Pair of Lady's Shoes 1930

Fiske Boyd made this relief print of a pair of lady's shoes, rendered in black ink on paper. There’s something lovely and weird about the all-overness of this image. The shoes are just lying there, flopped over, one on its side, surrounded by these scribbly marks which might be leaves, or simply an active ground, a kind of graphic mulch. It looks like the artist really enjoyed getting into the nitty gritty of it all, working with his tools to carve out all the detail in the flowers, the decorative elements, the weave of the shoe's fabric, and especially the soles. The white areas of the print, like the soles, are built up from closely packed parallel lines, which gives them a kind of vibration. It’s like a way of showing how light falls on a rounded surface. And in a way, it puts me in mind of M. C. Escher, but in a good way. It’s almost as if the shoes themselves are alive! Art’s like that, isn't it?