Still-Life with Water-pots - Painting by Sarah Myers

Still-Life with Two Water-pots, Sarah Myers
Acrylic on canvas

      My newest painting is a still-life with two water-pots - one holding small date-palm fronds – and between them a cluster of rich red grapes. The larger of the two vessels is a majolica piece decorated in happy, bright patterns; the smaller, with its dignified stance and deep terracotta colour, is pottery created by my sister Amy. Overhead, the sharp, fragile leaves of the palm reach out to embrace the whole – the two jars, a white wall, and the fruit tumbling forward toward us.  

Still-Life with Two Water-pots, detail.  Sarah Myers

Still-Life with Two Water-pots.  Detail of smaller vessel.

Still-Life with Two Water-pots.  Detail.

Lady with Plumes - Sculpture by Sarah Myers

Lady with Plumes and a Basket, Sarah Myers
Sculpture in terracotta

     She arrives with a curved basket, full of spring brilliance, and with a cluster of tall plumes twisted into her hair. Her eyes are thoughtful, her head tilted elegantly toward her armful of new flowers.

    My latest sculpture, she is formed from vivid red terracotta and was finished with about a day's worth of work, keeping the spontaneity of her creation through to her kiln-fired completion. Now she is bringing you a bouquet of blooms from the garden – jasmine, bougainvillea, pelargonium, nasturtium and long sprays of lavender.

Lady with Plumes and a Basket, Sarah Myers

Lady with Plumes and a Basket, Sarah Myers
Detail of face

Lady with Plumes and a Basket, Sarah Myers

Lady with Plumes and a Basket, Sarah Myers
All photography and flower arrangement by the Artist

Lady with Plumes and a Basket, Sarah Myers
Face

Lady with Plumes and a Basket, Sarah Myers

Lady with Plumes and a Basket, Sarah Myers
Flower arrangement and photography by the Artist

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

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

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

David with his Harp - Sculpture by Sarah Myers

David with his Harp, Sarah Myers
Sculpture in terracotta

This ornate sculpture is a mingling of various times. It was inspired by a sixteenth century painting of King David, where the painter dressed the ancient monarch in a rich and peculiar costume of the artist's own time and perched him on a tree with other ancestors in the line of the Christ-child – a symbolic subject coming from earlier medieval days. In my sculpture the King is alone, barely laying his fingers to the invisible harp-strings; pensive, wrapped perhaps in the reflections brought by his own prophetic music. I have rendered the rich embroidered clothes with lines directly drawn into the clay – a technique called sgraffito – and roughly hatched with a sharp tool to paradoxically create the deep fur collar of his cloak. His large harp rears in front of him like the prow of a ship; a few leaves from the tree cluster at his back.

David with his Harp, Sarah Myers.  Detail of face.

David with his Harp, Sarah Myers

David with his Harp, Sarah Myers.  Side view.

David with Harp, Sarah Myers
Details.

David with his Harp, Sarah Myers.  Detail of back.

David with his Harp.  Sculpture by Sarah Myers.

Still-life with Sculpture and Pot of Flowers - Photography by Sarah Myers

Photographic Still-life with Sculpture and Pot of Flowers, Sarah Myers
Ceramic Pottery by Amy Myers
Sculpture by Sarah Myers

A small post – a photographic still-life with a sculpture in terracotta, a pot filled with garden flowers, and a few books on an antique gilded table. The ceramic pot is hand-built by my sister Amy Myers, and is in the same red earthenware as my figure of a woman with windblown cloak.

Still-life with Sculpture and Lemons - Painting by Sarah Myers

Still-life with Sculpture and Lemons

     This still-life is a painting of one of my sculptures in red clay (terracotta) and a bowl of the same material, made by my sister Amy Myers – the vessel contains a heap of fresh lemons from our lemon tree. The intense orange surrounding these objects was a real backdrop of painted canvas. The fiery colour of summer light is held by the fire-baked clay and the glowing yellow fruit, the strong hues are at once sober and happy...  

Still-life with Sculpture and Lemons, Sarah Myers
Detail, bowl of lemons

Still-life with Sculpture and Lemons, Sarah Myers
Detail of sculpture

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

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