Whether it's Carey Bradshaw in 'Sex in the City' (big fan), Michael Jordan, or Ginger Rogers, backwards and in high heels, it's all about the shoes.
The shoes are what keep you on the ground, or let you fly through the air. Dog knows if your feet hurt, you are miserable. If your feet look good while they hurt, it's MUCH more bearable.
Sometime around 2001 I was working with a scenic company as a freelance painter turned sculptor, turned occasional ~whatever was needed at the time~ and we were tasked to create and install 'The Great Train Story' at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago, among other small and large scale projects. Shortly after the ginormous train set, we had a project working on a simulator for the Great Lakes Naval Base. It included life sized piers, cast manhole covers, Navy ship shmignometers, what-cha-ma-callit dohickies, skultimophonic transmiters. (I MAY be remember these names incorrectly, please don't quote me). Anyway- it was kinda a big deal, and this was one big honkin' stage set.
One of the things that I worked on was these huge PVC 'logs'. Nearly the size of telephone poles. These puppies were heavy. I was on the job of helping to create the texture of the wood grain. Well, I'm not sure how it happened, but one of these things came down at my foot, and had I not been wearing my steel toe Docs, I am absolutely certain I would have lost a toe. By the looks of the deep cut on the top of my right shoe (pictured above) it likely would have been my big toe. The PVC 'log' hit so hard it skinned the leather right off of the toe of my shoe. Forever more, these shoes were not only my 'lucky pair', but in decades of moving hither and yon, I never lost sight of exactly where I had them stored. I knew that they would come back into the fashion of my world sometime.
Now, as the GC of the building that is likely the very first coach houses in Chicago in over 60 years, the day we broke ground, I went and plucked these old gals from the depth of my shoe storage, and low and behold, I slid into them like Cinderella and her glass slipper. It was time to get on that carriage (house), and I was ready.
#chicagocoachhouse #coachhouse #ChicagoADU #itsallabouttheshoes #scenicpainter #shopgirl