Woman's Shoe c. 1940

Curator: Let's take a closer look at Daniel Marshack's "Woman's Shoe," created around 1940 using pencil and paper. Editor: It has this faded, ghostly quality that I find really compelling. There is such a delicate balance created through tone, shape and subtle modeling to communicate material presence in what otherwise appears as something absent. Curator: Exactly! Marshack's choice of humble materials, pencil and paper, emphasizes the shoe itself as a manufactured object—mass produced but simultaneously infused with individual labor in its design and eventual wear. These kinds of commodities become surrogates through which one could consider ideas around economic production. Editor: The repetitive element of the buttons adds visual intrigue. From a semiotic viewpoint, you could read that recurring element as code or signal. The slight unevenness of the lines creates some gentle dynamism, wouldn't you say? It disrupts any rigid symmetry. Curator: Absolutely, it undermines ideals, especially when so many of the boots of this time would have been machine produced, thus offering the prospect of consistency and repetition to its very best. However, what intrigues me is thinking about the process of depicting a shoe. Is this art? Is it documentation? Was this practice about design or production itself? Editor: I read its artistic value as separate from design or function, leaning towards art as form in itself. And I find beauty and worth there, within the subtleties of light and shade; not in what it shows, but how. Curator: It's remarkable how a simple drawing on paper can elicit such layered perspectives. Thinking of art production reminds us how many steps are involved and how they relate to societal conditions. Editor: Yes! And I have renewed respect for the eye behind this art work!