Two Ladies and Sky - Drawings by Sarah Myers

Lady with a Flock of Sparrows, Sarah Myers
Charcoal on paper, 2019

A lady with a flock of sparrows fluttering in the air behind her, the whirl of their wings echoing the spiral of the long ringlets trailing down her shoulder… and a woman staring earnestly out at us from a background filled with climbing, billowing clouds which mirror her bouffant bows, her frills and edges of lace. These two drawings are part of a recent collection of artwork in charcoal, sketched with simple lines across large sheets of paper. The darker, stronger charcoal contours follow paler pencil lines which form the preparatory stage.

I am happy to finally return to my blog – after a long and very unintended absence – and to post these two sketches here.

Woman with Clouds, Sarah Myers
Drawing in charcoal, 2019

Lady with Sparrows, detail of face.
Sarah Myers

Woman with Clouds, Sarah Myers
Detail of face

Lady with Sparrows, detail of birds.
Sarah Myers

Woman with Clouds, detail
Sarah Myers

Eris with the Apple of Discord - Sculpture by Sarah Myers

Eris with the Apple of Discord, Sarah Myers

Eris with the Apple of Discord, Sarah Myers
2018, terracotta

     The precious fruit poised in her hand, she turns, watching for her moment; heavy cloak clutched tightly across her side but right arm lightly lifted to aim. Her eyes glow with a sudden spark…
    In Greek legend, Eris – Discord – stirred by mischief, secretly brings a golden apple inscribed “To the Fairest” with her to a wedding feast on Mount Olympus, and, at the height of the revels, tosses it into the midst of the celebrating deities. The treasure, claimed and counter-claimed by the most powerful goddesses of the Grecian theogony, causes a quarrel which wreaks havoc on the serenity of the divine abode, and this squabble in its turn causes the grief and pain of the Trojan War among mortals far below.
    I have never been able to feel that the gravity of the results could place a greater responsibility Eris than on the other mightier beings that took the conflict so much farther; and her playful objectivity (after all, the apple could have remained hers) gives a certain sympathy to her place in the myth. So I chose this subject in spite of its mischievous, almost militant, nature, as I saw in it the possibility to capture a form I've long wanted to investigate; a sculptural moment that is both the height of action and a point of stillness and suspended motion. Her hand is just at that transition where the impetus will be imparted to the fruit, which will fly from her a fraction of a second later; and in the expression of her wide eyes and slightly parted lips, you can see her thoughts as she both anticipates the result of her deed and already sees it completed in her mind.
    And there is in this sculpture simply the abrupt glimpse of action conceived and taken, perhaps if abstracted into that one fragment of time, a thing that held the good of its own movement and beauty.

Eris, Sarah Myers
detail from below

Eris with the Apple of Discord
impressionistic detail of hand

Eris with the Apple of Discord, Sarah Myers
sculpture from back

Eris, Sarah Myers
detail of face

Eris with the Apple of Discord, Sarah Myers
Sculpture in terracotta

Horse and a Windy Day - Line Drawings

Head of a Horse in Wind
Sarah Myers, Charcoal on Paper

     Two studies of a horse on a lightly windy day, sketches drawn in black charcoal with simple lines.

Horse Running in a Light Wind
Sarah Myers, Charcoal on Paper

Two Roses - and Prints are now Available!

Roses and Wrought Iron 
Digital Photography
S. Myers, 2012, 2013

   Two delicate roses look down from their wrought-iron rose-tower, late on a Summer day...

   I am now making prints of my photography available on Imagekind at www.smyers.imagekind.com!
   I have already started two galleries, one "Flora" presents garden details in all their vivid colours; the other, "BlackWhite", is a collection of monotone studies.
    The picture above is available in a range of sizes, on photo papers or canvas, here:

    Roses and Wrought Iron, S. Myers.

Young Colt, Charcoal Drawing S. Myers

Young Colt, S. Myers   Charcoal on Paper , 2013

Painting. Figure: Ocean S. Myers

Figure: Ocean    S. Myers, Acrylic on Canvas  2013

     My newest painting began with inspiration from Baroque maps, where figures personifying seasons, continents, and oceans stand on either side or recline at the bottom, ornamenting already elaborate and fantastic charts.

      But I was also looking at pictures of Brazilian interiors.  And I was full of the colors and enchanting vistas of Raoul Dufy. So as I spread the brilliant blue, the brown, and the mica/iron gold paint on the canvas, I resolved, not to hold to a single influence, simply to create something that would show very well on a wall.

Fan Palm Photograph

Sunburst Palm  
   S. Myers, Photograph 2013

   Another photograph of a favorite subject, fan palms.

   Yes indeed, the sides of the picture really do go straight up, despite the attempt of this wonderful leaf to warp both verticals.

Ox, Charcoal Studies. S. Myers

Ox: Charcoal Study      S. Myers, Charcoal on Paper

    He lay, a brilliant splash of red and white in the spring-green grass - the quiet owner of a gorgeous pair of horns. I’ve so wanted a picture of him for my art; but day after day as we drove past his field, I did not have my camera, or we didn’t have time, or he and his fellow steer were at the far end of their lot.

    But the other day I did capture his portrait. He didn’t mind my proximity, or my fuss with the camera. When spoken to, he looked at me with gentle unconcern.

   This first study was drawn while looking at the photograph and remembering the animal himself – his massive bulk, the extravagant span and curve of his horns.

Ox from Memory, Study    S. Myers, Charcoal on Paper

    The second sketch is an experiment. I hid the photo from sight, also my resulting study, and simply drew from memory, trying to recall the information I had gathered.

    I really think this technique of working from mentally assembled information is similar to how the ancient Greeks created drawings for their pottery. There is both a certain simplification and a certain emphasis on memorable details in Greek pottery paintings that makes me think that though they gathered their primary information from life, painting on vases was not done directly from a live model. The forms had settled and brewed a little while in the consciousness, as a study and as a memory – of how a spine curves, of how a dog’s legs and head look from behind, of how fingers rest on a harp-string. Then the pot-painters created the red and black shapes that parade across the best of Greek ceramics – depictions of men, women, horses, lions... and, very occasionally, a handsome ox...

Hovering Orchids Photograph

Hovering Orchids, S. Myers
Photograph 2013

Dachshund Portrait, Photograph

Portrait of Norbert      S. Myers
Photograph, 2013

Violinist, Drawing S. Myers

Music: Violin     S. Myers, Charcoal on Paper

   This drawing is inspired by two sources I find marvelous: classical music and skillful hands.
    Someday, I tell myself, I will sketch a series, studies of hands belonging to musicians, potters, carpenters, couturiers and others.  Because every creative profession produces its own unconscious poise and typical movement in the fingers.
   Here I also tried to capture concentration in the eyes...

Bull Box

Box in the shape of a Bull     S. Myers
Red Earthenware

    I built this box from clay some time ago as a Christmas gift.
    I lived for many years in a suburb surrounded by fields and the fields were full of meat cattle - deep-bodied, low to the ground, like immense rectangles with small, handsome heads.  I may have exaggerated the squareness here, even for one of those bulls - but it is certainly right for a box!

Studies: Heads from Different Angles

Woman's Head, Seen from Slightly Above     S. Myers, Charcoal on Paper 

   Two studies, faces from different angles.

Woman's Head, Seen from Slightly Below    S. Myers, Charcoal on Paper

A Red Primrose

Bright Red Primrose, Photograph   S. Myers

   Portrait of a primrose, bought cheaply - but could you imagine a happier face for a flower?
   An Expert Gardener here tells me primroses are considered cold-weather annuals here, due to the warm season's dry and heat.  I have placed my pot in the shade where I intend to plant the flower - I am drenching it from time to time with water and for now the weather remains a cool gray.  The primrose smiles at the sky and blooms.

Drawing: Profile, Woman with Headdress

Profile, Woman with Headdress    S. Myers, Charcoal on Paper

Camellia Photograph

Perfect Flower, Camellia    S. Myers, Photograph  2013

Woman's Head, Charcoal Drawing S. Myers

Woman Glancing to the Side,    S. Myers
 Charcoal and Conte on Paper

     It’s always wise to view your artwork, during creation, from the same angle you intend to use once you are finished. If it’s to be hung on the wall, work with it upright. When a larger picture lies flat, there is always an element of foreshortening.

     I take angles into serious account with my sculpture; if it’s an object intended to sit on a high pedestal, I clamber around under it and make sure the shapes function from below; if the art is made for a position like that on a low table, I work with it at hand-height or lower.

    But last night I wholly forgot to apply the rule with my drawing. The result was that, while the sketch was lying on the table or the floor it looked quite handsome; but jerked upright it was an altogether different piece. The cheeks were distressingly lax; in some areas flow of the modeling was totally lost.  I needed to pull the picture out of distortion, and quickly.

     Foreshortening on a two-dimensional piece can be used skillfully as a visual trick; the formal name for this is anamorphosis. I don’t believe many examples have been produced in the realm of fine art, but Holbein used it famously in his Ambassadors, where a viewer standing in front will see only a dignified double portrait with an inexplicable brown and white streak in the foreground. If the viewer moves well to the left, however, this strange shape foreshortens and resolves itself into a skull.

     I had no intention of producing an anamorphosis that appealed only in the horizontal. After my surprise and recalculation, I taped the drawing to my closet door and finished it from that angle. This helped the picture considerably. But it also dismayed my Schnauzer, who woke up from a late nap to see the charcoal face staring across the room. I cannot imagine the drawing realistic enough (from a dog’s point of view) to produce hostility; but she kept her eye on it and continued fretting and growling until I took my newest artwork off the wall once more.

Dancing Orchids, Photograph

Dancing Orchids, S. Myers   Photograph, 2013

 
    Orchids with rich pink veining, photographed against the thick post of the porch.

Drawing, Head of a Woman

Head of a Woman, Allegorical Figure, S. Myers  Charcoal and Conte on Paper 2013

   This drawing is inspired by several early Botticelli paintings I sat looking at the night before last.

    It was so enjoyable to stare at the book, at those pictures, submerged in their vast world of renewed Spring; to turn the pencil loose and watch it dance over the paper, the sound of Pablo Casals' cello all the time being background - a recording played very softly so as not to wake sleepers in the house.

Saving Art

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.

Gourd, Vase and Gray Metal, Detail
 Judie Myers

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.