Pa. German Dish c. 1938

This Pa. German Dish, by William L. Antrim, it's a trip, right? It’s all curves and repetition, that red-ish orange tone grounding the whole shebang. I can imagine Antrim getting into a groove with it, turning the plate, adding those green and yellow folky motifs in a circular dance. He's laying down the patterns, maybe thinking about symmetry, balance, and how to make something visually pop. I can feel the way he built it up, layer by layer, motif by motif. And the birds! Those crazy, conjoined birds in the middle, like some heraldic emblem. What are they about? Love? Loyalty? Some folk tale from the old country? Maybe Antrim wasn’t even sure himself. It's like he's channeling something ancient and turning it into his own thing, maybe nodding to other artists. Painting is like that, it’s an ongoing conversation. We add our voices, and the conversation keeps going. It never ends, right?