I haven’t created anything sculptural for a while, beyond the occasional cardboard prototype for a handheld product design. I’d like to share an art project created in 2005 at OCAC for Attachments and Connections class. The assignment required us to use any types of cables, crimps, strapping, hanging, rivets, grommets, to wrap / hang / strap. Serendipity intervened to guide me to the library where I landed on a book on foot binding in China. This horrific practice began sometime around 800 AD and was outlawed in 1911, yet lingered in some remote provinces through the 1950′s.
I wanted my object to illustrate the trauma inflicted on a woman to achieve the ideal 4 inch foot, while conveying an unsettling combination of dainty/petite/decorative and forced/mutilation/broken/aggressive. I drilled through the bottom of my size 8 clog, wove a cable through the toe and the heel, and pulled like hell with pliers, (assisted by brute strength of roommate) and secured it with a u-bolt. I created a new upper with painted and stitched Rives paper, and attached it with glue and stitching. Finally, I balled up a stocking to create a 4 inch foot-like object, and bound it with a measuring tape.
