Pedestals.  Platforms.  Places held aloft.  These words fall from your lips, shapely, softly, so  much better than  – heels.  How flat that sounds and how it deflates my vision of me in my lovely shoes.

photo by styleshoe

You know that not just any pair of beautiful shoes will do when it comes to love.  And when that love leaps into the lap of obsession, you can be sure  I will lose even more sleep and closet space – actually Seth will lose what closet space he has left –   maybe  he should just move out, although he was the first one to suggest I learn how to make my own shoes without even considering how absolutely aufregeht I could be with that kind of power.  What was he thinking?

Too late.

Now what?

You probably guessed correctly.  You know I am an artspy and a nonstop nonprofit knitter.  We do not take things lightly.  We take journeys.

I am on a journey.  A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.  A single stiletto, to be perfectly clear.

I am on a journey  to master the art of shoemaking.  I am going to become a Mistress of Shoe Art, a Shoe Shiva.

I am going to create a pair of shoes, mules, to be precise, in a beginning custom shoemaking class on April 8th.  My instructor is Lloraine Neithardt who was “born among birds and makes magic”.  We are to bring sketches, inspiration, ideas and dreams to our first class to transform into footwear.  You know how wonderful, how sexy, how beautiful a perfect pair of shoes can make you feel.  I am determined to learn how to mould and tape and fuse that power into a pair of magical shoes.

Stuff I want to show you

Everyday I am going work on designing my shoes.  Some sketches, some research, some soul searching.  This post is part of the journal of my journey that I want to share with you.

Tonight I looked at the work of selected shoe artists.  Fantastic creations of  character wrapped in luxurious leathers, feathers, flights of fancy.  Instinctive and uninsured inner soles.  Breathtaking in their arched boldness.

I am dreaming of a pair of mules, with rounded points,  rising on slim, slightly impertinent, curved heels.  Burnished in a brilliant peacock feather blue, the front of the upper part tufting languorously across the front of the ankle – for the left shoe only.  I see a myself striding, unleashing my left shoe with its curled back frontpiece followed by my demure right shoe, the peahen to the peacock.  Unmatched, unexpected.  This is when I realized what I am really designing. A moment.  My momentous moment.  And what my moment demands are my inner shoes, the vehicles for my vision.

Why get so crazy over shoes?

There were long ago women in my family – first wives, concubines, martial matriarchs with bound feet living with a very different kind of relationship to their shoes.  Their tiny sculpted shoes were a symbol of aristocracy  that held women as prisoners of wealth, hobbling in painful privilege.   Like them, I imagine that I, too, look upon my shoes, torn between love and hate.

photo by ernamarcus

Love is so much better. And if you have the luxury to design your own shoes in your shoe size, what’s to hate?

To travel on  a thousand mile journey one step at a time is madness.  Better to create madness in a matchless pair of shoes.

Are you ready?