All American

By: Beverly Mayeri

No Longer Available

Completed

2022

Medium

Clay, acrylics

Dimensions

13" x 7" x 3"

Description

I like to explore the feelings and concerns that move us but are often kept below the surface. I often use clay as a canvas where the interior life, our yearnings and connections to each other and to the world, are painted, carved, or engraved on to the clay surface, often using patterns from nature as a backdrop. Video Game Man was inspired by stained glass windows of the great cathedrals. When I put some suggestions of a story in this piece it suddenly took on the modern look of a video game. So, I added a young admirer to along with him. Undecided has a grid too, and a young man has entered it. She seems to be considering what to do. All American shows the percentages of all the “racial” groups in our population—we are all Americans. And Baby Teapot was born in the teapot movement. He is like a WWI soldier afraid to come out of his bunker—today’s world can seem almost as fearsome. The best ideas come to me as a complete surprise after I put a subject in my mind that feels important to me. I use an abbreviated form of realism but spend time getting the proportions of the figure, the gestures, the facial expression to be more or less plausible. I enjoy seeing how pushing the clay here and there affects expression—working with clay is full of surprises.

About this Artist

Beverly Mayeri

Beverly Mayeri is a studio artist living in the San Francisco Bay Area. She earned her BA from University of California, Berkeley, and her MA in sculpture at San Francisco State University. She has had solo shows in San Francisco, New York City, Chicago, and St. Louis. She was awarded two National Endowment for the Arts visual artist Individual Fellowships, a Virginia A. Groot Foundation Grant, 2 Marin Arts Council Fine Arts Individual Artist Grants, and a residency at the De Young Museum in San Francisco. Her work is in the permanent collections of Scripps College, Claremont, CA, Detroit MOCA, Fuller Museum of Art, L.A. County Museum of Art, Honolulu Museum of Art, Canton Museum of Art, High Museum of Art in Atlanta, Racine Museum of Art, and others as well as many private collections.

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