Yes, this collection of images is of found footwear! Over the years I have come across many shoes and wondered how in the world did this get in the river? There are just so many of them that I see in the park it makes me scratch my head a bit. Since most of them appear not to be worn out…I muse, wouldn’t you miss one of your shoes if you misplaced it? Granted, there are some ugly styles represented here. Perhaps that can act as a partial answer as to “why?” Anyway, this is just a few of the shoes I have found over the last few months. I’ll add and subtract more as the mood hits me and I discover them.
It appears we have a “theme” going here…brown leather sandals. Here are a few more to meditate upon.
I like the little plants growing in this one!
I did an earlier post (Magic in the Air) and used this hiking boot as a prop.
This one is a bit of a ringer! I think it’s a plastic boot off of a Santa decoration. Over the years, I have even found small Barbie doll shoes.
What wonderful color and such a high fashion statement!
One of a million athletic shoes I’ve seen at the river and only outnumbered by the billion flip flops I have tripped across.
Finding flip flops makes sense to me because this seems more like the shoe one would wear visiting the beach to go swimming etc…
Who doesn’t love football and Sponge Bob flip flops? Just a few of the many to choose from. Here’s just one day’s collection assembled on one small stretch of the park on an early spring day of this year. I used some of these and more in one of my earliest posts (Lost a Flip Flop Lately?).
Now that I have this category started, I’ll try to update it with the latest styles and models. The Ohio River is generous and I’ll be sure to keep my eyes and nose out for more.
Artist at Exit 0 Riverblog 
Hheheh I love the red and black boot! Try to find the other one for me 🙂 the Sponge Bob flip flop is wonderful too, I bet some kid cried when he lost that….
Okay, maybe I’m just odd–but–seeing this footwear makes me wonder if something dark and sinister befall their wearers. Just me, right?
There certainly is that element with the shoes and lost dolls. Although I haven’t seen this in person, I have seen an image of piles of shoes displayed at the Holocaust Museum that was very moving to me.
Oh yes, I’ve seen photos of shoes and clothing and personal items. That is disturbing. What I find equally disturbing are displays in museums, like the Portland Museum of Art, of clothing–dresses, leggings, moccasins etc–of Indian people, Lakota esp,–on display with placards that read, “Lakota, circa 1890, South Dakota.” Instead of volume of items there is the distinctness that comes with the creation of each item by someone for another person whose age, gender and size can be determined by clothing.
Yep, your work is striking a particular cord. Evidence of it being ‘effective and engaging’.
Several years a go I visited Chicago’s Field Museum to check out what was then a new exhibit about the people of the Arctic. Gallery after gallery contained what seemed the majority of the material culture those societies produced and it was really overwhelming. The thought I had was these people declined because we took all their stuff.
those shoes leave a scary feeling in me.