Toe Shoes by Mark Adams

Toe Shoes by Mark Adams

Toe Shoes

Mark Adams

Please call us at 707-546-7352 or email artannex@aol.com to purchase this item.
Title

Toe Shoes

 
Artist

Mark Adams

  1925 - 2006 (biography)
Year
1993  
Technique
color etching and aquatint 
Image Size
13 1/16 x 15 1/16" platemark 
Signature
pencil, lower right 
Edition Size
37 of 100  
Annotations
pencil signed, titled, editioned and dated 
Reference
Oakland Museum #2010.5.13 
Paper
ivory BFK Rives wove 
State
published 
Publisher
artist for the San Francisco Ballet Association 
Inventory ID
18770 
Price
$1,300.00 
Description

With his etching Toe Shoes, Adams presents an intimate still life of ballerina pointe shoes seemingly just unboxed. According to the Pittsburg Ballet Theatre, point shoes sometimes last for only one performance depending upon the difficulty of the ballet. The tip of the shoe is a rigid box made of densely packed layers of fabric, cardboard, and or paper hardened by glue and the rest of the shoe is made of leather, cotton, and satin. New shoes have to be broken in before being worn and some methods include darning the platform of the box to provide traction and prevent the satin from fraying, pounding the box of the shoe with a hammer to soften it, opening and closing a door on the box, cutting the satin off the box and using a carpenter's file to rough up the sole, and lining the inside of the box with floor way or shellac to mold the shoes and prolong wear. The satin ribbon, while beautiful, is necessary to hold the shoe in place.

 
Please call us at 707-546-7352 or email artannex@aol.com to purchase this item.