Summer - Art in cut paper and charcoal by Sarah Myers

Summer, Sarah Myers
Charcoal, cut paper

Pomegranates, palm-fronds, jasmine stars, grapes and various flowers wreathe around the head of a personification of Summer. A charcoal drawing with cut paper ornamentation of brown, black and white.

Summer, detail
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

The Hat - Painting by Sarah Myers

Hat, Sarah Myers
Acrylic on canvas

The lady leans forward in the shade of her brilliant red hat. Her chin rests on her hand and she looks just slightly pensive, lost in thought – but she is clearly ready for the summer, the sunlight and the long, bright days… Painted in acrylic on canvas.

Hat, Sarah Myers.  Detail

Hat
Painting 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

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

Woman with Flying Hair - Drawing by Sarah Myers

Woman with Flying Hair, Sarah Myers
Charcoal Line-Drawing

   This minimal line-drawing of a woman's head is created in simple charcoal.  Her flying hair suggests a wind or breeze around her; the gentle, backward tilt of her neck suggests she has turned to face into the gust, gazing at something outside the picture.

Woman with Flying Hair, detail, Sarah Myers

Two Drawings of Birds - Art by Sarah Myers

Pigeon on a Roof-top, Sarah Myers

Here are two simple line-drawings of birds: a dignified pigeon perching alertly on the clay tiles of a roof-top, and a duck swimming slowly through bright, clear water which shows his reflection in quivering outline.  The art is in charcoal pencil.

Duck Swimming, Sarah Myers