A Woman's Choice

A Woman's Choice
by Jane McElvany Coonce

We hung a new show at the Northern Virginia Art Center in Crystal City.  It's a beautiful show, and it's worth going to see.  I have several pieces hanging there and also some shrink wraps.  (The shrink wraps are from my earlier posts - the night scenes that I did recently.)  One of my pieces is a trompe l'oeil piece I did called "A Woman's Choice".   Trompe l'oeil means "fool the eye".  It's painted to look like the shoes are in a wooden shelf.  The idea behind this painting is that a woman who wears these shoes might be like the woman in  the painting by John Singer Sargent, Madame X.  When John Singer Sargent painted the woman in the black dress, he had the strap hanging off her shoulders.  This caused a great scandal and almost ruined his career.  He had to repaint the piece with the strap back up on her shoulder.  In my painting, I put in some rosary beads. I figured that the owner of the shoes might get "scandalous, and she may need the rosary beads to save her from the same fate as Sargent.