DEBORAH HOWARD

Art has been a search for ways to create work that is timeless and not bound by trends. Timelessness is an ephemeral, lofty and possibly unattainable goal, but to try one must be aware of current innovations in art and at the same time remember and reassess the past. My work focuses on the human experience relating to heritage, migration, memory and hope. Whether an idea takes the form of a brushstroke, a vessel, a portrait or a shoe the human presence is always there. I use worn shoes from different time periods. I display shoes with paintings and transform shoes by casting them in iron, bronze, glass and paper. A shoe is the only garment of clothing that can stand independently, like the living being that stands inside the shoe. A worn shoe has the aura of the person who wore it, and the changing styles of shoes are markers of time and history, and symbols of age, gender and culture. I have been devoted to art education and taught drawing and painting at the university for over forty years. I am a native of Chicago and lived and worked in Israel, Louisiana and Minnesota before coming to Colorado.

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