Pa. German Plate c. 1937

This Pa. German Plate was made by William L. Antrim, who lived until 1995 – so he’s practically one of us! I love the way Antrim embraces imperfection. See how the brown paint bleeds into the olive green background, creating a kind of hazy glow? It's not about precision, it’s about feeling. The texture seems smooth, likely watercolour, but the imperfections in the application give it a handmade, folk art quality. Take a look at the flower in the middle, rendered in earth tones with these quirky, asymmetrical details. It’s like a Rorschach test. Do you see a heart? A butterfly? I think this kind of playful ambiguity is where art gets interesting, right? Antrim’s work reminds me a little of Forrest Bess, another artist who embraced personal symbolism and raw, intuitive mark-making, but here we have Antrim’s voice and vision. Art is never a solo act, more like a conversation with everyone in the room.