These miniature shoes are hand sculpted and painted. They are made out of baked clay. They are finely detailed despite my fuzzy eyesight. Many of them depict mariachis and funny jalapeño scenes with hot skeleton women.
Another depicts a baby in her grandmother's arms.
Another is a wedding scene with wedding bells on the bottom.
I felt that the bottoms should be painted so that art connesuers could enjoy every inch of these miniatures. The first one I ever did resembled an elf's shoe.
I painted little candles along the side which quickly evolved into the theme of flames and jalapeños.
Two of them depict pink jalapenos.
The curve of the inside of the shoes have skulls. These were challenging to paint because you had to get the eye sockets and teeth in just the right spot because of the imperfect-wavy surface. I usually nailed it but if I didn't had to go back in carefully to correct it. On the later versions, I added a hole to the back of the shoe in case someone would like to use them as an ornament.
I think the wedding one would make a great gift. My wife and I received a Dia De Los Muertos wedding box that we got tattooed onto each other. As an artist, I found it important to contribute the scene by taking it a step further by including the entire wedding party. You'll find symbolism throughout the piece "see the white dress in the photo above? That's it".
There is also the finely detailed mariachi show "bottom shelf, back". I honestly didn't know what to do with that shoe which I'd painted a random pattern onto. Soon, one mariachi showed up and I just kept adding them. At one point I felt like I was spending way too much time on it but knew the end result would be worth every second because you can hear music just by looking at it. The soundless musical shoe. Imagine.
Each of these little shoes aren't only works of art, they are also story tellers.
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