Sole-ful designs
Science Museum Oklahoma opens new exhibit ‘SOLE EXPRESSION: THE ART OF THE SHOE’
A familiar looking set of ruby slippers are placed almost primly on a dais, waiting to be artfully arranged under glass.
But the sequined red shoes aren’t the fanciest footwear dressing up Science Museum Oklahoma’s smART Space galleries these days. Star-spangled boots crafted from LED fabric are a battery charge away from literally lighting up their display, Nike knockoffs made from old computer parts look poised to run off their stand, and a veritable flock of high heels shaped like a flamingo, a raven and a goose are perched in glass case instead of a gilded cage.
Whether they have laces or not, shoes are a common element that ties us together in this day and age.
“We wear them every day. We’ve been wearing them since we were born. But sometimes we overlook what goes into what we wear,” said Scott Henderson, director of the museum’s smART Space.
Shoes that are works of art — as well as works of art about shoes — are featured in the new exhibition “Sole Expression: The Art of the Shoe.” The museum will kick off the exhibit with an opening reception from 6 to 9 p.m. Saturday.
“Some people find them a fundamental necessity: We all have to wear them, we all have to get through our day,” Henderson said. “And that’s true, but to these artists and designers, it’s an expression of uniqueness and creativity.”
International exhibition
“Sole Expression” features 25 shoe designers and artists from across the state, country and globe. Henderson said he was inspired to slip into a shoe exhibit after seeing the work of Oklahoma City artist Hugh Meade. For the exhibit, the owner and designer of Oddfab Design Lab contributed a set of black heels adorned with Legos, including minifigures that provide extra height.
“I came across Hugh’s shoes, and I thought, ‘Wow, that’s fascinating that you can do something sculptural that’s also relatable.’ So from then on, I just started discovering these sort of fanciful shoes,” Henderson said.
“I think this is something that everybody will be able to relate to,” he added. “Women, men will all find interest in this. All ages, not just kids but adults, too. How often do you get to see something like this?”
The eye-popping footwear on view includes Israeli designer Costa Magarakis’ birdlike heels, Turkish textile artist Suhandan Ozay Demirkan’s curvy take on traditional fiber slippers, English cardboard crafter Mark O’Brien’s pasteboard clogs, Indianapolis upcycling expert Gabriel Dishaw’s sneakers built from outdated technology, and Dutch designer Amber Ambrose Aurele high-fashion kicks like pumps dressed up with ponytails and boots decorated with illuminating constellations.
Among the international array of shoe designers is Guthrie-based bespoke cowboy boot maker Lisa Sorrell, along with her 19-year-old daughter Paige Sorrell, who
has been making ladies dress shoes since she was 12.
“Boot making is a dying breed. There’s not many around anymore. She gets people from all over the world to commission her to create these boots,” Henderson said.
“Sole Expression” consists of six segments ranging from how shoes have been interpreted in art and literature throughout history to local artists’ reflections on their relationships with shoes. Henderson said he has been planning the exhibit for about two years.
“I’ve just kind of been developing it slowly. I knew it was going to be a tough one to do just because there’s so much content. There’s so much you can focus on with shoes. But I just wanted to do shoes in art and shoes as art,” he said.
Along with sculptural shoes, the exhibit features photographs of familiar images like the Batman logo formed out of toy shoes; they are a team effort of Dutch artists Liza Snook, who runs the Virtual Shoe Museum and creates the arrangements, and Charlotte Visser, who photographs the designs. Maine painter Kelly Jo Shows puts shoes on canvas, but she’s not painting just any old pair of sneaks.
“She writes famous artists a letter and asks them to send a pair of their shoes, and then she paints them. So it’s kind of a portrait of the artist,” Henderson said. “She did one of her shoes, so it’s a self-portrait.
“Shoes say a lot about who you are.”
Along with the Sorrells and Meade, Henderson invited several Oklahoma artists to submit works that expressed their relationships with shoes. Douglas Shaw Elder sculpted a veritable menagerie of tiny shoes and animals out of aluminum foil, while Marilyn Artus incorporated images of 364 pairs of shoes onto an American flag design. Nick Bayer was inspired by the hippopotamus-shaped shoe he crafted for his mom back when he was in second grade.
Gayle Curry also used her childhood memories as inspiration for her project, titled “Walking in Their Shoes.”
“When I was little … I’d go into my mom’s closet and I’d get her high heels and a dress. And then I’d play dress-up and stand in front of the mirror and walk around in these big shoes that swallowed me up. It’d make me feel special, and I think shoes, for me, have the power to take you into another realm,” Curry said.
An encaustic painter and printmaker, Curry uses layers of melted wax to create her artwork, and “Sole Expression” gave her the chance to take her favorite technique 3-D. She found dressy shoes at thrift stores and brushed on layers of the colorful melted wax.
“It just takes a while to build up all the layers … to get that textured look,” Curry said. I was excited about trying to use the wax in a more three-dimensional (way). It lends itself very well to it. It has all kinds of possibility. That’s why I love wax. It’s not one-dimensional in any way.”
“Sole Expression” is the second exhibit to go on view in the main smART Space gallery, which opened in 2016 as part of the museum’s twoyear, multimillion-dollar, indoor-outdoor renovation. The exhibition will be on view through next January, and it will include hands-on elements like an interactive shoe design table and a touch wall where visitors can see and feel the various materials that go into make hiking boots, running shoes and other footwear.
Henderson said he even went next door to the Oklahoma City Zoo’s new hospital and used an X-ray machine to give people an inside view at shoes.
“Hopefully, they’ll have a new appreciation for the shoe and maybe look at what they wear a little bit differently … and maybe they’ll go out and design something themselves,” he said.