Constance Abernathy (born Constance Davies, June 20, 1931 – June 18, 1994) was an American architect, jeweler, and associate of
Buckminster Fuller
Richard Buckminster Fuller (; July 12, 1895 – July 1, 1983) was an American architect, systems theorist, writer, designer, inventor, philosopher, and futurist. He styled his name as R. Buckminster Fuller in his writings, publishing more t ...
.
Architecture
Abernathy worked on a special project studying with
Buckminster Fuller
Richard Buckminster Fuller (; July 12, 1895 – July 1, 1983) was an American architect, systems theorist, writer, designer, inventor, philosopher, and futurist. He styled his name as R. Buckminster Fuller in his writings, publishing more t ...
to create the geodesic dome
egg carton form of architecture, and functioned as Fuller's secretary maintaining sections of his files and archives. Between 1966 and 1971, she directed Fuller's New York office.
Jewelry
Beginning in 1977, Abernathy became a jeweler.
In New York City she befriended and worked with many famous artists. Among her artist friends were many well known painters and sculptors like
Larry Rivers
Larry Rivers (born Yitzroch Loiza Grossberg) (1923 – 2002) was an American artist, musician, filmmaker, and occasional actor. Considered by many scholars to be the "Godfather" and "Grandfather" of Pop art, he was one of the first artists ...
,
Peter Reginato,
Peter Young,
Ching Ho Cheng,
Ronnie Landfield
Ronnie Landfield (born January 9, 1947) is an American abstract painter. During his early career from the mid-1960s through the 1970s his paintings were associated with Lyrical Abstraction (related to Postminimalism, Color Field painting, an ...
, and
Dan Christensen
Dan Christensen, (October 6, 1942 – January 20, 2007) was an American abstract painter
He is best known for paintings that relate to Lyrical Abstraction, Color field painting, and Abstract expressionism.
Christensen was born in Cozad ...
.
Ching Ho Cheng painted her portrait in 1977. In the 1980s her works started to include precious gems and cast parts she created. Her big bead necklaces were collected by Clarice Cosby and many others.
Her works are in the collections of the
Cooper Hewitt and
Museum of Art and Design
The Museum of Arts and Design (MAD), based in Manhattan, New York City, collects, displays, and interprets objects that document contemporary and historic innovation in craft, art, and design. In its exhibitions and educational programs, the mus ...
.
Other collaborations
Abernathy appears on recordings by
John Giorno
John Giorno (December 4, 1936 – October 11, 2019) was an American poet and performance artist. He founded the not-for-profit production company Giorno Poetry Systems and organized a number of early multimedia poetry experiments and events, inc ...
from the late 1960s and on the live album ''The Sound Pool'' by
Musica Elettronica Viva
Musica Elettronica Viva (MEV) is a live acoustic/electronic improvisational group formed in Rome, Italy, in 1966. It is "something of an irregular institution, a band that has come together intermittently through the years". Its founding members ...
, recorded in May 1969.
Personal life
She was born in
Detroit
Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at th ...
,
Michigan
Michigan () is a state in the Great Lakes region of the upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the 10th-largest state by population, the 11th-largest by area, and the ...
, Abernathy attended
Cass Technical High School
Cass Technical High School (simply referred to as Cass Tech) is a public high school in Midtown Detroit, Michigan, United States. and
University of Michigan
, mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth"
, former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821)
, budget = $10.3 billion (2021)
, endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...
Architecture school (class of 1953).
She married J. T. Abernathy, a potter and art professor at University of Michigan in the 1950s but their union did not last long. She left
Ann Arbor, Michigan
Ann Arbor is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan and the county seat of Washtenaw County, Michigan, Washtenaw County. The 2020 United States census, 2020 census recorded its population to be 123,851. It is the principal city of the Ann Arbor ...
for
Paris
Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...
shortly after, arriving in the swinging scene of the Paris 1960s. She worked as an architect all over
Europe
Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...
and married a filmmaker.
In the early 1990s she was diagnosed with cancer and she succumbed to her illness in 1994. Before she died she had a farewell party for her closest friends; and she distributed her worldly possessions among them as her way of saying goodbye. She died two days before her 63rd birthday at home in her Chelsea apartment in
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
soon after her party.
Archive
* Abernathy's papers are available at the
Bentley Historical Library
The Bentley Historical Library is the campus archive for the University of Michigan and is located on the University of Michigan's North Campus in Ann Arbor. It was established in 1935 by the regents of the University of Michigan. Its mission is ...
, University of Michigan
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Abernathy, Constance
1931 births
1994 deaths
20th-century American architects
Artists from Detroit
Architects from Michigan
American women architects
University of Michigan alumni
20th-century American women artists