Shoes c. 1936

Curator: We are looking at "Shoes," a drawing in pencil made around 1936 by Nancy Crimi. Editor: There’s something wistful about it. The pastel blues and grays feel so delicate and almost spectral, even. They suggest a past era, a certain nostalgia. Curator: The realism employed is tempered, however, by the abstraction in the tonal shifts. Note how the heel becomes almost sculptural, divorced from its practical function. The overall composition invites consideration of form and light over sheer representation. Editor: Those floral decorations, rendered so carefully, tell a different story. To me, they represent not just the object but an entire epoch's values of decoration and femininity. Flowers, often representing fleeting beauty and status in women’s fashion and even in language like “Wallflower.” Curator: Indeed, there’s a symbolic layering that exists on the surface of the artwork. But it is crucial to remember the semiotic force enacted here; the image oscillates between what it represents and how it operates within a broader aesthetic paradigm of pencil drawings. Editor: Right, but you cannot isolate the drawing from cultural currents; they inform each other mutually. The footwear serves as an anchor connecting this drawing to historical periods in which adornment signified personal identity or socioeconomic position. What type of a person does it bring to mind? I wonder. Curator: Precisely, that leads me to think of the formal tension present within the drawing, between line, mass and void: negative space, which creates visual interest but ultimately contributes nothing essential towards denotation of the image per se. The semiotic excess must eventually refer back toward the material reality of pencil against paper. Editor: Well, putting that aside, reflecting on "Shoes", its strength rests precisely where art touches personal narrative; as the shoes may embody an invisible female persona long since removed from sight but still vivid inside memories’ chambers of culture or sentimentality today… Curator: A poignant reading, indeed. This meticulous work prompts many insights whether visual or conceptual.