Staff Writer

Kelly Jo Shows remembers lying in a hammock at home in Kennebunk with her duck, Louise, and dog, Emma, thinking about her pair of old blue Converse sneakers.

“There’s a joke with my friends that all my best ideas come from lying in the hammock. It’s a hammock idea,” Shows said.

Those blue Converse became the first portrait in her ongoing project “From the Sole.” Artists across the state send her their shoes to be turned into portraits that show the artists in a new light.

“I did the self-portrait of my shoes, and I thought ‘this is me.’ It’s not (of) me, it’s of my shoes, but it is me,” Shows said.

The 44-year-old currently is showing her project at Heartwood College of Art through July 14 with a reception from 5 to 7 p.m. July 2.

You can learn a lot from a person’s shoes, according to Shows. The pristine whiteness of painter Brenden Sanborn’s Nike’s or the combination of one woman’s high heel and one man’s brown loafer that make a pair for Goldie Peacock, a transgender entertainer, or the mysterious significance Shows will not divulge of a potato chip lodged into the toe of a man’s loafer.

Shows finds her artists through friends, Facebook and letters about the project that ask artists for their shoes.

Not everyone has indulged her request. She tried to get a pair from Stephen King, but to no avail.

Shows has held and smelled nearly 30 pairs of shoes, all of which she turned into portraits of their owners.

“I danced in Jamie Wyeth’s shoes. I was putting the final touches on (his painting) and danced around in them,” she said, explaining she was especially excited to be able to paint a pair of Wyeth’s shoes.

That, she said, was the only pair she actually wore.

“Look at this pair of Corey Daniels’. His shoes look exactly like his one painting,” she said, excitedly pointing out the similarities of an abstract painting and the gray splotches on his black shoes.

“I told him this was my favorite splotch,” Shows said, pointing to a small dot on the right of the shoe above the toe. Shows has become so attached to the shoes capturing the artist through them, she paints each splotch or hole or wad of dirt as part of the artist’s story.

With each painting Shows tells a story about the artist who wore the shoes – what they did in them, where they went and what they saw. She said painting shoes allows people the opportunity to talk about different kinds of memories than they would if she was painting their face. The process has uncovered new stories from artists she had been friends with for years.

“There’s things about shoes that bring people together,” Shows said. “You hear all kinds of things I’d never know if I was painting a portrait. How would youever know that story (without the shoes)?”

It took Susan Wilder from Heartwood years to notice the flower on her black flats were actually skulls and Shows learned illustrator Wade Zahares only owns two pair of shoes, one for the summer and one for the winter.

The public will never get a chance to hear many of these stories, unless they ask Shows or the shoes’ owners, but detail on the canvas will allow the viewer to make up their own stories about each artist based solely on their shoes.

She is looking to expand her project state-by-state, by asking artists to give her shoes through a virtual walking tour through the country. She said she may also may make the project into a coffee table book with facing pages showing the shoe portrait and artist’s work.

For more information on the artist, or to donate a pair of shoes, e-mail Shows at kellyjoshows@fearnoart.net.

Staff Writer Suzanne Hodgson can be reached at 282-4337.