Plate c. 1936

Erwin Schwabe made this watercolor painting of a plate, no date given but just imagine... You can see that white surface of the plate, how it just stares back, waiting, and Schwabe has come in with these watery blues around the rim, making these little ticks and dashes, like raindrops on a window. I can imagine him thinking about the history of ceramics, the way these kinds of patterns repeat themselves over time in different cultures, like echoes in a long hallway. There are blue floral decorations around the edge. It reminds me of the work of someone like Mary Heilmann who looks at the history of objects, and tries to bring them into the present with a bit of humor. It's like Schwabe and Heilmann are having a conversation across time, riffing off each other's ideas, finding new ways to see the world, you know? The plate becomes not just an object but a place for thinking, for feeling, for dreaming.