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

The Cranach Hat - Sculpture by Sarah Myers

The Cranach Hat, Sarah Myers
Contemporary Sculpture in terracotta

    She tilts her head gently to the side, counterbalancing the elaborate flare of her velvet hat. Around her neck cling rich Renaissance jewels; the top of her bodice is embroidered with a scrolling pattern of stylized leaves and stems; a few stray locks of hair escape from her ornate headgear, which is also beaded and jeweled. Her sidelong glance is thoughtful and bright but almost wistful.

     My most recent sculpture was inspired, as its name implies, by the paintings of a great sixteenth-century painter, Lucas Cranach the elder. His vital, energetic but opulent portrayals struck me as perfect source material for a portrait like this one, created in a vivid red-orange terracotta at about half life-scale.

The Cranach Hat, Sarah Myers
Close-up

The Cranach Hat, Sarah Myers
Detail 

The Cranach Hat, Sculpture by Sarah Myers

The Cranach Hat, detail
Sarah Myers

The Cranach Hat, Sarah Myers

Bracelets - Sculpture by Sarah Myers

Bracelets, Sarah Myers
Sculpture in pale terracotta

     She leans forward on the palms of her hands; elaborate bracelets encircle her wrists and her dress front is shaped like a great bow which is echoed by the ribbon perched atop her hair. But her gaze is full of thought, reflective, quiet, contrasting with the extravagance of her clothes and jewellery…

     I created this piece some years ago, using a pale pink terracotta that gives a life-like effect. The composition is a very stable triangle from all sides, with small, lively edges, such as the corners of the hair-bow, the flaring bodice, lines of the bracelets and the very strong direction of the gaze emerging from the three-sided structure to give the sculpture vitality and energy.

Woman with Bracelets, Sarah Myers
Detail of face

Bracelets, Sarah Myers
Sculpture

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

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 Sculpture - with some flowers - Art by Sarah Myers

Lady holding a Bowl, Sarah Myers
Terracotta

Lady holding a Bowl, back

      A lady in red terracotta offers a bowl-full of early autumn blooms. She came successfully through the kiln; her ringlets, the gathered folds of her dress, and the shell-like bowl she holds were all perfect after the fire. She was simply waiting for someone to fill her dish or bowl with a few treasures – and so my first marigolds, a few zinnias, and a delicious rose from my sister's garden were tumbled into her outstretched hands.

Lady holding a Bowl, Sarah Myers 

Woman with a Water Pitcher - Sculpture by Sarah Myers

Woman with a Water Pitcher, Sarah Myers
Sculpture in Terracotta

    Carrying a flask of perfume in her hand and poising a bouyant water pitcher on her head, she walks toward us. Her face is radiant and serene. Her long skirts flow around her.

     In deep, bright terracotta, this sculpture was completed within two or three days. The red clay, now firm and permanent, carries both the spontanaeity of its rapid creation, the care of detail (from the sway of the body and tilted head to the ornate handle of the pitcher or the flask's pointed stopper) and a sense of history from being formed out of the world's most ancient sculpture-medium.   

Woman with Water Pitcher, Sarah Myers
Detail of face

Woman with a Water Pitcher, Sarah Myers
Close-up from side

Woman with Water Pitcher, Sarah Myers
Back

Woman with a Water Pitcher, Sarah Myers

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

Vase with a Rearing Horse - Art by Sarah Myers

Terracotta Vase with Horse, Sarah Myers

A rearing horse forms the forward part of this small vase in red earthenware.  Light-heartedly in the spirit of ancient art such as the old Persian rhytons, the container was created as a present for my sister.  I have placed a cluster of brilliant flowers - nasturtiums, geraniums (pelargoniums) and a coral-coloured rose - into its wide mouth.  This burst of scarlet, salmon, flame orange and deep yellow glows with intensity in the morning sunlight, matching the strong, natural red of the clay and the energy of the pawing, snorting horse.

Vase with Horse, Sarah Myers

Yellow nasturtiums and red geraniums in Vase with a Rearing Horse
Art and Photography by Sarah Myers

Woman with a Bowl - Sculpture by Sarah Myers

Woman with a Bowl, Sarah Myers

My newest sculpture strides gracefully forward, bearing a bowl I have clustered with flowers. Her long robes flow back and around her heels as she moves; her left hand is raised to balance the bowl atop her head – just now filled with a gift of blooms in orange and gold – and her right hand, swung down by her side, grasps a bottle or large flask.

Woman with a Bowl, Sarah Myers
Sculpture in red earthenware

She is created from red earthenware which gives a lively tint to her form; the bouquet is a bunch of bronze chrysanthemums, a yellow rose, and leaves of desert plants and citrus.

Woman with a Bowl, Sarah Myers
Detail of face

Relying on the value of spontaneity and immediate vision, I completed her in two day's worth of work; all the modeling was done with a light hand with an eye to preserving an image of beauty, refreshment and vitality.

Sculpture, Sarah Myers

Woman with a Bowl, Sarah Myers
Details

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Sarah Myers

Sculpture and bouquet by sunset light
Sarah Myers

Sculpture in earthenware
Sarah Myers

Woman with a Bowl
Sculpture, Arrangement and Photography by Sarah Myers