wonder today if any national recovery programs will include the country's artists. I'm not sure that the public and political attention span would even take the time to remember the great works of the WPA artists. Or does today's generation even know?

But now, as I have some tinge of fear for what may become of American arts during the economic troubles - I think perhaps I was wrong...art IS bread. It is possible that it is a luxury that we give little thought to when times are good. We partake, buy a painting or a sculpture, sometimes without fully realizing the contribution of artists to the culture and richness of the human experience. Yes, art IS essential. It is perhaps most essential at the times when it is in danger of being marginalized. When we are all worried about the state of things, art is also a great consolation on the story of the human experience, the love of nature, and the wonders of being alive in the world.

So I will end with the phrase I've borrowed from Jon Linton: "Support the arts, buy a painting."

Buy the bread. Buy the groceries. Put the gas in the car and pay the power bill. Take care of the family and do what you have to do. But if you are ok, and if you are able, NEVER forget that blank wall in your home that cries out for a great vision.

My sincere thanks to all my friends and collectors for their support!

http://www.neilmyersart.com/

The Beast of Abstraction

2008-09-22T08:22:00.000-07:00

This week I am working on a large 38 x 48 in. painting of a row of cliffs at the Grand Canyon. It has been a helluva stretch to complete - I've always thought that the Grand Canyon was one of the hardest subjects in American landscape painting to do. It is a terribly beautiful and complicated arrangement of shapes and colors, and believe me, if you haven't seen it, I urge you to make a point to see this amazing natural wonder in your lifetime.

Ever since visiting New York City a couple of months ago, I've been thinking a great deal about abstract painting. Seeing some of the great works of Pollock, DeKooning, and Rothko was a special treat, but then I noticed something a little disturbing; for example when you visit the modern art wing of the National Gallery in Washington D.C., you'll see that it is one of the emptiest areas of the museum. After going there last year, and again this year, my wife was joking to me that it seemed cruel that they wouldn't let the security guards in those areas of the museum have ipods to break the boredom. I alone wandered through large rooms glowing with canvases by Jackson Pollock, Clyfford Styll, Barnett Newman, Robert Motherwell, Mark Rothko, and many others - and frequently I was the only one in the galleries. And that got me to questioning the value of art which is so strange that it, by it's very nature, alienates those it depends on for communication and meaning. What can a painter say of his or her work if they are an abstract artist, and their galleries get 3 visitors for every 50 the Impressionists attract?

Lots of questions follow. We'll, I ask myself, do I not understand the work? Do I not have the equipment? We'll I don't buy that exactly. If I or other people perhaps don't have the mental acuity to understand abstract work, then it may require interpretation from a 3rd party for us to reach some clarity regarding the work. And here is the biggie - if it requires interpretation, has it not failed it's goal of one to one visual communication?

Well, perhaps the best we can say about this is sometimes. Sometimes I, and perhaps others, have felt that we understood an abstract piece without some pince-nez scholar telling us what we should take away from the painting. I have always felt this about Pollock and his work. I never really needed anything from anyone to get Pollock. I felt all his power, his disturbances, his violence, and his eloquent beauty without ever hearing a lecture or art talk. However I puzzled for a long time over the work of Mark Rothko. With effort I did manage to get into the idea of his works, but they ask a lot of the viewer, and the connection from artist to viewer is a tenuous one.

We can surely say that what is popular in the creative arts is not always deeply meaningful. I don't think that you'll find anyone ready to put Miley Cyrus on the same level as Bob Dylan. However if something is so hard to understand that it impacts almost nobody - then can you call it good art or not? Again, sometimes. If further examination leads you to new horizons of feeling then the argument could be made that the art is effective. However I am convinced that many pure abstractionists are reveling in one thing - and one thing only - strangeness. Strangeness gets even harder to handle when there are no visual cues for the viewer to process. And then when the bulk of the viewing public walk away going "what the hell was that...?" then many such artists will feel confirmed in their originality, assured that they have confounded the average Joe on the street. I don't buy this at all. Because I know of countless artists who have very original styles and who are very popular. My mentor Quilici is one. Picasso was another. The question was floated during Jackson Pollock's lifetime "Is he the greatest living painter in America?" That alone was a huge creative compliment.

At the same time I was experiencing the empty abstract galleries in Washington D.C., I noticed the huge crowds flocking close to see original works of the Impressionists. That too set me to thinking - what was it about the Impressionists that still captivate audiences in 2008? I think that the answer had something to do with the photographic camera. That instrument had been invented in the years leading up to the arrival of the Impressionists, and many of them rightly deduced that if you wanted a perfect replication of a person or landscape - then the camera could do that - in black and white at least. So the Impressionists sought ways to personally express their own touch when painting an object, and their respective styles resulted in images that were joyfully painted, with the styles of the individual artists - but which didn't replicate perfect classical reality. So then, as it is today, people are greatly comforted by the Impressionists because they still know what they are looking at, but they still feel the expressions and color usage that were particular to each artist. In D.C. I saw groups of schoolkids, 7 or 8 years old, congregating in a room full of Monets. They clearly enjoyed them - as did the adults. And I saw no such cross section of people visiting the abstract artists.

Every artist has the free right to push painting or art in general in any direction they choose. However the viewing public has a right not to go with the artist on such tangents. And if I were to sound one warning - as I declare myself an admirer of at least SOME abstract artists - it would be to honestly say to them "don't project unreasonable expectations on the viewer of your work." The deeper one gets into strangeness, with nothing recognizable on the canvas and with no dispensation to care about artistic beauty - one may expect fewer viewers. One should never behave as if the viewers decide the works FOR the artist - however one should neither behave as if the viewer is irrelevant.

I've heard it said that some artists bristle at the insinuation that their work should be beautiful...I don't feel that way at all. I think beauty is a wonderful aspiration. That is my soul's release when I look at art. Because, hey, if I want to feel bad, I can always turn on the news instead.

http://www.neilmyersart.com/

For the Love of New York

2008-07-30T06:09:00.001-07:00

This week I am working on a new Sunflowers painting commissioned by a local writer. For the past few months, after initially painting a previous Sunflowers work, I have been wrestling with myself mentally about how to tackle anew the idea of still life painting. When I initially completed the piece simply titled "Sunflowers" about a month ago, the response was overwhelming among those who visited my site, and the painting was quickly sold. Last night as my wife and I talked, I mentioned to her that both my recent Sunflowers paintings are spoken for, meaning I may need to a THIRD one to have one to show this fall. A good problem to have, for sure!

Last week I had the good fortune of going back east to visit New York City. It was the first time that I had been there, and I was looking forward to it if only for the museums and the many chances to see great art. Thankfully, during our quick visit we managed to see the MOMA, the Met, and the Guggenheim. The highlight for me was the Met, which I would rank among the finest large American museums. Whereas most collections may have 5 or 6 or a painter you like, the Met had 8, 10, or more. It was overkill in a good way, and a wonderful chance to charge the batteries while trying to absorb how the masters I admire tackled still life painting. While visiting I was riveted to a vertical Van Gogh canvas of white roses on a green background - and just nearby, another lovely Monet of Chrysanthemums. While looking at these I came to the conclusion that still life didn't necessarily need to be reinvented. It's one of the oldest genres of painting - and when people liked my sunflowers, I suspect they didn't like them because they were earth shatteringly original - but rather than they felt they were beautiful and interesting. The masters didn't seem to have reinvented the wheel, so perhaps neither should I.

But the most striking thing you take away from New York City is the impressions you have of the city itself. It is a big, crazy, wild, busy monolith of a city that has forever played an integral role in American identity as a nation. I was telling friends that at street level, the city didn't seem gargantuan - if you didn't look up. The moment you looked up you realized how crushing the skyline is, how massive and towering the verticals are. I remembered reading years ago that one of the only reasons that such large skyscrapers could be built on Manhattan Island is because of an extremely strong bedrock of granite below the surface of the soil on the island - and if you visit central park, as my wife and I did several times, you see giant granite slabs projecting up through the trees and grass - exactly as had been described to me in books.

Central Park is one of the great places to people-watch - a kind of meeting point for a cross section of the city. Everyone from bums to millionaires to professionals to upper east side nannies taking kids out for a stroll. The park is a nexus for the city, and I think that it was an amazing piece of foresight that the early founders of New York saw to make such a place, where citizens of the ultra-metropolis could temporarily get back the feeling that all people need from time to time - the feeling of trees over their head, leaves on the ground - the reflections of willows on the water, such as you see at Bow Bridge in the park. We had lunch there on a bench and listened to an accordion player - a memory I'll always treasure.

Artistically, New York City makes you want to go straight out and buy a large stack of vertical canvases and get straight to work! Then you come to the conclusion that even that would not do - that the results would only be a snapshot. In fact, you'd need a canvas the size of a barn wall to convey the immense weight and size of the New York skyline. Few painters, in my opinion, have come close to rendering the shapes and immensity of New York in such ways as to parallel how you feel when you are there. Painting the city is such an task that we all feel we'd like to try it, because it is visually so impressive and huge.

Another thing that doesn't seem to get mentioned is the wonderful individuality of the different areas of the city. The cool thing about the city is that countless ethnic, religious, and national groups have settled there, and their quarters often reflect those who live in them. Chinatown, Little Italy, being among the foremost that I visited. But there is more to it than that. The upper east side of the city feels entirely different than the upper west side. Greenwich Village feels different than Soho. Downtown feels different than them all. Midtown the same. And one surprise is the way that the city feels quite small when you are on the side streets in these enclaves. Sometimes it's even very quiet and peaceful. I think of lot of our views of the city have to do with waves of thousands passing up and down the sidewalks of fifth avenue, and downtown - but the city is by no means like that in every corner.

What was most impressive about it was that being in New York City was like looking in a mirror - that this kid with his roots in small town North Carolina could feel so happy and comfortable with being in New York, it really showed me how far a person can come, the amazing things that they can see, and the surprising places you can love - in defiance of your roots or the expectations of others. Travel is the great antidote for static life - and it is the one thing that keeps us sane and able to break free from routines that are exhausting. I always liked that quote from the movie American Beauty, where the narrator says "It's amazing when you realize you still have the ability to surprise yourself..." Places can have the same effect.

I didn't get the t-shirt that says "I Love New York", but it sure makes a lot more sense now.

Visit Neil's official website at: http://www.neilmyersart.com/

Struggle in the Mind of the Artist

2008-06-19T08:32:00.000-07:00

This week I am working on a large 30 x 48 inch panoramic painting of the three main peaks of Pusch Ridge, in the Catalina Mountains. I've painted fragments of this scene before, and I'm happy to have finally gotten an image that encompasses the entire mass of the mountain ridge, with all its rocky outcrops and escarpments.

As I was just finishing the brilliant book "The Yellow House, Van Gogh, Gauguin and Nine Turbulent Weeks in Provence", I found myself thinking yet again on this image that so many people have of the artist in desperate struggle in his or her own mind. This book detailed the brief and stormy period that the painters Van Gogh and Gauguin lived and worked together in Van Gogh's famous "Yellow House" in Arles, France in 1888. This clash of very volitile artistic personalities was one of the contributing factors in Van Gogh's breakdown and infamous slashing off of his own ear. It got me to thinking about how, especially in America, the artist is so often viewed as someone outside of society - and on many occasions, a good-for-nothing or self indulgent person. In Henry Miller's book "The Air Conditioned Nightmare" he said that a "corn fed hog has a better life than an artist in America."

Van Gogh was not the only artist to suffer from mental illness, countless other artists have battled addiction and all kinds of other excesses. Jackson Pollock, the celebrated American Abstract Expressionist struggled for years with alcoholism and after bouts of being on and off the bottle, finally died in a car crash after drinking. The more one learns about Pollock the more it becomes evident that he was deeply disturbed, and it is very likely that he drank as he did to calm the doubts he had in his mind, about himself and his place in the world. The artist Modigliani, who also had a short life, had been weekend physically by childhood illnesses, yet still deeply indulged in drinking and drugs. His brief life ended in Paris at the age of 35. Van Gogh died in Auvers at the age of 37. Pollock died at 44. Jean-Michel Basquiat died of a heroin overdose at the age of 27, after a brief but highly successful art career. If we look across at the sad musical extinctions of 1970 and 1971, we see the legendary names of Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, and Jim Morrison all dead at the age of 27. In 1994 Kurt Cobain, front man of the hugely popular band Nirvana, died of a self inflicted gunshot wound. He was also 27.

Of course many artists lead long, productive lives - and our culture in arts and music is all the more better for the experiences and creativity of our venerated elders. But I find myself wondering, what is it really about - for those people who find the act of creating to be both soothing, and too much - at the same time?

I suspect that most of it has to do with the innate inwardness of an artist. I've often told people that the difficult part of being an artist is the fact that there exists no mould on your own creativity. Unlike working in an office, or most any job - there is no set format for being an artist. What is created is created out of the artist himself. It is wrenched out, sometimes with great difficulty, and brought into being with no prior existing format. So for an artist it is something like giving birth, hundreds and hundreds of times over again, but pulling out of your soul images, songs, poems, and books. You are the catalyst. You are also the person to blame if it doesn't work, or if the results are weak. The artistic equivalent of workplace accountability is nothing more than a good, hard look in the mirror.

I think that when artists become self destructive and prone to drink and drugs, what is usually happening is that the person simply can't bear the weight of doubt that results from this 'good, hard look in the mirror'. That the only way that the pain of not accomplishing great acts of creation can be dulled is through a temporary dulling of the senses. For some artists, or for some addictive personalities in general, the dulling of the senses becomes more important than the act of working and creating, and it is perhaps that kind of self destructive artist that sees his or her life shortened, and the world robbed of their contributions. (I exempt Van Gogh from this distinction, as it is apparent that he suffered from a grave mental illness.)

Therein lies the irony, I think. That even artists like myself understand why it is that the act of creating is both exhilarating and crushing at the same time - and that it is probably true that the only way to calm doubts is by numbing the senses. But even as much as I have sympathy for those artists who died in a martyr-like fashion - I also realize that at some point, self control and reasonableness must kick in. That if you love your work, you must preserve the body and mind that MUST be healthy to create it. Ultimately, for all but the most seriously mentally ill artists -the abandonment of work in the whiteout of drugs and alcohol is just that - the choice of numbness over the sensation of work.

So if we love our work, we must resolve to stick around to make it. And the longer I live, the less I believe in the vision of a young, dead artistic martyr. I think there is dignity in a long life of creation, such as have been lived by figures such as Monet, Renoir, and DeKooning. Dignity in the challenges of continually confronting the act of making paintings as you get older. Then, at least, when your time does come to check out - you will have, in fact, made a long and fruitful contribution to the younger artists that come after - in the hopes that they too will keep their senses, and live long and create beautifully.

http://www.neilmyersart.com/

The Real Triumph of Vincent Van Gogh

2008-05-29T08:26:00.000-07:00

This week I am busy working on two paintings, one of the mission church at Chimayo, New Mexico, and another large commissioned piece of the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. The thick layering process that my works go through often involves setting one aside in favor of another so that a dry surface can set up and I can later go back over the top of it without cutting into the paint.

I am very excited to now have paintings in the Taos Fine Art Gallery in Taos, NM. This is a beautiful gallery right in the center of Taos, featuring a wide range of artists from contemporary to classic. One painting from the group of 8 works originally taken to Taos has already sold, and we're certainly hoping for a good summer season there.

I've recently been thinking a great deal about the life and work of Vincent Van Gogh. It occurs to me that I believe what dominates his persona are the twin perceptions his difficult life and his work. I think perhaps that art lovers have been far too consumed with the idea of the "peintre maudit", who lives and suffers for their work. This is, of course, quite true for many artists like Van Gogh and Modigliani - but this is not the extent of it and nor should it be. What has always struck me as amazing about Van Gogh was not that all of his works were masterpieces - clearly I think that he did some very poor quality works - but that there are enough masterpieces in his collection that we should be humbled most by the fact that he managed an astounding output of work while battling hopeless despair, mental illness, and terrible luck in love. That somewhere, when the entire world was spinning around him, he was able to find a quiet spot of optimism to create and thrive in. Later, while battling what many believed was epilepsy combined with other psychological disorders - he managed to go on working in his lucid periods, and create, even in the confines of an insane asylum - true masterpieces like the "Irises" at St Remy.

So shouldn't it be better said that he accomplished all that he did in spite of his despair and illness? Yes, I believe so. I think that the man shone through best through his work and his letters, and the picture that emerges is a person of great tenderness, of deep, sharp intelligence and sense of purpose - and someone who must have had a great deal of physical strength and endurance to spend years of hardship, often without sufficient food or self care - surviving on coffee at some points and scrimping on food in order that he could buy paint.

I think that is should also be better known that Van Gogh did not die unknown. In fact it is probably more fair to say that he died on the cusp of becoming known. He had had a critical article written by Aurier who praised him immensely. He had the respect of many of his fellow artists - notably Pissaro. It is also not generally well known that Van Gogh had exhibited ten paintings at the Salon des Independants in March of 1890, and that Theo Van Gogh had written to Vincent that "Your paintings in the show were very successful. Monet said your pictures were the best in the whole exhibition." It stands to reason that if, in 1890, a certain Claude Monet made a comment like that - then Vincent was no longer an unknown quantity. What would any of us give, if we lived in that time, to have received such praise from Claude Monet?

The legacy of Van Gogh is a legacy that lives on in the rest of us, whenever we use a blazing yellow, when we load our brushes and carve out new imagery in a thick, undulating surface of paint. Vincent broke down the walls that so many of us were able to step over so much more easily. My only wish would have been that he could have had some idea that he was to become one of the most renowned creative artists in the history of the world - then perhaps that lonely gunshot in the fields of Auvers in 1890 would have never happened.

Visit Neil Myers' official website at http://www.neilmyersart.com/

Hitch Your Wagon to a Star

2008-05-06T07:55:00.000-07:00

This week I am working on a 24 x 30 in. canvas of sunflowers. I've always enjoyed still life painting, and near the very start of my art career I sold more still life paintings than landscapes! But I later came to the conclusion that my mentor Jean-Claude Quilici had perfected the still life to such a point to where I did not know where to go with it. I had a great fear that any still life I did would look too much like his! That is because his are the most perfect I know and I feel that they could scarcely be improved on. But over the past few weeks I realized that I had a great desire to paint sunflowers and irises again - so I figured that I would do it without trying to reinvent the genre. Just give in to the joy of doing it, and not over think the matter.

I found myself thinking about Jean-Claude Quilici again when I was fortunate to receive a magazine "Pratique des Arts" and an accompanying DVD in the mail. In the DVD a woman from the magazine follows Jean-Claude Quilici on an outing to paint at Les Baux in southern France, and discusses art and his career. During the DVD we get a wonderful change to see Jean-Claude at work, and to see his process of formulating a painting - something that not even I had ever seen directly. Quilici is a very intelligent, perceptive man - coupled with a humble nature and a joie de vivre that is quite compelling - I am pleased to call him my master and friend. I believe it was Ralph Waldo Emerson that said "Hitch your wagon to a star." At whatever points in my own art career that doubt had begun to creep in, I had the example of Quilici held up in front of me so as to say that it could be done because he did it. Keep the faith.

In other wonderful news, my wife and I are heading to Taos, New Mexico to deliver a group of my paintings to the Taos Fine Art Gallery. After May 17th my work will be directly available through that gallery for the New Mexico summer, and I am very excited about the chance to show work in historic Taos. One of the 7 paintings slated to go to Taos has already sold, even before delivery - so I am delighted!

Just this past week I posted a new group of springtime in Arizona painting on my new paintings page of my website http://www.neilmyers.homestead.com/ , so do drop by for a look. I'll soon be reposting works on "The Painter's Closet" web page as well.

And I do want to tell you all about the music of a dear friend of mine, Deanna Johnston. Deanna was one of the last women left standing on the CBS show Rockstar INXS, and she has an amazing, powerful voice that has been compared to the classic vocals of Janis Joplin. Deanna has recently completed an EP that is now for sale. I have a copy and have been listening to it like crazy - you can get a copy at her official site www.deannajohnston.net/ .

http://www.neilmyers.homestead.com/

Arizona Spring

2008-04-03T07:39:00.000-07:00

This week and I am just finishing up 3 New Mexico themed paintings that will likely be going on display at the Taos Fine Art Gallery in Taos, NM. One painting is a landscape of Ghost Ranch, New Mexico - with the former home of the artist Georgia O'Keeffe in the image. Another is a vertical landscape that came from near Canyon Road in Santa Fe - and the last is a study of ladders and shadows against the wall at the Acoma Pueblo. Perhaps it comes through in my work that I have felt as artistically at home in New Mexico just as I have in Arizona. New Mexico is a beautiful state, with very friendly people and a landscape and history that should make anyone with a keen eye interested.

However I am happy to report that Spring is underway in Southern Arizona - birds are singing every morning with a little more gusto than usual. The days have turned warm and the buds are popping on the Paloverde trees. Soon the Paloverdes around town will bathe the desert in the most profound yellow hues you can imagine. Made all the more interesting by the fact that the branches and trunks of the Paloverdes are green! Still other yellows have preceded the arrival of the Paloverdes - two great blooms that have already been amazing this year are the Mexican Gold Poppies and the Brittlebrush. Both bloom yellow as well - or rather, the poppies more true to their name bloom in a yellow-gold tone. The Brittlebrush bloom up and down the hillsides of our mountains, mostly on the sunny side of things - and when you are able to contemplate a landscape where Giant Saguaros stand tall over what looks like a sea of yellow - then words immediately begin to fail the viewer. All you can think is 'yellow, yellow, yellow' so powerful and beautiful. It would not be a stretch to conceive that if Van Gogh had set to work on Brittlebrush and Poppies with the gusto that he tackled his sunflowers - then he would have felt at home in this all pervading blooming of yellow sun like apparitions.

A couple of weeks ago my wife and I took a hike up the Sutherland Trail at Catalina State park, and though we'd gone around most parts of that park - we had to curse ourselves for the fact that we had not yet visited this trail. But it so happened that when we did the poppies were blooming in grassy meadows, and there were all sorts of wildflowers springing up - pushed along gently by a rainstorm that had proceeded them about a week before - and around and among the yellows and golds were blue flowers, white blooms, all sorts of mixes of hues sprinkled along hillsides and beneath the towering gaze of the Saguaros. It seemed like in the desert tangle of spines and spikes and grass, every color had come to fruition at once.

I shot photos from all along the Sutherland trail, many of which I dare say will go into summertime paintings that will be posted on my website in the next couple of months. I'm just about to start a few of them.

A good friend in New York city told me that they are still experiencing a chilly climate - and that she had longed for the dry, warm air of the West. And in that same sense it made me thankful that I know this place speaks to me in a very basic sense - and that I would not be happy in a place too cold for too long. Soon I know the brutal heat of summer will be on us and we'll all be wishing we were in places like...New York, perhaps! But I love the plants and the sun - and vibrant, fiery landscapes beneath it.

Judging from the chirping and chattering of the birds outside - I'd say they agree with me.

http://www.neilmyers.homestead.com/

Controlled Exaggerations

2008-03-13T13:03:00.000-07:00

This week I am working on retouching several new paintings, among them a large frieze like piece called "Giants of the Desert II", which is a kind of homage to our local icon, the Saguaro. This one was inspired by some of the beautiful scenes along skyline drive in Tucson. In the new way that I have been working, I finish a painting 90% then set it to dry for a week or two, thereafter the touch ups are much easier and the results are better. Those of you who have seen my work in the flesh know that the paint is extremely thick, and if you continue to work details into thick paint you cut into the texture of it - disturbing the carefully honed shapes that I make in the paint with my palette knife. The process of completing a work is slow, but I have always seen the process as a simple matter of details - it is the result which really matters.

This week I've also been watching a fantastic British documentary called "How Art Shaped the World". In this documentary the commentator spends a great deal of time talking about how research into ancient art has proven that it was hard-wired into the human brain that we should enjoy seeing something other than pure naturalism reproduced. He talks about how there was a brief period in the sculpture of ancient Greece where pure naturalism was achieved, but then it was immediately abandoned and even the human body was subject to exaggerations - commensurate with the Greek ideals of physical beauty and fitness.

I was immediately set to thinking about my work and how it relates to this principle. I've often called my work "controlled exaggerations" or a kind of "synthetic painting." I experienced very early on in my explorations of art a feeling basically identical to the ancient Greeks - that pure reality once achieved told us little - almost nothing. I heard it said that some of the early Impressionist painters had this brought home to them just after the advent of the camera and photography - and that those painters didn't see the slightest point in representing pure visual reality when all you needed to do was take a photo. Save for the fact that the images of the day would be black and white, they would be, pure reality.

So, that is to say, in the age of high resolution digital photography, what is to be done if you are a painter? For me the answer was in a few simple sensations - the first sensation was one of color, but not of normal color - of something higher, brighter, more exaggerated and sensational. And the second main sensation was one of form, mostly brought about by the use of thick paint. By starting at visual reality, but reading it through my own sensations of bright colors and thick paint - I arrived at something I felt I had not seen before. It was closest, not surprisingly, to my mentor Jean-Claude Quilici - but it was not quite that either. There was more brushwork, and perhaps a slightly more abstract color scheme. There was some Van Gogh there also, but there was also a conscious effort to do cleaner, sharper works than the often quickly produced, impulsive Van Goghs. (He could complete 3 paintings in one day. Many of mine take 1 - 2 weeks to complete.) Out of all that emerged a style, something that even I recognized had some good points of distinction.

And when I thought about these things, it occurred to me that I was creating works that would give me more happiness than the best, sharpest digital image - or the best same effort of a realistic painter - I was making something that was a combination of emotion and visual reality. The end product was a hybrid. I realized that the painterly ability to reproduce pure visual reality told me only one thing - that the person has strong stylistic skills. In truth, it tells me little else. That is why some of the best artists, the ones we talk about and the ones that have had a lasting impact on our consciousnesses - they have taken strong artistic abilities and combined them with pure emotion - and thus they have opened many, many other doors of human expression - without having stopped cold behind the door of pure visual reality.

http://www.neilmyers.homestead.com/

Success and What Comes After

2008-02-26T12:07:00.000-08:00

This week I have just finished a new vertical of Saguaros at Catalina State Park called "Winter Light on Saguaros." An entire new group of works are now in the studio drying and posted online at:

http://neilmyers.homestead.com/newworks.html . This is my 'New Works' page.

Recent fortunate events have left me thinking a great deal about the trappings of success. For those who know me personally, one of my biggest personality problems is my near inability to slow down long enough to enjoy the success that I have already had. To me, all of that is in the past tense - and my laser-focus is usually limited to what is on the easel now, and where I think the next good painting is going to come from. It's not in my personality to say "I've arrived". I think all that will be more than open for interpretation long after I am gone. Even after some of the best sales I've ever had in January and February of this year - I remained stricken by the thought of what to do now?

That leads me to the inevitable next conclusion, and that is that it is of utmost importance to find new subjects. Even now into my 5th year of painting in the Southwest, I am eagerly looking for new subjects to explore, including those outside of this region. One of the paintings that I've most enjoyed doing this past month was "Giant Sequoias". And some art-collector friends of mine have suggest that I should attempt paintings of Mount Rainer, and also the Golden Gate Bridge. I'm eager for the challenge, because that releases me a bit from the bulk of my work which is Southwestern. In that lies the knowledge that I believe that this style I work in can be applied to virtually any landscape with beautiful results.

One of the unspoken of aspects of art is the art of finding a proper subject. The importance of this cannot be emphasized enough. How do you find new angles on the landscapes around you? Where are the landscapes in your region that you have not explored? Have you not featured any prominent aspects of your region - things that may make great paintings? What kind of painting needs to exist to fill a void of work that is not currently there? What kind of image is required to make people see things anew? What remains to be said, or expressed? Where is the fire hidden in the rocks?

I encourage all artists to spend some time thinking about those roads that have not yet been tread. We know that there are images to be explored that our viewers, and even ourselves, will enjoy and benefit from.

Never rest on anyone's laurels, least of all your own. Success pays the bills and buys the next stack of canvases - but transcendence is only going to be reached if we focus our relentless gaze on the future - on the road not taken. So, what now? That is the question you must ask yourself on all those days after. Therein lies the possibility of rebirth and creation.

http://www.neilmyers.homestead.com/

Tubac Arts Festival

2008-02-01T07:30:00.000-08:00

This week I am working on two Sedona paintings. One is a dried tree with the red mountains of Sedona behind - the other is a series of three red-rock spires towering above a valley of pine trees. I've always enjoyed the color challenges brought out by painting landscapes of Sedona. You get every range of red to orange on your palette, and the colors are sometimes very hard to make. But if the paintings are forcibly executed and the harmonic qualities of the reds and ochres are achieved - then interesting images emerge.

At the moment I'm getting prepared for the Tubac Arts Festival, which runs from Feb. 6 - Feb. 10th in Tubac, AZ. Tubac is a lovely small town full of art galleries and a great history in our local art scene. It is situated just under an hour's driving south of Tucson, just above the Mexican border town of Nogales. I will be doing a demonstration tomorrow at Cobalt Fine Arts from 1-3pm. If you happen to be in Tubac tomorrow, drop by and say hello! There will also be an opening on the evening of Feb. 8th for myself, Fred Collins, and Natasha Isenhour.

I'm very happy that 4 of my paintings have sold before the opening has even happened - so I send my sincerest thanks to those collectors who've purchased my work.

And to give you all a bit of a scoop on one of my next projects, and I'm planning to do a painting of the Giant Sequoias of California. We had the pleasure of briefly visiting the Mariposa grove of Sequoias at Yosimite National Park in 2006. We walked down a path for a good distance to get to them, and as we did it had begun to rain. By the time we got there it was pouring rain, we were all soaking wet and the few photographs that we have from our time in the Sequoia grove have haunted me, and now my wife and I are trying to think of a way to sneak in another trip to the region to see Sequoia National Park. I see at least one painting - maybe more, of these great trees waiting to be done. And it occured to me that I'd seen photographers taking artful shots of the Sequoias, but I have never seen a painting of one. I have visions in my head of the giant bases of these trees rendered in thick paint, with their reddish-sienna colors shining through.

Thinking about the Sequoias, Redwoods, and the old growth forests of the west, one can easily see why such amazing forests MUST be preserved. I well remember those few minutes we spent in the pouring rain at the bases of these giant trees -and the feeling that I had, as if spending time among nature's gods. Everyone should feel this, and everyone should be concerned at the sound of chainsaws in our old growth forests.

http://www.neilmyers.homestead.com/

Tubac Arts Festival & Jean-Claude Quilici

2008-01-16T06:48:00.000-08:00

This week I am in the process of finishing a large 30 x 40 inch canvas of Taos Pueblo. This appealing symphony of ochre colors always serves as a reminder of what a challenge it is to paint a Pueblo structure and do it well. Many artists like to depict single Pueblo structures or homes of that style - I attempt, much like my mentor Jean-Claude Quilici, to capture the largesse of Taos and Acoma, and to pay proper homage to their beauty and uniqueness.

At this point in the exhibit season, many of us Southern Arizona artists turn our attention to the Tubac Arts festival. This year's festival runs February 6-10, and it features countless interesting attractions and artistic displays in historic Tubac, AZ. I will have paintings on display at Cobalt Fine Arts Gallery at 5 Camino Otero, so I encourage everyone to stop by. On display at Cobalt Fine Arts are some of the last remaining unsold pieces from a large group exhibited this past November - notably "Arizona The Beautiful" and "Saguaros Under a Monsoon Sky."

This week I had an interesting discussion with a musician friend of mine, and we were thinking about the issue of originality. I believe now, more than ever, true originality is urgently necessary for any kind of real creative success. With more than 6 billion people on planet earth , it is getting harder and harder to arrive at an idea that is truly new and invigorating - especially in the art world. Yet there are many cases in art history where painters actually drifted together, because they found they came to similar styles while working separately. Braque and Picasso realized that their own experiments in painting were leading them to analytical cubism - so they decided to collaborate. Monet and Renoir often placed their easels side by side in front of the subject, and came out with canvases that were in a similar spirit, but subtly different. The post-impressionists like Van Gogh and Gauguin and Toulouse-Lautrec drifted together as a sort of natural extension in deciding where to pick up from the impressionists. But I have never been a part of any group of artists, and in some sense I am happy for that. Working alone I feel I have managed to create something distinct - paintings that are not to be confused with any other Southern Arizona artist. And I have always been hyper-aware of how often I've walked in galleries in the west and seen a blur of indistinguishable paintings. It was sometimes as if the signatures on the paintings could have been inter-changed and nobody would notice.

That does not mean I have not had my own inspirations and my own master. From the very early days, around 1992 when I did my first oil paintings, I was always attracted to bright colored paint and the thick application of it. This occurred with no prompting, just a confirmation of instincts. And in about 1994 I had the pleasure of learning about contemporary French artist Jean-Claude Quilici. Quilici happened to be the cousin of one of my great friends, the French professor Dr. Augustin Quilici, from Lenoir-Rhyne College. Dr Quilici showed me Jean-Claude's work, and I was enthralled. This was it! This was the place to start.

Jean-Claude Quilici has garnered many accomplishments in his years of painting - for me, he offered regular friendship and encouragement, copies of books and of his works, as well as posters with full color reproductions. He was wise enough to offer encouragement and advice, but we never studied together and he never directed me to do this or that with my work. He did what a great artist should do, offer himself as an example if needed - but leave the student to find his or her own direction. I think Jean-Claude also knew that the discoveries that really matter are those we make alone in the studio, or in front of the subject - not something rambled over in a loud, raucous discussion of artists.

To this day, I can honestly admit that few things make me happier than seeing examples of Jean-Claude's work that I have not seen before. We've met twice, and we still keep in touch by mail. His work continues to soar in excellence and vibrancy - and I openly consider him my "maitre" and friend.

I do encourage everyone to make themselves familiar with the work of Jean-Claude Quilici, and by doing so, those of you with an interest in my work will see the seeds of inspiration that have given rise to my very own paintings.

Visit Neil's official paintings website at www.neilmyers.homestead.com

The Empty Easel and the Long December

2007-12-28T07:16:00.000-08:00

This week the easel is empty. I decided a few days ago to make my last painting, a blooming Agave, the last painting of 2007. (The image to the left is 'Saguaro at Romero Ruins' finished a couple of weeks ago). It seemed appropriate as I thought about Agaves, how they raise their central shoots as high as they possibly can and then bloom - casting their seeds to the earth before the Agave dies. Painters like myself, we do the same. We work sowing the seeds of our paintings in the world - then they go into the world and the images take own their own lives. It makes me think of that wonderful feeling you get in high-quality art galleries, that feeling of assurance that you are not alone. That you are there with the shadows of all those artists who came before you.

I find myself thinking of the Counting Crows song "Long December" that goes "It's been a long December and there's reason to believe, maybe this year will be better than the last..."

For me, 2007 was a very good year. If I am honest with myself, I should say that it was a year like many others - one which was beset with challenges and problems of it's own sort, but not such as would diminish the accomplishments of the year. In February my work was featured in Tucson Home Magazine as part of their "3 of a Kind" artist series. And in November I was featured in the "Best of the West" section in Southwest Art Magazine. It has been a godsend that magazines have written about my work, and it is my goal to continue to give them something in my paintings that will keep them thinking and keep those keyboards clicking. And as always, sales have been good and steady in 2007 - even during the slow Summers here in Arizona.

If there has been a change in my work this past year, I could probably say that the overall texture of the paintings has become thicker, creating a more abrasive surface. This has been useful in implying movement, even in the sky which is usually far away in many artist's works. I've also explored other regions, resulting in paintings of Acoma Pueblo as well as farther afield at Easter Island, and the Baobabs of Madagascar. I still see, in my mind's eye, paintings of Washington DC, of France, and new images from New Zealand. I've yet to know how they are going to materialize. They may emerge in 2008.

There is no grand wisdom to ponder when a year comes to a close - only the simple thought, the sense that time is passing. A few more lines around the eyes, a few more aches where you never had aches before...and the creeping sensation that there is no time to waste in our lives. That if we believe we are here for a purpose, it is our job to do that thing, to give it life and meaning. So that when we are older and look back on our limited time in this world, we can say to ourselves "I did it."

We are all given to one another for a time, and just as that time had a beginning, it will also have an end. So don't waste one more minute in this world - tell people how you feel, be as honest as good society will let you be - and have the courage to make the best of every moment.

It may have been a "Long December", but yeah, there's reason to believe - maybe next year will be better than the last.

Happy 2008 to everyone!

http://www.neilmyers.homestead.com/

Lessons From Ansel Adams

2007-12-17T12:20:00.000-08:00

This week I have just finished a new canvas called "Sunset in the Catalinas", which depicts that moment when the light turns at a sharp angle on the hills and Saguaros - heralding the arrival of the end of the day. It is painted with dark contrasts much like many of my other works - and it is only one aspect of the feeling a sunset leaves on someone who is lucky enough to see it from Southern Arizona. There is another moment that comes after this kind of light - and in this other moment, just as the sun is about to set, the mountains and vegetation turn a near holographic pink. This only lasts for a few minutes, but it is something that I hope to capture one day. Then as the sun goes below the horizon we see the stripes of teal and orange and pink, the last and most beautiful moment as the stars emerge and the night comes.

Contrast is a great lesson in art. I am a believer in the power and the emotional range of contrast. One of those artists that taught me about this was the American photographer Ansel Adams. Adams worked nearly his entire life in the medium of black and white photography - however his images are so incredibly compelling, I have always felt that there are inherent lessons in them - even for a colorist like myself.

It has always seemed to me that Adams has the most spectacular sense of what is was that made a good picture. Never could you say that an Ansel Adams picture is devoid of content. Even if it is nothing but a huge sky with clouds, it is immediately apparent that Adams chose his subjects carefully - that the photographic print was complete, and full of the image that it sought to render. His tactic of darkening a sky deeply so that the objects on the foreground stood out in stronger contrast is quite amazing. Ansel seemed to understand that there were photos underneath the photos - something deeper and more beautiful that the object on the surface. I've heard it said that he would wait for hours until the light or the cloud formations of a landscape were just right, and then 'click', he made his photo.

Perhaps one needs to understand, as an artist, that no every single image that bombards the senses can be made into a lasting, eternal piece of art. Part of the act of having some kind of discretion is knowing what will not work - what image, photo or painting, does NOT constitute a compelling enough image to be memorable and unique. And of course, this is a personal process for most artists. I shoot photos that I paint my paintings from - and probably 85% of the photos shot out on location stand no chance whatsoever in becoming a Neil Myers painting. For me, the image must contain a full measure of content and feeling, and if it doesn't, it's just another snapshot. I would never want those random shots to become 'just another' painting.

One critic in the Ric Burns documentary on Ansel Adams stated that "There is something about Ansel's work which is almost Gothic". And I think that standard is a good one for an artist to hold themselves to. To the creation of work that is specific, emotional, undeniable and full of content and quality.

Ansel used to say "You know it's a good work of art if you remember it afterwards."

That is the goal we all strive for. The searing into our brains of a great work, of a true moment in time, or of a large and undeniably true image. So I can only hope that others remember my paintings the way I remember Ansel's photographs.

http://www.neilmyers.homestead.com/

Giants of the Desert

2007-12-04T07:29:00.000-08:00

This week I am busy working on a vertical study of a large Saguaro cactus that I found near the Romero Ruins at Catalina State Park. I spent most of yesterday wrestling with the background of reddish ochre colours, all the while trying to do something with the texture and shape of the paint - and, at the same time, trying also to create something spontaneous in shape and form. I have noticed that the shapes you see in nature follow very loose patterns, and it is rare that you see straight lines or predictable angles. Rather, if you are an interpretive artist like I am, then your hand must be somewhat loose in order to create the fluid forms of nature. It is a tight balance between control and non-control.

I have tried for several years now to capture the special quality of our Giant Saguaros of the Sonoran Desert. They are really a local icon of our landscape - large, powerful plants and loom in anthropomorphic shapes all around our hills and flatlands. One thing that I have done that many artists seem to rarely try is that I have done countless works which were studies of the Saguaros themselves - rather than the more popular tactic of merely featuring the Saguaro in a larger landscape. Of course it is always in a larger landscape, but I believe that they are amazing when viewed in small groups together, or alone in one single, large canvas rendition. They are imbued with every variation of light that our desert has to offer. We see the progression of the day as it moves across the creased shapes of the Saguaros, and the eerie shadows that they cast onto the dusty ground. To me they stand alone as an object in our ecosystem that is worthy of individual study.

Another thing I do that may be considered unusual is that when I go out in search of images that I want to turn into paintings, I always look for Saguaros that are unusual in their shape or fundamental characteristics. Southwestern artists seem often to just stylize the Saguaro into a neat, easy to digest shape, with perfect arms and predictable qualities. The truth is actually that Saguaros are radical in their differences, and it is that quality that I love to explore. Some of them grow straight up and have no arms - and I believe that these are referred to as "pole" Saguaros. Some only sprout arms high up on their central trunks. Some sprout arms 1 inch above the ground. Some are partially dead and decaying, but still standing. And some of the most amazing ones are what are referred to as "crested" saguaros, where the top of the saguaro fans out into a creased fan-like shape. This is extremely rare. Among the stands of Saguaros that I commonly visit, there are only 3 that I know of. One of them is on Ina Road in Tucson, and I've painted it - the painting is at Wild Holly Gallery in Carefree, AZ.

Some people still pick on me because I have an easterner's habit of saying the word "Saguaro" with a hard "g", like "Sa-Gwaro", when the local habit is to say "sa-Waro". (I did some Internet research and one site said that the modern word "Saguaro", however you choose to say it, is a Spanish language corruption of an old Pima Indian word. So it is highly likely that we are all pronouncing it wrong relative to the name of the plant given by the local Pima Indians) However whatever you choose to call it, however you like to say it - our Saguaros are powerful icons of our landscape - rewarding to look at and wonder about, dazzling to explore with a paintbrush.

http://www.neilmyers.homestead.com/

Learning to Love All The Seasons

2007-11-28T07:56:00.000-08:00

This week I must admit that I am still working on the new Acoma Pueblo painting that I talked about last week. The maze of ladders, shadows, and the long range of delicate pink and ochre colours are all keeping me plenty busy. But this one is 87% done, and will likely see the end of the road in the next few days. New works have also been posted on the "New Paintings" page of my official website at http://www.neilmyers.homestead.com/ , including my first painting of the Sierras called "Yosemite Valley." This work is part of an extended group of themed paintings that I will be doing that is inspired by our amazing national parks.

One thought that has been buzzing around my head came up after a talk with a gallery director this past week. He was mentioning that some collectors did not look favorably on a painting of mine that depicted a dead Saguaro. It got me to thinking about the kind of works that people buy - and those subjects which have sold the best for me, and it does seem to me that there is a low level, perhaps unspoken, preference for seeing any plant or landscape in full bloom - or in the prime of its life. If this is true, as it seems it is in many instances, I have to admit that I don't understand where it comes from.

I think it was Camille Pissaro who complained in a letter that all the Paris collectors wanted at that particular time was "Haystacks, Summer Sunshine" by Claude Monet. So is there now, as there seemed to be then, a preference for just certain seasons of natural life?

I believe that if you fancy yourself as an appreciator of natural beauty, then you are obliged to appreciate it in all its forms and stages of life - including that of death. All around the Sonoran desert we have these grand old skeletons of Saguaros that continue to stand, poking their wooden, spindly forms into the air often long after they die. They form a stark contrast to the olive-greens of the living Saguaros - as the dead ones and their wooden skeletons add yet another color and feature to our desert. Some collapse and you come across them decaying on the ground. They are interesting artistically, for the main reason that the Saguaro has such a long lifespan. It is not uncommon for them to live for up to 200 years or more. And they are often around 50 years old before they are even large enough to sprout a single arm.

I've heard some people say that there is a cultish obsession in America with youth - and that we don't value the wisdom of age and the stages of life the way we really should. And perhaps this was emerging in the comment about my Saguaro painting. Of course, a collector is obliged to buy or enjoy whatever images they like - and I for one am simply grateful that wonderful collectors continue to purchase my works and give me great motivation to keep going. However I can only encourage everyone to broaden their vision, and learn to see the beauty in all living things - and appreciate them at every point of their existence, including the end.

The autumn and the winter are just as beautiful as the spring and summer.

http://www.neilmyers.homestead.com/

Somewhere in-between Acoma and Catalina

2007-11-21T10:05:00.000-08:00

For the past 4 days I have been working on a new painting of the Acoma Pueblo, in New Mexico. The wash coat has been laid down and I'm carefully drawing out a maze of ladders and pink pueblo walls and ochre coloured earth. My first Acoma Pueblo painting was "Acoma Pueblo, Sunny Day" and it was quickly sold by the Max Gallery in Tucson - shipping out, if I remember correctly, to collectors in Virginia.

My 13 paintings currently on display at the Max Gallery in Tucson are due to come down shortly, but many are still featured on my website at http://www.neilmyers.homestead.com/ . Another show is in the works for the Tubac Arts Festival, in February. I am also featured in the November 2007 issue of Southwest Art Magazine, in the "Best of the West" section.

For me the attraction of the settlements of our Native Americans is more than just nostalgic - I feel the most alive when I visit these places. They are unlike anything that modern society builds. In many cases, they are quiet, solemn places where you are alone with the wind and the blue sky above you. I feel ecstatic, amazingly alive in places like Acoma and Taos. My eyes are filled with images of lovely, organically shaped Pueblos that seem to rise up out of the earth, like they are a part of the earth - a continuation of it.

This morning I visited Catalina State Park, just down the road from where I live in Oro Valley, Arizona. It was a cool, crisp morning and the sun had not yet peaked above the ridges of the giant Catalinas that loom above our part of town. The entire landscape was lit, as if by a cool blue-gray shadow, and the rays of the early morning sun emerged slowly from behind the rocky mountain peaks. Just as I entered the park, I saw a dark form dart across the road. Driving up to that spot slowly I looked around, and off to my right was a dusty peppered colored coyote, slowly making his way through a field of short grass. I slowed down and watched his progress - and then saw another car approaching from a distance. The coyote took one look at me, and then one look at the approaching car - timed his run perfectly, and darted in front of both of us, back to the other side of the road.

I love coyotes dearly, for their nighttime cackling howls, and for their incredible resourcefulness and cunning. A coyote seems to always do what is necessary, and that seems like a great lesson for all of us.

Back to the easel! Much 'necessary' work to be done! Happy thanksgiving!

*All images are Copyright Neil Myers 2007

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