Child's Shoe 1935 - 1942

Jean Peszel made this watercolor painting of a child's shoe; a small and rather battered blue boot with mother-of-pearl buttons. I imagine Peszel, sitting maybe by a window with her watercolor palette, carefully layering the blues of the leather. Look how each button catches the light. It's like she's trying to hold onto something precious, something that’s already fading. A memory, maybe? Or the ghost of a child's laughter? The shoe itself has a history. It's scuffed and worn, it tells a silent story. Maybe Peszel felt that resonance too, that quiet echo of a life lived. Artists, we’re all magpies, picking up shiny things, trying to make sense of the world one brushstroke at a time. And each painting, each small act of attention, is like a conversation with the past, a way of keeping those echoes alive.