the shoe journey
December 29, 2011
Another day of enforced resting ! a long while back I began a journey with my ancestors, I made shoes out of white paper and tissue paper that I printed with images of my grandmothers. Its been a long time since I looked at them and have today spent sometime working with a pair I made with hydrangea petals, I wanted to bring them together in an image, and here it is.
Click on the shoe to see more paper made images
Its all in the detail, or is it?
May 28, 2010
These shoes are my pond life shoes, fit for a prince of frogs, the detail is so intricate its amazing, click on the image for a larger view
Details, details, been a strange couple of days, the full moons energy has sure created a little turmoil in my life
I have spent hours and hours detailing furniture and lighting layouts and then coming home and spending hours and hours putting together a newsletter I send out on the full moon. Editing articles to make sure they fit, sizing images, trying out different typefaces and layouts, which colour scheme, what words to say……………. then come the day of the full moon, first the newletter file became corrupted and couldn’t compress for sending, that made me late and i had to rush for the train to London to attend a meeting and slipt over, twisting my arm and and leg and bruising everywhere!!. The meeting was successful and long and then a trying evening resulting in a situation that seemed so out of proportion to the the actual circumstances. I have always felt it was necessary to say what is on your mind, good or bad, I know sometimes this has not served me fully. But bottling things up is not a good idea either, its best to be able to bring up what’s on ones mind before it gets all out of proportion and then forces itself out like an exorcet missile !!! I didnt “react” but it left me feeling a little sad.
Today I could go over all the details again and again, but NO, details have there place. For my work as an interior designer, attention to detail is what creates that “effortless” look and find this quite “effortless” after all these years, but in day to day to living, the detail just ties us in knots, what mattters is that we live in the present, find joy in the day, in the minute. Today has been like that, seeing the big white jug of “pinks” in my kitchen and breathing in their heady perfume, hearing my cat purr, seeing my “happiness” plant with a new leaf bud, feeling the sun on my face. A peaceful day and everything is just as it should be.
Shoe Story
November 1, 2009
These are my prototypes, my practice run, they were only supposed to be a “rehearsal ” so to show up technicalities and find what worked for me. However, each shoe “walked” a path, not the one I expected, but one I that has opened a door to my ancestors. I even made the Guardian on line, and sold some to an advertising agency…………. Why shoes I have been asked? I wanted to do a piece of work about the path I have trodden these long and eventful 60 years but my soul seemed to want to go beyond. My grandmother and my great grandmother are people who have formed who I am today, it was a surprise to find myself scanning and printing images of them for use in shoes, but I knew my grandmother well, she would have loved them,. Not sure where to go from here, but this is my shoe story to date.
Margorie Rose Memories – paper shoe no. 8
October 4, 2009
Marjorie Rose was my grandmother
an amazing woman who passed on her gift of creativity to me. Shoe no.8 is dedicated to her memory. Handmade in paper and tissue printed with images of my grandmother as a young child. Have so many happy memories of her, a fantastic cook, made absoloutely everything from her clothes to summer and winter soft furnishings. Made clothes for me as a child and always an identical dress or coat for my doll. Wedding dresses, wedding cakes, christmas cakes and puddings, christmas crackers, tree decorations, surreal savoury birthday parties for me to curried eggs and pineapple upside down cake. She was a treasure, died back in 1987 and buried locally.
Flickr: Your Photostream.
armorial amour paper shoe no. 7
September 27, 2009
Well todays effort was extremely testing of my patience………. managed to make a heel, not as graceful as I would like but it looks good. Shoe is made of hand printed tissue paper from my own toile erotique collection, black paper, together with its own coat of arms……………. What am I going to do with them, any ideas! these are meant to be just trials, but they are becoming very detailed and have a life all of their own…………..
Rose d’amour – paper shoe no.6
September 19, 2009
Red preserved petals, toile, intamacy, unfurling, sensitivity, fragile, vulnerable. All handmade in paper, shoe lining taken from 18th century erotic etchings to make my own toile, preserved flower petals. Gold dresdon paper edging
somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond
any experience, your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near
your slightest look will easily unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully, mysteriously) her first rose
or if your wish be to close me, i and
my life will shut very beautifully ,suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;
nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility: whose texture
compels me with the color of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing
(i do not know what it is about you that closes and opens;
only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands
ee cummings
The “Dada” paper shoe” no. 5
September 16, 2009
Todays shoe was inspired by dear friend Analu in Rio. Her Dada workshop produced so many colourful images on flickr that when I started working with crepe paper I just had to dedicate this shoe to her. THANKYOU ANALU!!
I cut strips of crepe paper and “twirled ” into long spirals, then glued them onto the shoe upper shape. After finalising the pattern I then completed glueing the upper to the sole……….. Cannot wait to produce shoe no.6 … what to do with them all I ask myself
Flickr: Your Photostream.
Paper shoe no. 4 – an angel at my table
September 15, 2009
colour……… not sure
September 13, 2009
Colour, working with colour I find difficult in a paper context……….. to me white on white is magical, ethereal, ghost like. Its simple but has great strength, its architectural, its my choice for paper work, feels more structural, captures the essence and feels like a design and not just decoration.
However I thought I would try colour and try crepe paper…………… I enjoyed cutting and crimping, progressing from the photocopy paper prototype of last week. However, it feels frivolous, decorative, like icing a cake and not the same as working in white
What does this mean? its something very powerful, brings up many emotions, something I want to explore over the coming weeks.
