DANVERS — Danvers High special needs, diversity club and art club students will be busy this week decorating a larger-than-life fiberglass shoe to be displayed in Haverhill over the coming months as part of that city's Soles of Haverhill "Shoe-la-bration!"
The 5-foot-high old-fashioned woman's shoe will be part of the Greater Haverhill Chamber of Commerce and Team Haverhill public arts festival in a city where shoemaking once filled the city's mills.
Emily Boulger, a special needs teacher at Danvers High, said her student artists were one of 10 artists chosen to decorate the tall shoe's exterior.
The students have received their oversized shoe, and the class plans to decorate it in time for an art exhibition Friday in the North Shore Arc's Gallery@Southside, 6 South Side Road, Danvers, The high school's transition program and diversity team are holding an art show, and singer/songwriter Seth Gooby plans to perform.
The shoe's design is based on a colorful, collaborative painting done several years ago by diversity club and special-needs students on which there are photographs of people with their heads replaced with circular mirrors. This painting is on display at the Gallery@Southside.
Boulger said the theme for the special-needs students' shoe will be: "Seeing yourself in someone else's shoes."
Before they could begin painting the shoe, Boulger said they had to prep its surface. They had to apply a citrus chemical to it to get a skin off it after it was molded. The students also had to scrape its surface smooth.
"It was fun chipping off the stuff," said senior Eric Jenkinson.
"There was a layer of paint and Eric did a good job of chipping it off," Boulger said.
"I like to draw and paint and color and I haven't really worked on it, but I'm going to," said senior Chris Worsham.
"I think it's pretty incredible thing," said C.J. Maloney, a special-needs teacher with Boulger. "A lot of the focus of their work is understanding differences and celebrating diversity."
After being displayed in Haverhill, the shoe will be auctioned off in October.
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