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

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.

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.

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

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

Water-bearer in Charcoal and Conte, Sarah Myers

Water-bearer, Sarah Myers
Charcoal and Conte on grayscale paper

This drawing of a woman carrying an ornate water pitcher and a flask of perfume is related to a sculpture recently completed in clay.

Water-bearer, detail

Water-bearer, detail, Sarah Myers

The Page - Sculpture by Sarah Myers

The Page, Detail
Sarah Myers

The Page is a small study in red earthenware (terracotta).

The Page, Sarah Myers
Sculpture in red earthenware (terracotta)

Page, Sarah Myers

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.