I’m quite fond of using the scraps on my worktable to make paper shooze (as opposed to “shoes,” which are functional), usually in my own size, although sometimes I make them as gifts for others. I have produced caffe latte-inspired espadrilles and Carmen Miranda wedgies with 50s-style cocktail pick fruit adornments, even pink floral baby-girl Mary Janes for my mother. It’s an exercise in structure and problem-solving as well as an opportunity to daydream and decorate, just a pure, mindless craft with a pretty pay-off. Often I get bored with them before they are finished, and I discard them. I hadn’t made a pair for a long time. Until this week…
Here’s a pair of shooze I’ve just completed. Distinctly Venetian in spirit and with more than a nod to the paper footwear of Isabelle de Borchgrave (see an earlier post entitled Un Mondo di Carta). Yes, I confess hers were in the back of my mind. In fact, these were made with de Borchgrave cocktail napkins. But I honestly think mine are just as beautiful, and perhaps even more carefully finished, and anyway I was making paper shooze years before she was!
Clearly these shooze weren’t “made for walkin’.” I think that’s why they materialized here… to remind me that I’m not walking. I’m stuck. And more than a little lost.
I don’t know where I live anymore. I don’t know where I belong now. I don’t know where I will be after September. My time in Venice is speeding by; my money (thanks to the brutal exchange rate) is disappearing faster than I ever dreamed possible, despite my thrifty efforts to conserve.
To make matters worse, I believe I am on the right track but very far behind where I would like to be by now. There are so many things I feel absolutely driven to do – in Venice, in the studio, in my personal transformation. I know I need to make some decisions and take action. I know I need to figure out what’s next for me, and how I will pay for it.
But I’m stuck.
So these shooze will do just fine for now. I won’t even scuff their gilded serpentine toes…
