January 30, 2013

Saving Art

art, painting, still-life, gourd, red, yellow, gray, cubist, rayonist, arte, abstract, Judie Myers, 1960's, oil, salvage, save, artist, painter, move
Gourd, Vase and Gray Metal, Judie Myers   Still Life, Oil on Canvas


    Six months ago my mother, my sister and I stood in the small studio of our old house. A full-sized dumpster sat outside, already over half full.

   When you must move accumulated belongings, forty years of the life of a family and nearly twenty-five of that in the same house, it is not true there is no room for sentiment. There is almost no room for anything else.

   To standard household goods and beloved mementos you must take with you, you add the studio work of three artists. You resolve you will keep only the best pieces. You have already decided which are the best – long ago. Nothing else is going to accompany you.

yellow, gourd, vase, painting, Judie Myers, art, arte, artist, rayonist, cubist, abstract, vigorous, powerful, salvage, save, oil
Gourd, Vase and Gray Metal, Detail
 Judie Myers
woman, arte, S. Myers, Sarah Myers, sculpture, art, artist, save, vase, earthenware
Woman with Vase, S. Myers
Salvaged Piece
    But art has a little life separate from its creator, and an artist is often not the one deciding the fate of their works. In two cases here they were not...


   Out from back of a stack of unfinished canvases – many of them torn or injured in various ways – I drug a painting; it was red and yellow and gray, vibrant even after the dust and stress of an unheated, uncooled studio. I set it up against the wall.

January 29, 2013

Drawing, Ocean Figure

drawing, figurative, conte, charcoal, sketch, study, art, artist, arte, cardboard, brown, map, ocean, sea, woman, oceanid, water, allegorical, personification, S. Myers, Sarah Myers
Drawing for the Margin of an Antique Map    S. Myers, Charcoal and Conte on Cardboard


   This quick charcoal-and-conte drawing was constructed from three or four studies used for my much larger painting - my new one, which I will introduce in a future post
.
   Brown, aged paper is very good for showing conte well - my stash having disappeared temporarily, I requisitioned the top of a strong packing box before inspiration disappeared in the same way as the paper.

January 28, 2013

Failure of Solar Power

wet, rain, cloud, palm, plant, tree, photograph, artist, art, S. Myers, Sarah Myers, gray
Days and Days of This


    I’ve been eager to post so many things for you to see – a very new painting, old sculptures safely unpacked, a sketch or so, a whole half-dozen different images. But they all needed my camera, and my camera needed the Sun.

    All week the sky has been a gentle, moody, glum expanse of cloud. Now and then the rain comes down in the same gentle, depressed manner, leaving palm-trunks dripping black and the little concavities and cracks in the patio shaded darker with damp – merely shaded, since even during this wet spell the air here is so dry standing water evaporates immediately.

   I am putting up an eyewitness photograph to substantiate my claim. As soon as the Sun breaks through consistently I will seize my camera and drag some artwork out into the longed-for light.         

January 20, 2013

Three Horse Studies

horse, gallop, arte, charcoal, S. Myers, Sarah Myers, running, sketch, study, art, line-drawing
Horse at a Gallop, S. Myers     Charcoal on Paper

horse, charcoal, turning, twisting, active, sketch, study, art, arte, S. Myers, Sarah Myers, spontaneous, line-drawing
Horse Turning, S. Myers    Charcoal on Paper

horse, charcoal, line-drawing, standing, S. Myers, Sarah Myers, art, arte, study, sketch, spontaneous, morgan
Horse Standing,  S. Myers   Charcoal on Paper


The Yellow Orchids

flowers, art, arte, yellow, orchid, S. Myers, Sarah Myers, artist, bloom, arch, plant, photograph, bright
Arch of Orchids    S. Myers, photograph 2013

   A glorious arch of orchid blooms on a plant given to me for Christmas.  They continue to flower,even as the first blossoms remain bright and whole...  They are distilled sunlight.

January 17, 2013

Two Horse Pictures

horse, art, arte, artist, animal, gallop, S. Myers, Sarah Myers, action, charcoal, sketch, study
Head of Galloping Horse, S. Myers   Charcoal on Paper
   I have posted two pictures produced in very different artistic vocabularies.   They are expressions of the same horse, flying at an excited canter...
horse, line, drawing, gallop, arte, S. Myers, Sarah Myers, sketch, study, art, artist, rapid, animal, morgan, mane

Still-Life Photograph

vase, still-life, sculpture, art, arte, artist, flowers, geraniums, jade-plant, clay, porcelain, woman, S. Myers, Sarah Myers, bouquet
Evening Still-Life, S. Myers   Photograph, 2013

   Geraniums and jade-plant flowers in a vase I created years ago make a tiny bouquet in my bedroom window.

The Serious Cat

Cat, art, animal, serious, S. Myers, Sarah Myers, charcoal, arte, sketch, study, stare, feline
The Serious Cat, S. Myers   Charcoal on Paper 2013

January 5, 2013

Hubris

Neptune, Poseidon, sparrow, small, Greek, fountain, plaza, hubris, poetry, bird, art, S. Myers, Sarah Myers
Neptune and Sparrow, S. Myers    Photograph 2011




HUBRIS



Upon the shoulder of an angry Neptune in the square
Danced a handsome sparrow full of restaurant scraps.
He preened, he fluffed, put bird-dust in the air
While people stood about and looked at maps.

***

O be not angry, Neptune, near your nose
This creature roosts himself, an arrant midge;
Nor pour your fury out on all of those
Who see, but do not blame, the sacrilege.

For even if we thought as men have thought
And owned your might, and your dominion broad,
We still might not dislodge him from the spot -
He, protege of yet still mightier god.

Yea Neptune, see the omen we ignore,
This arrogance that preens and props and sprawls;
The symbol of what rules now evermore -
Without whom not the proudest sparrow falls.



                                                     - S. Myers, 2011

Fruit Still-Life

fruit, orange, avocado, earthenware, terracotta, green, arte, S. Myers, Sarah Myers, art, photography, still-life, wall, palms, curl, California
California Fruit     S. Myers, Photograph 2013


  This and the previous post are still-lifes created with an earthenware pot I built years ago and some produce from my new locale.  The brilliance of the color matched the simplicity of the shapes, everything forming a harmony very far from the flying ice and deep-frozen gray fields I associate with January.