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      Enjoy free admission on Saturday, August 15, courtesy of the Highland Street Foundation.

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      Artist Talk

      Salem as Muse: Meet Our Bootmaker in Residence

      Sarah Guerin sitting on the doorstep to Tapley-Lye Ten Footer Shoe Shop

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      In-person event
      Location: Morse Auditorium

      Included with admission; preregistration encouraged. 

      Join bootmaker Sarah Madeleine T. Guerin for an artist talk as part of our "Salem as Muse" lecture series. Guerin will sit down with Chief Curator Petra Slinkard to discuss her bootmaking process in PEM's Lye-Tapley Shoe Shop, as well as her background, artistic practice and work.

      This program is part of PEM's Salem 400+ celebrations.

      About our collaborators

      Sarah Madeleine T. Guerin
      Sarah Madeleine T. Guerin

      Sarah Madeleine T. Guerin, or Saboteuse, analyzes the historical nexus of artisan work within legacies of gendered labor, industrialization and hierarchies of fine art, design and craft. Her work as a researcher and educator ties the architecture of the workplace to legacies of craft knowledge and systems that contemporary artists work within today. Guerin builds Western boots and crafts fine art objects that utilize bootmaking skills to manipulate the cowboy boot's strong cultural iconography, shifting the canon of this traditional form. The entire tradition, history and knowledge she employs in making these pieces represent an active resistance to historical systems that would have withheld this knowledge from her due to her gender, or exploited her underpaid labor. 

      Petra Slinkard
      Petra Slinkard

      Petra Slinkard joined PEM in 2018 as the inaugural Nancy B. Putnam Curator of Fashion and Textiles. She fosters the growth and inclusive spirit of the museum’s significant and diverse collection by developing a vibrant array of exhibitions, installations and programs that celebrate the global reach and impact of fashion and textiles. Previously, Slinkard worked at the Chicago History Museum and the Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields. She is an active member of the Costume Society of America (CSA), the Textile Society of America (TSA) and the American Association of Museum Curators (AAMC). Slinkard is a graduate of Indiana University, Bloomington, where she earned a B.S. in Fashion Merchandising, a B.A. in Art History with a concentration in Modern and Contemporary Art and an M.S. in Fashion/Textile History. Follow @pslinks on Instagram.

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