The "Real" Price of Fashion..

Frequently, life inspires art.  Never more so than in the following image of a friend's dog, who was unfortunate enough to get too close to a porcupine.  Yikes!  She is on her way to the vet to get her new "whiskers" removed.  No fun!

It inspired me to move forward on a project I am making for an upcoming show in New York.  Each of us will be making a 12x12 inch piece mounted on a canvas.  In my case I plan to mount the finished work on a cradled board in order to support it properly.

I was also inspired by the many shoe pieces my friend, Rachel Edwards, has created over the years.  Hers are detailed, almost journal-like.  In my case, I was interested in achieving an almost-visceral response to the piece.  The name of the upcoming show is "Off The Hanger", by the way.

This shoe has been cut in half, lengthwise, with a band saw (thank you, Tim!).  The shoe was primed, then painted with the two colors.  Nails were painted.  I wrote on the shoe with a Pentel gel roller fabric pen, then used an awl to punch holes in the shoe for the nails.  Once I'm finished I plan to use putty to "fill" the shoe toe prior to glueing it to the prepared board.  You can imagine some of the things I have written on my shoe, right?!