Here's another project I spent a long time on. It was on and off the bench for several months.

Very awkward to work on as it came together.

Very gratifying responce from the customer.





(Message edited by paul on November 10, 2009)

Paul,

Lovely. Simply lovely.

Tight Stitches
DWFII--HCC Member

Paul,

Wow, that looks great. I'm sure your customer was thrilled.

Jon

Thank you DW and Jon.

Simplicity was what he wanted and soo...
well, that and the Medicine wheel from Big Medicine, that pair of boots I sent to Sheridan.

Thanks again,
Paul

Paul, what is the pattern on the backside of the bag?
Georgene

Georgene,

That is a medicine wheel.

For a discussion of it's spiritual significance you can check out the info on this link:
http://www.spiritualnetwork.net/native/medicine_wheel.htm

Basicly the four colors reresent the four directions, North, South, East, and West. The wheel or circle is the circle of life.

The eagle feathers, which I've made of tooling leather, (whenever I make leather feathers, I like to use feather leather) were colored off of two eagle feathers belonging to a Native friend of mine.

Paul

(Message edited by paul on November 10, 2009)

Opps. I meant to attach this picture of one I made in preparation for another project I did.

Paul
Not the decorative stuff, the checked looking motif on the undyed part that sits against the wheel/fender part of the bike. Is it part of the leather or some other non skid material. Is there a purpose?

Georgene

...it looks kind of like a soling sheet...kind of...

Oh, excuse me Georgene.

Thanks Jeffrey. You win the cupie doll!

Well actually it's not soling, it's toplifting, Cat's Paw 15 iron Honey, to be exact.

I don't know if anyone is still making oak composition soling sheets anymore, tho I didn't look real hard. That might've been better. I thought this would work with the natural leather color choice the customer was asking for.

I tested it for heat tolerance, very unscientificly, but it did'nt burn, so I went forward. After the first ride, however, this toplifting rubber became too soft to be able to unfasten the "pull the dot" snaps, as the rubber flexed too much. So we layed in a strip of Kydex, a very hard plastic, behind the snaps to stablize it, and all is well at last report.

Just one of the lessons to remember for next time in a product line of 'one offs'.

Paul

I went to the shoe museum in our city today and i saw hundreds of shoes in their cases/cages,expressive but silenced in their dark graveyard,hard to read the descriptions of the shoes/boots without a flash light,Surly the museum has 101 reasons why that is so,But i like to see the uppers stitch count and the real color,i would have gotten more inspiration going birdwatching by the Don river as i usually do than going to the dead-shoe museum which can't even inspire a shoemaker.

Nasser Vies
HCC-Member.

Nasser,

That's kind of sad to hear. Perhaps if you got in touch with the Curator, they would be willing to take the pieces out (or show you equivalent pieces that they have in storage). The times I've tried this approach, they are very excited and happy to help someone interested in the same things that they are!

- Francis

Francis,

The Bata shoe museum did a show/display of my shoes before they had their museum and i displayed and did shoe making demo at their head quarter at their 100 anniversary and i was there at the opening of the museum,But this is not what this is about,the place is dark.I have been to Victoria and Albert museum the BM but nothing like this,as for their curators,I don't even know who they are.

Regards
Nasser

Nassar,

Wouldn't it be grand to have a shoe/shoemaking museum for and by shoemakers themselves? That has long been a "dream by day" of mine, that the HCC might find the funding and get to that level one day. I haven't been to Bata for years, but the low light levels are to protect the delicate antique fabrics and textiles from fading/deterioration. The best way for us to see what we want is always to make an appointment. Elizabeth Semmelhack, who just posted here on the history of heels last week, is your contact-person at BSM, a very friendly and helpful person who'd I'm sure would be happy to help you explore their collection.

Muse-ums are an interesting thing, yes, part grave yard "warehouse" of salvaged "old junk", but also vibrant places of learning and inspiration via their House of the Muse moniker. Like any huge daunting library/archive, you just need to learn how to use them and exploit all they have to offer. Typically all you'll see walking in off the street like any civilian is just a sampling to titillate--deeper delving is always required.

BTW, I took a run through the Google books version of James D. Devlin's 1852 'Critica Crispiana: The Boots and Shoes of the Great Exhibition' somebody posted a link to last winter. Lots of Devlin's (a boot closer's) detailed critique of some mighty fine work there, including several refs. to 40+ stitches per inch, etc., as well as evaluations of the work by several of the leading West End houses of the day. Hardly a pot-boiler to read, but well worth printing out and slogging through. BML confirmed, this was the only one part ever published, as Devlin speaks of parts 2 and 3. The other parts apparently never made it to print.

Al,

A shoe/shoemaking museum for and by the shoemakers themselves will be ideal,but even a living shoe maker working (making shoes/boots)at the museum will put the contrast into perspective,that's why i and anyone who walks in here love my little living shoe shop/museum. I will contact Elizabeth Semmelhack if i go again, I like to revisit some fine very old boots Jonathan showed me once in the eighties.

James D Devlin's Critica Crispiana sounds good,I will try to find it.

Regards
Nasser

Nasser,

Shoes, like all artifacts, are just so many dead leavings, after the living process of our art is over and done *yawn*. You're right, it's like the difference between just seeing so many old orchestral instruments tucked into glass cases, versus hearing them played; or dead butterflies pinned in a frame, rather than alive, flitting around in the wild

Perhaps its because my museum is largely a "living" one, I take for granted that the animated process is an essential part of the museum. Old shoes and tools or machines teach very little to posterity unless there are feet to wear them, hands to make them, demos, classes and workshops, etc.

When I started, static old "Victorian" museum displays were fine, because there were still bustling shoe factories and small artisan's shops to visit to see the animated side of things for balance. Today, sadly, this is no longer the case over here.

When you talk to Elizabeth, why don't you ask her if you can go do some public shoemaking at BSM as a special event or something?

Al,

That's why i always preferred a living shoe making school with fine samples of our dead brothers and sisters and the best of the living shoemakers/bootmakers work posted to be used as guide/reference.

As for doing public shoe making,I wish there was another me to offer and one to keep the shop working to pay bills,That said i used to do a lot of that,The best one was 18/19 c crafts show at a castle in Hamilton with artist of different crafts working under trees with people circling me and taking pictures and asking questions about shoe making,I sort of missed that.

I came through this well put poem recently at an opening of a book call "A foot in the past".

A GENTLE craft, I sit so snug,
With hammer,Knife and nippers;
I thump away,and cut,and tug,
at boot,shoe,and slippers.

And if I can make both ends meet
My awl,though no great treasure,
My work,though trodden under feet,
I'll work for you with pleasure.

(little jack of all trades London,1823)

Al,

You got me thinking about museums,Generally they are the collections of kings,queens,governments or the bourgeois,Looted or paid for,usually not a good representative of the commons, my feelings about them is complex,I agree with you wholly that they should be a center of learning and continuation of the crafts or just remain a grave yard of dead artifacts.

The animated process is very important as you mentioned,It is a continuum of our art as insignificant as it is today, as long as you and i and other shoe/boot makers are still alive we will continue to speak about our art and those who came before us and taught us and we shall continue to teach others to replace us and speak for us when we are no longer.

Al,

You got me thinking about museums,Generally they are the collections of kings,queens,governments or the bourgeois,Looted or paid for,usually not a good representative of the commons, my feelings about them is complex,I agree with you wholly that they should be a center of learning and continuation of the crafts or just remain a grave yard of dead artifacts.

The animated process is very important as you mentioned,It is a continuum of our art as insignificant as it is today, as long as you and i and other shoe/boot makers are still alive we will continue to speak about our art and those who came before us and taught us and we shall continue to teach others to replace us when we are no longer.

Nasser,

Very strong views on museums you have, and being a life-long museums insider I can understand that view, but there is at least another. Man's material past (AKA old junk, found, looted, Bourgeois or bought in un-biased terms) is still our collective inheritance. It has power (the Nazis used this wrongly to create their Aryan myth); it inspires, teaches, it speaks to us if we can understand its language. But moreover it's "treasure" to be "saved" preserved and held safe for posterity even if we can't understand it fully today. The other side of the equation might be something like: "who has the right, the knowledge and foresight/insight and authority to decide for all humanity for all time coming what we as a people can simply forget?" If museums threw junk out, gave it away, or lost track of it, important pieces to puzzles would be missing for good.

This then devolves to "what is the relevance of history anyway?", which is another can of worms. Best answer I've found for that is not a statement so much as another question: "what's the advantage to such a prolific and dangerous species as ourselves to engage in selective collective amnesia?" Imagine waking up in a run-down hotel room in a huge bustling foreign-language-speaking city with only a pocket full of change, not knowing who you are, why you're there, how to get around, who to trust and who not to. Sure, you might get lucky and some kind stranger will find you and take you in and help you, or you could be robbed, beaten and left in a an alley. Imagine if 50% of the population of that same city woke up with amnesia? Would you want to live in that chaos?

"History is a foreign country--they did things differently there". Museums can not "save the world", true, but for all their short-comings I think it's better to have them than not to--it's all YOUR old junk in there trying to remind you who you are, where you are, and why you're there. You don't want to bonk yourself on the head hard so you become an amnesiac do you?

Al,

The strong views might have something to do with the fact that i was born on top of the ruins of Susa on one side and Babylonia on the other,In my childhood watched ancient palaces unearthed in susa cross Danial tomb,later on the history of the near east up to 5000 BC i discovered through the translations of the cuneiform tablets at the BM,I have nothing against museums in general and not liking the dim light in one doesn't make me one.

The carrying(removing) of the statues of the city gods in ancient time meant defeat of that city,hence the Greek want the statue of their goddess back from Paris,it's their antiquity, what concern is it to the Ottoman? Turk if the nose of Egyptian sphinx is blown up or giving away huge finds out of Assyria, Babylonia and Persia when they ruled these place illegally and with tyranny.

Nasser,

Ah, well, perhaps I did conflate and read too much into your dim-lights comments--sorry.

The other issues you raise are indeed legitimate and a very hot topic in museums circles--repatriation of stuff, etc. For the longest time, however, the imperial powers in Western Europe felt themselves, rightly or wrongly, from time to time the very culmination of "Western Civilization", and thus somehow the rightful care-takers of anything (and everything) from the Levant westward. The history of the Ottoman Empire is far enough outside of my learning to not comment further than saying: "history is always written by the victors..." and "to the victors go the spoils". This isn't fair or right, but it is the way it is. Conquest and empire-building are today seen as a bloody business, supposedly now a relic of the 20thc and before, but we live in the world those generations left us. In fact if I'm not too mistaken the "countries", borders, and nation states in your own native land were invented out of whole cloth for geo-political/expedient reasons by the British after WWI, in cahoots(?) with the Turks. How far would we have to turn back, redrawing the maps of history to set things right there? Then how far to set things right everywhere?

Interesting anecdote (carefully purged for publication here): a few decades ago a group of Native Americans petitioned a US state museum demanding the artifacts they'd held (excavated archaeologically) be returned. The archaeologists and others protested, pointing out the group demanding the objects were in no way related to/descended from the ancient people who deposited them. The courts went in favor of the Native group and the objects were handed over. A few week's later a festive gathering was held several states away, and a the Native Americans celebrated by tossing all the artifacts into a deep lake. When asked why on earth they were doing this, they said that the ____ people from that area were their hated enemies in antiquity and that they got the objects back just to desecrate them. The state museum bowed to the do-gooder spirit of the courts, they were all made fools of, and now a whole lot of valuable (culturally) material-culture is gone.

Your questions as to who owns what after its dispersal for centuries is a conundrum. The French started the craze for Middle Eastern "treasures" under Napoleon, the Brits quickly followed suit, and do not forget that a huge volume of these items (genuine and fake) were sold ostensibly legitimately by nefarious "dealers" throughout the Middle East to eager museums in Europe and beyond in the 19th and 20thc. If you want, log onto the ICOM/International Council of Museums website, or the AAM/American Association of Museums and read what's going on with this issue. It's getting so hairy museums now are reluctant to even accept an object as a donation/gift unless the donor can provide a clear record of legitimate ownership going back to "day one", lest they accidentally accept a looted object. The fear is that they do not want to create a market for illicit goods. One the other-hand, all the treasures of the Baghdad Museum went someplace when Iraq was invaded. Stolen by invading soldiers? Sold by local dealers? Looted? Or just hidden by museum staff for safe keeping? Who knows..... I'm sure there are enough wealthy private collectors to keep the market for illicit goods going strong, and as wary as museums have become, also a lot more cool stuff for them to buy museums won't touch, further dispersing our material-culture into limbo-land or down a rat-hole where none of us will ever get to see it, study it, or get our city god's statue back. IMO the museums would have been a better repository than a billionaire's vault in Tokyo, at least museums can and do boast of what they own and let us in to see it, even in dim light

Al,I am glad we can look at things from the same level stand point now,but you brought up so many middle eastern issues,I don't know where to start from,but let say this first i command American museums attitudes toward repatriation and staying away from looted antiquities,As for the victor writes history,the victim also writes about it's catastrophe,geopolitical expedient of the British in the middle east?that's a text book story for never ending wars.

The anecdote of the native American is indeed a sad one,they should not have granted them until security for well keeping and maintenance of artifacts was confirm,repatriation should be followed a promise(oath) not to destroy even if the items belong to a different tribe.

The looting of Baghdad museums is a heart break for me and millions of wise people, The Iraqis compare it to the mongol invasion in the 11 c when the books and manuscripts of 7000 libraries and seventy millions books of that city were thrown in the Tigris river.