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

Bright Afternoon Bouquet - Photography by Sarah Myers

Brilliant Flowers
Photography by Sarah Myers

A small cluster of flowers becomes a flaming torch of joyful colour in the afternoon sunlight.  The simple vase with a brown-black "volcanic" glaze was made by my sister Amy Myers.  It holds a cluster of ruby-red, orange, and orange-yellow nasturtiums, a bunch of scarlet pelargoniums (geraniums) and three cheerful tetraneuris daisies.  These - the yellow daisies at the top - came from Amy's desert garden, while the other blooms are from my pots of flowers in the patio.

Cluster of Flowers
Photography, Sarah Myers

Nasturtium Detail
Photography, Sarah Myers

Bright Bouquet in Afternoon Light
Photography, Sarah Myers

Three Favorite Flower Pictures - Photography by Sarah Myers

The Red Ranunculus, Sarah Myers
Digital Photography

Here are three flower images to welcome the new spring; the rich, flawless scarlet of a superb ranunculus bloom, the angelic shower of jasmine trumpets lighting the evening shade, and the perfect symbol of happiness, a yellow daisy against a cloudless blue sky.  Daisy and ranunculus are growing in my sister's garden, a dream-like spot you can read about here; the jasmine is a vine I've placed in the pillared patio of our house.

Trumpets of Spring, Sarah Myers
Digital Photography

Yellow and Blue, Sarah Myers
Digital Photography

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

Large Still-Life with Pumello - Painting by Sarah Myers

Still-life with Pumello, Sarah Myers

In this very large still-life are two warm red, earthenware vessels, hand-built by my sister, Amy Myers; around and inside the clay pots are fruit, dark grapes and an enormous, yellow-green pumello. The colour of the pumello is, as depicted in the picture, a bracing chartreuse; it is a plump fruit, ancestor of the grapefruit, with thicker rind and blander taste. It is slightly flattened, and for the painting's composition I actually propped it upright on the single grape you see under it to the right. The rest of the grape cluster, climbing from the earthenware bowl, fills the space left between bowl and the tall red pot. The artwork is acrylic on canvas.

Still-Life with Pumello, Sarah Myers
Detail

Detail

Still-Life with Pumello, Sarah Myers
Detail of grapes

Bright Flowers Light a Dim Day - Photography by Sarah Myers

Bright Bouquet, Sarah Myers
Photography

     On an overcast day, these bright colours came inside - simply a yellow rose, a dark red rose, cherry-coloured geraniums, some orange lantana. In a graceful vessel by my sister Amy Myers, they bring a vivid fistful of beauty to the room, like the music of trumpets and violins on an empty, still noon.

Flowers on a Dim Day, Sarah Myers
Photography

Heart of the Matter - Photography by Sarah Myers

Bud-Red, Sarah Myers
Photography

  

 Here are seven images - the centers of roses, each holding their own small world of grace and gentleness.

Heart in Ivory and Champagne, Sarah Myers
Photography

Gentle Storm, Sarah Myers
Photography

The Shy Look, Sarah Myers
Photography

Pearl Pink, Pearl White, Sarah Myers
Photography

Charm of the Sun, Sarah Myers
Photography

Heart of It All, Sarah Myers
Photography

Saving Art

Gourd, Vase and Gray Metal, Judie Myers   Still Life, Oil on Canvas

    Six months ago my mother, my sister and I stood in the small studio of our old house. A full-sized dumpster sat outside, already over half full.

   When you must move accumulated belongings, forty years of the life of a family and nearly twenty-five of that in the same house, it is not true there is no room for sentiment. There is almost no room for anything else.

   To standard household goods and beloved mementos you must take with you, you add the studio work of three artists. You resolve you will keep only the best pieces. You have already decided which are the best – long ago. Nothing else is going to accompany you.

Gourd, Vase and Gray Metal, Detail
 Judie Myers

Woman with Vase, S. Myers
Salvaged Piece

    But art has a little life separate from its creator, and an artist is often not the one deciding the fate of their works. In two cases here they were not...

   Out from back of a stack of unfinished canvases – many of them torn or injured in various ways – I drug a painting; it was red and yellow and gray, vibrant even after the dust and stress of an unheated, uncooled studio. I set it up against the wall.

The Yellow Orchids

Arch of Orchids    S. Myers, photograph 2013

   A glorious arch of orchid blooms on a plant given to me for Christmas.  They continue to flower,even as the first blossoms remain bright and whole...  They are distilled sunlight.

Autumn Rain on Roses

   The rain came - but not the angry bucketfuls, splattered by a cold blast, that I know as a Fall storm.  No; this was a slow, methodical rain, descending gently as if from an immense watering-can with very small holes; a gardener's rain, that only loaded each flower petal as heavy as it could bear without shattering the flower.  And all the roses rejoiced.

Bowing Rose with Rain

White Rain

Thirsty

Beaded Hem

Pearl Embroidery

Leopard Rain

Gold Rose

The Gold Rose

    A fragile sculpture, caught with my camera several weeks ago.