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

Two Drawings in Line - Art by Sarah Myers

Abundance with a Cornucopia, Sarah Myers
Minimal line drawing in charcoal

    Here are two drawings with classical inspiration; a figure with an overflowing cornucopia and an Athena with helmet and shield. While the minimal outlines describing them are a style we associate with modernism, it's also true that the ancient Greeks were masters of the very simple, very accurate line that brings so much life and energy to their vase-paintings, and I hope that some of that influence remains in my drawings - even though these quick sketches, made at least partly to express fugitive thoughts on even more transient social media, are very much results of the present era.

Athena, Sarah Myers
Minimal line drawing in charcoal

Head of a Woman - Sculpture by Sarah Myers

Head of a Woman, Sarah Myers

     Sometimes an artwork contains more than its creative or intellectual history - as in this sculpture, where a wholly unexpected event, an explosion in the kiln, left marks unintended in the original form. It still seems odd to think of so tranquil a personage flying apart while surrounded by white-hot coils three times the temperature of a baking-oven; but such was the case.
     As she now stands she is not only the outcome of creation and catastrophe but also some gentle remedying. Several days ago I placed the two largest pieces back together as best I could. Though some chips and ceramic splinters remain missing, as they had pulverized, she now appears much as she was first intended; a peaceful, heart-shaped face, the tilted head poised on a long, graceful neck. Half-classical, half modern; and now, with the fracture lines of her mishap - where no mending could conceal the warp produced by a fire of 1260 degrees celsius – perhaps a little post-modern as well.

Head of a Woman, Sarah Myers
Front, close-up

Head of a Woman, Sarah Myers
Sculpture in stoneware

Head of a Woman, detail.  Sarah Myers 

Head of a Woman, sculpture
Sarah Myers

Head of a Woman, Sarah Myers

Woman with a Diadem - Drawing by Sarah Myers

Woman with a Diadem, Sarah Myers
Minimal line drawing in charcoal.

    One of my favourite drawings from the last year is this imaginary portrait, a woman in a Greek style of diadem. Minimal lines match the classical curves of her hair and headdress and the graceful tilt of her head, which is caught almost, but not quite, in profile. The sketch is rendered in strong black charcoal, like the others of my pictures in this long series. More of this collection is arranged on my site SarahMyersArt.com.

Woman with a Diadem, detail.  Sarah Myers

Woman with a Mirror - Sculpture by Sarah Myers

Woman with a Mirror, Sarah Myers

      Quietly she looks down at the small mirror in her right hand; her left hand holds her loosely twisted hair atop her head. It is a passing moment; the downward glance, the strands of hair wrapped through the fingers, the tranquil expression that is almost, but not quite, a smile.

    I created this art some years ago, trying to capture an action so reserved and so transient that, in the silent calm of a sculpture, it could become timeless.     

Woman with a Mirror, Sarah Myers.  Detail.

Woman with a Mirror, Sarah Myers

Woman with a Mirror.  Left side.

Woman with a Mirror, detail.  Sarah Myers.

Woman with a Small Bird - Sculpture by Sarah Myers

Woman with a Small Bird, Sarah Myers
Sculpture in terracotta

She looks at the small bird held lightly, carefully, in the palm of her hand. The bird gazes back, its head slightly turned to catch her in its view.

   The woman sits with one knee drawn up, the other leg bent as she sits on the ground; her long skirts fall in heavy folds around her. Many elements are meant to convey a connection, over the millennia, with the bright, gentle spirit of the Tanagra figures from ancient Greece. But though she is of the same lively orange-red earth – terracotta clay, full of iron, that can be found across the globe – and though she sits so still - motionless, with her tiny finch that never flies away - she is from a much younger world, the one that belongs to you and me...

  

Woman with a Small Bird, Sarah Myers
Detail

Woman with Small Bird, Sarah Myers
Left side

Woman with Small Bird, Sarah Myers
Right Side

Woman with Small Bird, Sarah Myers
Detail

Woman with a Small Bird, Sarah Myers
Close-up

Woman with a Small Bird
Sculpture by Sarah Myers

Looking Upward - Sculpture by Sarah Myers

Head Looking Upward, Sarah Myers
Sculpture in terracotta

She stares upward, head tilted back to look intently. What is she watching for? Who? What is she hoping as she gazes?

Made from a strong red terracotta, this sculpture was completed rapidly and carries the spontaneity of its quick creation. Nevertheless the image had been in my mind for months if not years, and the simple and even somewhat rough form is the outcome of a thought being suddenly imposed on malleable clay. The kiln-firing that turned it into hard earthenware made the thought a permanent image.

Head Looking Upward, Sarah Myers

Head, Sarah Myers
Terracotta

Head in terracotta.  Sarah Myers

Head Looking Upward, Sarah Myers

Lady with a Ruff - Art by Sarah Myers

Lady with a Ruff, Sarah Myers
Drawing in charcoal and conte on grey paper

She gazes down quietly at the gauzy frill running across her shoulder. The ornate ruff is only faintly outlined, but the turn of her neck and her gently lowered eyelids show her concentration on the elaborate fashion we can barely see. Our attention is not there, but on her, on the shadow that covers much of her face and the light that touches it abruptly, directly - a bright glow.

Lady with a Ruff, detail.  Sarah Myers

Abundance - Sculpture by Sarah Myers

Abundance, Sarah Myers
Sculpture in terracotta

    Leaning lightly forward, she wraps her arms around her cornucopia brimful with fruits of harvest. A late summer wind stirs in her hair and in the bowing grain.
    This sculpture was created very quickly and spontaneously from my favourite earthenware clay, a terracotta whose formula was originated by my sister and which I make from the dry minerals. The warmth of the clay's tone matches the tumbling fruits and gentle, reaching arms of the figure.

Abundance, Sarah Myers
Sculpture from slightly above

Abundance, Sarah Myers

Abundance, Detail
Sarah Myers

Abundance, sculpture in terracotta.
Side

Abundance, detail.
Sarah Myers

Abundance, Sarah Myers
Sculpture

A Favourite Sculpture - Art by Sarah Myers

Minerva in Pearls, Sarah Myers

With her gentle smile, lowered eyes, pearl necklace and tall helmet, this sculpture remains one of my favourites I have made, and my largest. She is life-scale or perhaps a little more.

Minerva in Pearls, Sarah Myers
Close-up

She was inspired from a sixteenth-century portrait of a young Dutch woman, Margarita Trip. The artist Ferdinand Bol dressed her in costume as Minerva and portrayed Margarita teaching her younger sister Maria Trip. I think in my sculpture I have used the mythological reference slightly more seriously and as a more intregal part - not indeed as homage to the Greek deity Athena (Minerva), but abstractly in praise of wisdom and the wisdom of elder sisters in particular.

Minerva in Pearls, Sarah Myers
Sculpture in stoneware

A sculpture this size takes a huge amount of clay. In this case, she consists of stoneware I mixed by hand and kneaded carefully to remove air pockets. The recipe was designed by my sister Amy Myers - it is a clay of some resistance and strength even in its raw form. The sculpture was then built over a period of three days. I work directly into the clay with a rapidity which is partly to avoid the damage that too-early drying can create, but also to preserve the spontaneity and immediacy of the human touch.

Minerva in Pearls, side view

    All art and photography by Sarah Myers

Minerva in Pearls, Sarah Myers
Detail of face and helmet

Minerva in Pearls, Sarah Myers

Kneeling Woman - Sculpture by Sarah Myers

Kneeling Woman, Sarah Myers
Sculpture in terracotta

Kneeling – perhaps dancing – the sculpture poises her delicate arms out and upward; in these images she is holding aloft a branch of brilliant bougainvillea flowers. She was finished after two days' effort, a short time that was mainly a race against the rapid drying of her tiny fingers in the desert atmosphere. After the kiln, she is a light but rich terracotta red, her colour that of a very handsome clay whose formula was developed by my sister Amy Myers. The spontaneous backward turn of her head and neck, the light lifting of her arms, the sense of motion, match the bright colour of the clay and the sunlight in which these pictures were created.

Kneeling Woman, Sarah Myers
Detail of face

Sarah Myers

Kneeling Woman, Sarah Myers
View of back

Sculpture, Sarah Myers.  Detail of face.

Kneeling Woman.  Detail of hand.

Kneeling Woman.  Sarah Myers

Kneeling Woman, Sarah Myers
From direct front

Kneeling Woman, Sarah Myers
Sculpture in terracotta