Shoes Tell Stories. By John McMullen

Thank you Sher, for the invitation to show some of my shoe art!

When I moved to Illinois in 2007, I spent a year making a series of shoe-related sculptures.

I like the idea of marrying storytelling with art, and creating evocative pieces that encourage interpretation by viewers. Shoes are a terrific medium for this. For example, people can bring any of their own stories about separation, loss, and reunion to a piece such as "Coming Home":

Coming Home, 2008
Shoes, fabricated wood box, vinyl flooring, wallpaper, text, paint, adhesive. 36 x 24 x 8.25 in.

Likewise, with "Upwardly Mobile", a variety of interpretations can be made. Much of my art is a critique of consumerism and modern society, and this piece is one example.

Upwardly Mobile, 2008
Shoes, fabricated wood box, nails, plastic screen, text, paint. 24 x 20.25 x 4.25 in.

"Three Families" and "Base Pairs" are statements on equality. What is a family? Whatever we want it to be. "Three Families" addresses diversity, but also reinforces commonalities across families (e.g., shoes are worn by all, regardless of sexual orientation). Looking at the shoes, one may begin to imagine the complex lives of the people and relationships they represent.

Three Families, 2008
Shoes, fabricated wood box, text, paint, adhesive. 47.75 x 36 x 6 in.

Like "Three Families", the monumental "Base Pairs" illustrates the idea that variations in pairs create diversity, with the pairs representing the nucleotide bases of DNA. (Yes, that is more than 10 feet tall.)

Base Pairs, 2008
Shoes; PVC, PEX, and vinyl tubing; wood, steel rod, mechanical fasteners. 127 x 36 x 36 in.

Finally, I made a few souvenir maquettes from remaining shoes for supportive friends. For assemblage artist Michelle Stitzlein (who I'm glad I was able to help bring here as the featured artist for our Hatch creative reuse festival last spring), I made a piece called "Metallic Bonding" that includes text from a chemistry book, nails, and of course, bottle caps.

The day I visited Michelle's studio in Ohio to deliver the piece, she received a donation of various vintage furs and pelts, which she offered to me since I said my dear friend and radical taxidermist HK would enjoy them. I also made HK a shoe sculpture called "Trophy". The text is from "A Million Little Pieces" so that she could have a little piece of James Frey to mount on her wall.

There were other souvenirs, but most relevant here is "Cassie", which I made for our host, Sher, to honor her fierce, ass-kicking, ninja-artist ways. The name comes from the protagonist in the novel Something Rising, Light and Swift.

"Cassie" is as full of stories as its namesake, and the book itself is told in fragments and flashbacks. Sher once said that caring for family but also being criticized by them is “a hard line to walk”, and that “‘[l]ine’ by the way, is one of the main themes I see in SRLS.” I thought those comments were nicely consistent with the lines of the galvanized mesh on the base.

More images here. Comments and discussion welcome. ~wjohn