The Boot

I found ‘The Boot’ some years ago on a beach in North Yorkshire. I love beach walks and always look for interesting driftwood but I also look for other interesting treasures. Sometimes it’s just a part of something, not recognisable as what it originally was. The boot was still recognisable but it had been on quite a journey and its tattered and weathered state caught my eye from afar, I knew it had to be mine.

It sat with me in my studio for quite a while, as many found treasures do, before I decided how it should become art. The opening event for StudionAme in Leicester gave me the opportunity for a small installation and I knew it was the boots turn. I took some photographs of its found state and then, referencing the Japanese art of Kintsukuroi, I decided to highlight its ragged imperfections using golden pins and thread.

Placing it on a white plinth, as if bequeathing it to the crowd, I invited viewers to take a luggage label and comment on what they thought its previous life and journey may have been. The labels were then hung on the wall alongside the original photographs and the plinth holding the boot.

Some answers were short and sweet, others longer, but my delight was in the fact that viewers chose to interact with the work and see the treasure that I saw.