A Really Big Shoe

What red-blooded woman with an ounce of fashion sense doesn’t love shoes? It turns out that ceramic artists have that proclivity, too, including the guys (it’s okay, men, I’ve observed more than a few of you staring longingly at a pair of lizard cowboy boots in my lifetime), as evidenced by solepurposeTWO, the second annual group show of shoe-inspired works hosted by local clay manipulator Marie EvB Gibbons. And aside from the fact that the show’s back, the other good news is that this year’s footwear fete, a 26-artist display, will move from the tiny EvB Studio next to the Oriental Theater to a more formal gallery: the Sellars Project Space, located right next door (and behind the theater), at 4383 Tennyson Street.

For Gibbons, the show is a metaphor for the work of being an artist. Most ceramicists don’t normally “do” shoes, after all, and in her mind, the entries for solepurpose represent a particular challenge or object of “practice” for them. Like artist Patricia Moffet-Gans’s piece, a beautiful pile of used ballet shoes in repose, the diverse works in the show symbolize “practice for life: You wear things out, you break them in.” If the shoe fits.... solepurposeTWO opens with a reception November 6 from 6 to 10 p.m. and continues through December 23; in conjunction with Denver Arts Week, Sellars Project Space will also offer a special section of small, gift-worthy works priced at $52.80. Get information at www.sellarsprojectspace.com or call 720-220-9644.
Nov. 6-Dec. 23, 2009