Shoes Still Life #1 | Posted: Nov. 10, 2016, 5:38 p.m.

Media: Watercolor pencil and white charcoal on 12 x 18 inch watercolor paper

Time: ~6 hours

This drawing is an early piece from my high school art class. It has been some time since I have thought about this piece, but I believe the assignment called for arranging our own still life and then capturing an interesting perspective. I recall our teacher urging us to draw the piece with the setup directly in front of us, as opposed to drawing from a photograph of the still life. Working from a photograph would automatically "frame" the still life, whereas working from life would teach us how to frame objects ourselves.

It took me a while to come up with this simple still life, mostly because I wanted the objects to represent something more than haphazardly arranged items I found lying around my house.

Because I find inspiration and meaning through others' art, I browsed various art sites and artbooks in search of symbols.

While I flipped through "Queen of Arts," one of the artbooks that I've accumulated through the years, I came across a sketch of a girl sitting on a stack of books. Maybe she was just sitting on the books because the ground was dirty.

I think all those years of forced literary analyses had finally rubbed off on me, though, because the image seemed to symbolize the idea that fashion and appearances took precedence over education.The girl directly challenged the viewer while she nonchalantly posed on top of the books.

The symbolism resonated with me, as I saw my friends stumbling upon fashion and makeup for the first time in their lives. Few of our conversations revolved around academics.

I ran with the "education is dead" idea. I gathered my boots and when I thought about placing them above my brother's beloved Harry Potter books, I cringed. I ended up placing a sheet of tissue paper between the shoes and the books. One could argue that the sheet represents a thin barrier, symbolizing my reluctance to give into the idea that society places greater weight on fashion than on education.

Art is always open to the viewer's interpretation, but just know that I didn't want to get those books dirty.