Pa. German Pie Plate c. 1936

Albert Levone made this Pa. German Pie Plate, sometime before he passed away in 1995, and it feels like a portal into a world of folk art. The colors are muted – yellows, greens, reds – like a sun-faded memory, and it really highlights artmaking as a process of layering. You can really see the artist’s hand in the texture and the surface. The paint looks thin, almost translucent, allowing the plate’s material to peek through. Look at the way the bird’s feathers are rendered – each stroke carefully placed, yet somehow loose and free. It reminds me of how I build up my own paintings, layer by layer, responding to each mark as it appears. The folksy style of this pie plate reminds me of another self taught artist Henry Darger whose work also embraced a particular sort of ambiguity. Levone’s plate isn’t about perfection; it’s about expression, about connecting with something deeper.