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.

The Colours of White - Photography by Sarah Myers

Jasmine White
Sarah Myers, Photography

What are the colours of white? The pure scent of the jasmine blossom, the billowing shoulders of an unstained cloud; the pearl-cold, pearl-small dot of the moon among the palm-fronds; the delicious ivory of a new rose; that burst of exultant happiness, the Star of Bethlehem flower; the frail lace of an apricot bloom which is the delight of an eager bee. Here are many tints of white, the colour without shadow.

Ivory, Cream and White
Sarah Myers, Photography

Cloud White
Sarah Myers, Photography

Star of Bethlehem
Sarah Myers, photography

Moon-White
Sarah Myers, photography

Spring-White and Bee
Sarah Myers, photography

Fan Palm Photograph

Sunburst Palm  
   S. Myers, Photograph 2013

   Another photograph of a favorite subject, fan palms.

   Yes indeed, the sides of the picture really do go straight up, despite the attempt of this wonderful leaf to warp both verticals.

Failure of Solar Power

Days and Days of This

    I’ve been eager to post so many things for you to see – a very new painting, old sculptures safely unpacked, a sketch or so, a whole half-dozen different images. But they all needed my camera, and my camera needed the Sun.

    All week the sky has been a gentle, moody, glum expanse of cloud. Now and then the rain comes down in the same gentle, depressed manner, leaving palm-trunks dripping black and the little concavities and cracks in the patio shaded darker with damp – merely shaded, since even during this wet spell the air here is so dry standing water evaporates immediately.

   I am putting up an eyewitness photograph to substantiate my claim. As soon as the Sun breaks through consistently I will seize my camera and drag some artwork out into the longed-for light.         

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.

Fan Palms

Op Art Palm 18

Op Art Palm 6

   Fan palms are Art Deco of the plant-world: brash, vigorous, bright.  The strength of their effect comes largely from the size and rigid forms of the vivid leaves, and a slight anthropomorphic character from the way they stand with these leaves held like outspread hands.  Standing beneath several half-grown specimens, I photographed the intense sun through their geometric foliage and came the closest to producing Op Art I have (or ever will) come...

Op Art Palm Stripe

Op Art Palm Ogee

Op Art Palm 9