Sole Mates examines cowboy boots as works of art, as the subject of works of art, as American popular culture, and as important markers of Western life. This traveling exhibition includes 75 paintings, photographs, and original prints combined with 50 pairs of historic and contemporary cowboy boots.
Combining fine art and popular culture, serious content, and a humorous twist, this exhibition will be popular with diverse museum audiences. Sole Mates is intended for a 4,000 square foot exhibition space, but could be shown in a smaller venue. The exhibition can be given a local twist by incorporating images and boots from local collectors and the borrowing institutions.
The award-winning Museum of New Mexico Press will publish a 120 page full-color catalog to accompany the exhibition and provide an educational framework for Sole Mates.
Bob Schrope Wade, Fandango, 1993, acrylic and oil on photo linen, 30 x 57 in., Museum of New Mexico Art Museum, gift of the Museum of New Mexico Foundation, 1995, photo by Blair Clark.
Cowboy boots play an important role symbolizing western life and cowboy subject matter. By alluding to quaint memories of the past, Fandango combines a photographic past with a painterly present. In many ways it is a modern fiction rooted in memories of early twentieth century fiestas. The painting presents a pastiche of images taken from monochrome postcards. The original images were transferred to photo-sensitive linen and then hand colored to appear as a non-photographic, hand-painted work of art.