Admired Objects: Acquired Subjects

About

The muse intrigues in wondrous ways—any place, any thing, anyone can urge a direction for work. Admired Objects: Acquired Subjects began with a phone call from Donnybrook to Michigan: painter Susan Ecker calling her dear friend, the American potter JT Abernathy, on his 100th birthday.

Across continents, the two artists have stayed connected through friendship and a shared belief in exchanging knowledge: Abernathy's mentorship of two generations of potters, and Ecker's conviction that passing on knowledge is both a gift and a debt repaid. It is not a passive experience. It is the continuing expansion of the history of art.

Ecker has collected Abernathy's work since meeting him in the 1960s. Images of his work have been appearing in her paintings over the years that followed. Abernathy's pots—real, three-dimensional forms in clay—become, in her work, line and colour within the illusion of painting: an honouring, inspired dynamic.