Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation

The Art and Sole section of The Shoe Must Go On! celebrates the creativity of artists with shoe-inspired art works. This week, Sue Simek, in the Morris Museum’s public relations office, spoke to four artists represented in the exhibition about their work and inspirations, and, of course, shoes:

Willie Cole is a New Jersey-based artist who transforms found objects in his art:

My experience with shoes is similar to my experience with using the steam iron in my work. I found one [an iron] on the street, took it apart, and treated it like a Tinkertoy. I think of these objects as fractals or pixels or cells, and rework them so they don’t resemble the original object. I don’t know what the final work will look like while it is in process. Think of it as buying a jigsaw puzzle in a plastic bag – but without the picture – you work on putting it together, without a clear guide, and finally the picture emerges.

The Venus sculpture at the museum is an early piece, and was my first attempt at a full body work using female shoes. Previously I had used shoes to create couches, chairs and masks. I had the Venus of Willendorf sculpture image in my head. I was inspired by my knowledge of art history, African and tribal cultures and also my love of cartoons. The scarification in the title refers to punched out stars, and designs in the leather.

Venus of Willendorf (Naturhistorische Museum, Vienna) and Black Patent Leather Venus with Scarification (1993)

I am drawn to objects with a strong history, like high heels. My mom loves high heels, and is still wearing them, at (almost) age 75. I started buying shoes at the Salvation Army’s warehouse in Paterson, NJ, which distributes clothing to other Salvation Army stores. I was looking for an object for my artwork that would be available in massive quantities, and there were more high heeled shoes than anything else – in many different colors and textures. I went back several times, and to other thrift shops in my travels, and within a year I had millions of high heeled shoes. At one point I stored them in a 3,000 square foot helicopter hangar! There are many colors, but right now I’m using mainly black, white and red shoes in my work. •

Sole Brother Number 1. This shoe poster is available in the Morris Museum’s gift shop.

Before you walk into the exhibition galleries, you see Toronto-based artist Marina Dempster’s work Immune (2008), which boldly announces that this is no ordinary shoe show. Marina talks here about her work and inspiration:

I flew down from Toronto to install Immune at the Morris Museum, just in time for the Girls’ Night Out event.

I love the potential of shoes to tell stories and I think that they say a lot about the person wearing them. The shoes I create are magical shoes – living and breathing – and you become a part of them when you envision slipping your feet into them. I think you can step into a sculpture, and it becomes a part of you, too.

Marina Dempster

I was strongly influenced by a Huichol artist who came to Toronto, when I participated in his workshop using traditional Huichol techniques.

The Huicholes are an indigenous Mexican group, in danger of losing their community. I was born in Mexico, and feel a resonance with the Huichol culture and their belief in the reciprocal nature of taking care of the planet. Their techniques use beeswax and resin to hold beads and yarn in place on a surface – the method used in Immune. You have probably seen yarn paintings like this one.

From the Huichol Center

In Immune, the beads on the shoes provide visual beauty of course, and also tactile sensitivity – you don’t see them, but there are beads on the soles of the shoes as well as the uppers. The quills are balancing mechanisms, connecting to animal nature, and with humor, I also think of these quills as a means of self preservation.

This is a very labor-intensive artform, where it takes a lot of time to anchor each bead or feather. To me, the materials used are a perfect metaphor for the busyness in our lives (the busy bees creating wax), balanced by the slow, flowing nature of the work (the slowness in creation and flow of resin/sap). The process becomes a metaphor. I am guided by the philosophy “Paths are made by walking” (Antonio Machado) • (more…)