Still-life with Pineapple - Painting by Sarah Myers

Still-life with Pineapple, Sarah Myers

In this large still-life are combined a handsome pineapple, an exuberant vase of red clay, a pair of early oranges from our own orange tree, and two solemn red pears. Shape echoes shape and colours mirror colours in smaller and larger forms. The spheres of the oranges imitate the rotund base of the pottery; the outline of the more prominent pear reflects the upright body of the pineapple, though its colour – apart from the brown tones that describe its softer, natural substance - is very similar to the earthenware pot.

This painting is in acrylics. The vase is a rendering of a hand-built ceramic by my sister Amy Myers.

Still-life with Pineapple, Sarah Myers.  Detail.

Still-life with Pineapple, detail.

Still-life with Pineapple, Sarah Myers
Detail

Bright Flowers Light a Dim Day - Photography by Sarah Myers

Bright Bouquet, Sarah Myers
Photography

     On an overcast day, these bright colours came inside - simply a yellow rose, a dark red rose, cherry-coloured geraniums, some orange lantana. In a graceful vessel by my sister Amy Myers, they bring a vivid fistful of beauty to the room, like the music of trumpets and violins on an empty, still noon.

Flowers on a Dim Day, Sarah Myers
Photography

Still-Life with Two Oranges, Painting by Sarah Myers

Still-Life with Two Oranges, Sarah Myers

    Central to this painting are two vessels in warm white stoneware, whose long, handsome lines contrast with the abrupt brightness of the oranges.  The pitcher and handled cup are a muted, gentle tone but hard in their surfaces, where the fruit with its brash colour and simple spheres make a much more yielding substance.

The ceramics were created by Amy Myers. The still-life is acrylic on canvas.

Still-Life with Two Oranges, detail
Sarah Myers

Still-Life, detail
Sarah Myers

Morning Cherries, Photography by Sarah Myers

Morning Cherries
Photography by Sarah Myers

A bowl of deep red, juicy fruit and their crowd of little stems, just waiting...  And the cheerful orange of lantana.  The bowl and the pot are handthrown ceramics by Amy Myers, see her creations here.

Wine-Coloured Chrysanthemums

Chrysanthemums, Desert Branches in a Pitcher
Photography by Sarah Myers

Great, glowing burgundy chrysanthemums, placed in a graceful pitcher - a form inspired by an ancient Greek shape, the oinochoe, and created by Amy Myers.  Photography by Sarah Myers.

Wine-coloured Chrysanthemums
Photography, Sarah Myers

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!

Fruit Still-Life

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.

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

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.