News and Press
"Etching and Sketching": Central Kentucky News-Journal article.
by James Roberts. May 9, 2012.
Original article includes 5 photos.
Article link: http://www.cknj.com/content/etching-and-sketching
Though the No. 2 pencil is still his preferred tool, local artist Gerald Myers has found a new outlet for his artistic endeavors. An Etch A Sketch is his latest medium.
"It's just something I do," Myers said. "To me, it's no big deal, but it seems others are impressed by it."
Myers, 49, who has been drawing since he was a child, first started doodling on the Etch A Sketch when he and his wife, Terry, found them while cleaning out some of their children's old toys.
But he really started using it more often because he isn't a sports fan.
"My kids play sports, but I'm not a big sports fan," he said. "When my kids aren't playing, I pull out the Etch A Sketch. About the only time I do anything with it is at ball games or banquets.
"I don't take it to church ... yet," Myers said with a laugh. He often finds people looking over his shoulders at ball games.
"They ask me, 'How do you do that?' I tell them, 'I turn the knobs.'"
The fact is, Myers said, drawing on the Etch A Sketch was easy from the moment he first tried it, though he said he has gotten better over time.
With the Etch A Sketch, Myers has drawn numerous portraits of people such as President Abraham Lincoln, characters from "The Wizard of Oz" and a few reproductions of famous works of art. He uses the pocket-sized and standard-sized devices.
Once he is finished, he keeps them for a little while, snaps a photo and then erases the image and starts another drawing. He said he has never thought about selling them, though he has discovered numerous artists who sell Etch A Sketch art online.
Though art has always been a part of his life, and he continues to sell his work online at www.geraldmyersart.com, finding the time to create these days is tough, Myers said.
A father of three, Myers works two jobs in between driving his children to various practices, games and school functions. He also helps his father with his heavy equipment business. Having fought cancer twice, Myers said, has taken some financial toll on the family, which is why he finds himself working so hard these days. But, he said, the artistic spark is always there. And, when he finds the time to draw, Myers said the work comes naturally, whether he is drawing on a canvas or turning the knobs of an Etch A Sketch.
"Artist Captures Faces, Moments": Louisville Courier-Journal article.
Campbellsville, Kentucky. - - Many people in Taylor and surrounding counties call Gerald Myers an artist. But Myers, who works at the United Parcel Service shipping hub in Campbellsville prefers to call himself an "advanced doodler."
It all began when he was 6 years old and drew some pictures on a sketch pad that belonged to one of the neighbor children. "Mom bought me a sketch pad after that, and when I went into third grade, she enrolled me in painting lessons with Seth Wade, a local artist." Myers recalled. "I went to him for two or three years, I guess."
Ten years ago, while studying the techniques of sketching the human eye, Myers became intrigued with pencil drawings, the medium though which he is now making his mark in the Central Kentucky arts community.
Working mostly with a No.2 pencil, the 37-year old father of three is preserving faces and scenes of Central Kentucky life that have eluded many other artists of his generation.
He has reproduced the white-bearded face of Marion Countian Paul Cox, "The Story Teller," a descendant of the feuding Hatfield family.
In muted shades of gray, he has portrayed "The Fiddler," Lambert LIvers of Marion County, sitting in a straight-backed chair playing one of his more than 100 fiddles.
Myers has drawn his aunt, Viola Tungate of Taylor County, working on a double wedding ring quilt, with two heirloom quilts and Myers' late mother's sewing box at her feet.
"I like to take my own photographs to work from," Myers explained. "I try to play off the shadows and see if I can capture what the camera has captured. A lot of people want me to add color, but I like black and white."
One of Myers' works is from the late Marion Post Wolcott's 1930's and early '40's photographic series documenting rural Southern life for the Farm Security Administration.
In Kentucky's Breathitt County in 1940, Wolcott photographed her car with a Double Cola spare tire cover on the back, stuck in the mud beside a creek. The vehicle is hitched to a mule whose laid-back ears suggest that he had balked at pulling the car out. Two farmers are standing on the creek bank discussing the matter.
Wolcott's husband granted permission to Myers to reproduce the photo in pencil. Myers titled the work "Double Trouble."
The limited-edition print of the drawing is one of seven prints that he has released for sale through his business, A Fine Line Studio.
Another of his prints is "Take Me to the River," copied from an old photo of a baptism in a creek in the Yuma section of Taylor County during the early 1900's.
"I hope my drawings take people some place to memories of their own past," Myers said. "What I'm doing is trying to capture the feeling of a moment."
