ABBEY WILLIAMS
Art Matters is one of the most important organizations supporting artists in America, and Abbey runs it with a commitment to supporting the artists most challenged, threatened, erased. Their work is political, at the edges of what mainstream institutions will hold. And she is an artist herself, prioritizing the time and space necessary to find and use her own voice.
But it's the more intimate dimension of her relationship with Aubin that we want to celebrate today. She's opened our space to gather beautiful communities, from our Art Matters board meetings, to hosting a brilliant panel of Black women archivists/artists who blew the space open with intrigue, experience, vision, laughter, collaboration – veritable artistry. She's hosted the meetings, the gatherings, the conversations that don't appear on any press release but that are essential to how an organization thinks and grows and stays in community.
Gathering, sharing our physical space, is one of Aubin’s pillars, our idea of “workshop.” We know that hospitality is a form of solidarity. We feel it. We treasure it.