Flower Pot c. 1938

William Spiecker, who lived to be almost 140, painted this flower pot in watercolor sometime during his long life. The pot is terracotta, a sort of brownish red. The paint is thin, translucent, and the surface is smooth, and the details are precise: the ridges, the repeated pattern around the middle, the way the paint seems to be peeling off in some areas. I wonder if Spiecker had the flower pot in front of him, or if he was painting from memory, or even imagining it. The marks are very gentle, precise, and controlled. Each one contributes to the overall image. I think about the dialogue between Spiecker and this object. He’s asking himself, ‘How do I capture this flower pot? How do I describe it in paint?’ It’s like he’s thinking about what a flower pot even *is*. Artists have always been in conversation with each other, across generations, thinking about the same subjects in different ways. It's a form of embodied expression that embraces ambiguity and uncertainty, allowing for multiple interpretations.