Schnauzer Portrait

Seated Schnauzer, S. Myers    ink on paper

Still-Life and Amy Myers Rustic Collection

Still-Life with Grapes and White Bowl, S. Myers   Photograph 2012

White Pot, Rustic Collection
Amy Myers
Stoneware, Tin-White Glaze

     
   Earlier this year I was privileged to take photos for Amy Myers' "Rustic Collection", a series of hand-thrown ceramics inspired by the Middle Ages -  by its rustic daily ware, produced at the same time the great French cathedrals were being built, and full of the same astonishing combination of sunlight, quiet, and overwhelming nervous energy. 

White Bowl, Rustic Collection
Amy Myers
Stoneware, Tin-White Glaze

    Amy Myers has conveyed this emotion into her collection, which are her own forms and conception but also her own materials: glaze, clay, and combinations.  I endeavored to capture their quality in my photography.  Beside the set of pictures I took for her site, I also created a still-life with the bowl from the series.  I feel it to be a sober, handsome composition, suggesting simplicity rather than over-abundance; the quiet gravity of the pottery has created its own core balance.

White Pitcher, Rustic Collection
Amy Myers
Stoneware, Tin-White Glaze

Dog Sketch, charcoal

Expectation (The Black Puppy)

Still a Rose Photograph

Still a Rose

   The year is growing later, even in this place of sun and warmth.  Taken with my Canon at the end of November.

Star Medallion

           Levantine Star  
   S. Myers   Medallion, cut paper

    This decorative medallion was inspired by intricate stone-carving on a pillar in Israel.

Photo of a Black Puppy

Attentive

Carnation Medallion, Cut Paper

Vase of Carnations, S. Myers    Cut Paper Medallion

   The inspiration for this piece was a distantly glimpsed faience tile.  The medallion gained a life of its own with broad vases and exuberant blooms - it is an exceedingly fragile framework of paper!

Winter and Winter

Winter

Also Winter

   The meaning of the four seasons is utterly dependent on latitude and just a little on sea-current.  My feet, making a bold jump the equivalent of two latitude-lines, have carried a brain with them not entirely adjusted to the difference...
    The world is filled with so many varied winters.

Depiction of a Lizard

Lizard Sketch

Cat in Black and White

A Listening Cat

Autumn Rain on Roses

   The rain came - but not the angry bucketfuls, splattered by a cold blast, that I know as a Fall storm.  No; this was a slow, methodical rain, descending gently as if from an immense watering-can with very small holes; a gardener's rain, that only loaded each flower petal as heavy as it could bear without shattering the flower.  And all the roses rejoiced.

Bowing Rose with Rain

White Rain

Thirsty

Beaded Hem

Pearl Embroidery

Leopard Rain

Paul and Kay at Christmas

Paul Contemplates

    There was Paul and there was Kay.  Little Kay was a very active child, and little Paul a very pensive one, and they were both very good around Christmas time -  but they were still Paul and Kay.

    You sometimes had to tell Paul which boxes were his, because he might not get near enough to check labels.  After being told, he would sit quietly on the floor in front of the wrapped gifts and try to imagine what was inside each one.

Kay Investigates

    The parents of Kay were impressed by Paul.  Kay never left any package under the tree unexamined.  Every gift was pried at and turned over and shaken and held against the light and rattled gently and generally pawed.  Kay certainly read the labels - she could tell everyone which gift was theirs - she might tell them what it was, too, if the tape had come a tiny bit undone.  But if the package was on the mantle well out of reach even the adults could guess their box contained crystal or fragile electronics that shouldn't be gyrated to produce tell-tale festive sounds.

Kay Celebrates

   When they told Kay Christmas cake was coming, she skipped and drummed with a spoon on the edge of the cabinet.

Paul Imagines

    Paul asked what kind of cake.  They told him it had a Christmas tree on top.  This was a mistake.  You can just picture what he imagined; it was downright magical.  In his mind's eye Paul clearly saw the sparkling drum-shaped cake, about four feet across; rearing up from its center, ten feet of swaying pine branches covered with blazing lights and toy soldiers and an announcing angel in gold on the very peak of the tree.

     What he got was a sheet cake with a smudge of green frosting in a flat triangle.

    Kay ate two pieces.  Paul ate half of one.

    I think the adult relatives have almost agreed that Kay and Paul draw even.  They made this decision on Christmas morning, three thirty a.m.

Kay Watches

   Kay came right down the stair into the front room and stood watching weary adult gift-bearers until they became aware of her presence and lifted her bodily out of the way.

    But Paul; well, he was coming down too - the temptation was just as great...  He knew he shouldn't look...  He didn't want to see until the very last second.  He had his eyes closed as he was climbing down the stairs, and he was only a third down when he missed his footing.

    When they picked him up at the bottom of the stairs he closed his eyes tight again.  But they let him see anyway...  After all, Kay had already been there.

Paul Tumbles

    A Christmas tree with all the gifts is especially marvelous at three thirty a.m.  If adults don't know this, it's because they haven't rattled all the boxes or fallen down a staircase with their eyes shut.

Visiting Bee

Fall Honey

Views of a Small Schnauzer

Schnauzer Watching

Schnauzer from Back

    Studies of the most marvelous little Schnauzer.

Gold Rose

The Gold Rose

    A fragile sculpture, caught with my camera several weeks ago.

The Delectable Cat

Cat with the Long Whiskers

Homage to Matisse, Paper Medallions

Matisse Foliage Medallion, S. Myers

   These are medallions in cut paper inspired by Henri Matisse's paintings and own cut-paper works.

Matisse Still Life Medallion, S. Myers

Matisse Lattice Medallion, S. Myers

Schnauzer Sketch

Small Schnauzer, Eating

   You never realize how frequently a small animal moves until you are poised with a pen in your hand...  How many lines can you place on paper before the little shape escapes from its picture-plane altogether?

Honey Bee and Bloom

Bee and bliss

   When I touched this bloom, a sheet of petals spilled into my hand.  But much of the rose was left and a moment later the bee arrived, to work as diligently at this flower as at newer blooms around it.

   Now if only I could post the fragrance...

Dachshund Study and From Life or Photo?

Reclining Dachshund

    This picture was sketched from life, as were two posted earlier, Labrador and Dachshund Drawing.  Very Small Dog and Pale-eyed Puppy were worked from my own photos.

    There is a huge difference between drawings taken directly from life and those from photographs.  Sketching from a photograph is by far the simpler process (objects do not move, the angles are predetermined) and there is information the artist will never discover by any other means - no one knew the exact positions of a horse's legs at the gallop or the air-foil movement of birds' wing feathers until the invention of the camera.

    But the artist's eye looking at reality and looking at a secondary image will perceive totally different priorities.  Somehow a leveling occurs with the photograph; not only is every detail visible but every detail is equal.  Viewing the photographic image, the artist finds the corner of a man's collar as intriguing for pencil or brush to reproduce as the corner of his eye.

    When you are looking directly at a living thing this lack of proper priority is far less likely to occur.  What was emotionally important when you viewed your subject will, if you are careful, retain its importance in the finished work.  Indeed, you may be forced to simplify to just those important elements in order to finish your study before your sitter moves too drastically!

     It is this emphasis on the most expressive elements that gives a sketch from life its true liveliness.  Drawing from life is twice the challenge of working from photography - it often results in twice the Art. 

The Three Gracefuls

Rose Trio

Sketch of a Very Small Dog

Very Small Dog

The Pale-Eyed Puppy

Puppy Looking

Paper Maiolica

Maiolica Medallion

   These are cut paper medallions inspired by the patterns on antique Mexican maiolica.

Maiolica Birds

Maiolica Garland

Line Drawing of a Labrador

Labrador

Rose and Sunlight

   I caught this vivid bloom holding very vivid afternoon sun.  I often position myself so light is behind the object I photograph, if it is consistent with the picture's detail and safety of the camera.  There is something melancholy about having my back to the daylight.  I prefer to face into the sun toward a brilliantly lit subject...

Elephant ink sketch

Elephant Striding

Lost

Head of a Woman,  2011  Sarah Myers

  

    She is not the first sculpture I have lost and most likely not the last...  But she was the latest and the largest.

    I could not find an appropriate method for producing a cast, could not ship her and in the end had no room to take her with me.  I might have been resigned to receiving her in a somewhat Mitoraj state at the other end of the adventure.  But a sculpture of her weight, fragility and size (she was life-scale - large life-scale) cannot be packed in a vehicle which is already a solid Rubik's cube of boxes.  So here is a blurry picture of my creation leaning against the wall of the old studio, this written lament, and my growing resolution to make something like her in the future.

Exhausted - (Jack-out-of-box)

Fan Palms

Op Art Palm 18

Op Art Palm 6

   Fan palms are Art Deco of the plant-world: brash, vigorous, bright.  The strength of their effect comes largely from the size and rigid forms of the vivid leaves, and a slight anthropomorphic character from the way they stand with these leaves held like outspread hands.  Standing beneath several half-grown specimens, I photographed the intense sun through their geometric foliage and came the closest to producing Op Art I have (or ever will) come...

Op Art Palm Stripe

Op Art Palm Ogee

Op Art Palm 9