In fairy tales, shoes are imbued with enchanted powers: they save, they transport, and they contain their heroes and heroines. They have long been symbolic, representing aspirations, transformation, and the search for one’s place in the world.
A home for Dorothy, and protection from evil. An escape for the Twelve Dancing Princesses. Humility, fragility, and the perfect fit for Cinderella. In The Red Shoes, a warning about obedience, obsession, and ambition.
Hidden meaning mixed with morality in these plots resembles a long tradition in art where assortments of foods, plants, and oddities are superimposed meticulously to convey ethical, social, and philosophical messages. It is from this desire to create “live stills” — still lifes infused with a narrative that animates them, that the series Shoe Stories originates.
Over time, my protagonists in art have been old toys and trinkets from storage bins, discarded clothing, vintage photographs and objects found on beaches or city sidewalks. The first shoe I created was a pink Barbie pump stepping on a giant wad of gum. Gum on My Shoe was part of an early series which used sweets and fruit as surrogates for the fetishization of women. I then continued to take pictures of dolls and their accessories as stand-ins for girls, for childhood, for myself. But I often returned to the shoe and its allegorical possibilities.
In New York City thrift stores, I collect extravagant shoes that seem completely unworn. I wonder what their initial intent was, and I like to imagine reinventing it. Fanciful footwear represents an enigma. In my pedestrian town where we commute so often without cars, it makes sense that stilettos, pumps, platforms, and wedges are left on shelves. Desired yes, but ultimately rejected. There is often a gap between our dreams and the reality that is imposed on us. What if we could magically reverse that?
To that end I carefully arrange and rearrange the shoes I find, usually with flowers like a bouquet. And like flowers, I often submerge them in water, to provide a stage that is malleable and suggestive of the irrational. By using shoes as vases, I emphasize their qualities as metaphorical vessels, their resilience, their prospects and potential. I hope to evoke a sense of mystery and longing, hinting at the adventures of those who walked before, contemplating the journeys yet to come.
I also want to convey the possibility of “the other shoe dropping”. I find pristine baby shoes on the street and smile at the determination of the confined infants who tossed them from prams. I saved my wedding shoes, we scratched the names of the unmarried girls on their soles, so that the first to fade following the night of dancing, would be the next to wed. I inspect impossible party heels and know: if the prince knocked on my door with the glass slipper, it would shatter on my foot, like so many castles in the air will do. It’s strange that an item so practical in its use, can be elevated in status, has the potential to comfort, to excite, and to elicit pleasure or pain.
With a Master of Fine Arts degree from Pratt Institute, Laura Dodson is an award-winning photographer, writer, curator, and educator based in New York City and Athens, Greece. Her works have been the subjects of several international one-person exhibitions, and her art has appeared in numerous group shows. She currently teaches Digital Photography at Queens College, City University of New York. She is represented by Alex Ferrone Gallery. [Official Website]
