“Kick Off Your Heels” fundraiser

 

I just completed a pair of art shoes I am submitting for the Kick Off Your Heels fundraiser. It is a juried invitational with the goal of raising $5,000 for The Barbra Streisand Women’s Heart Center at Cedars-Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles, California. They they not only treat women, but also educate and do major research on heart disease with women, exclusively. 

Did you know that more U. S. women die each year from heart disease than from all cancers combined? Organizers Jamie Fingal and Sue Bleiweiss didn’t either. After watching a segment on Katie Couric’s new talk show about this subject, they decided to put together a project to help raise awareness of heart disease in women. The link to the segment is here. All of the heels that are juried in to this fundraiser will be sold in May 2013. They are designed to be works of art, not wearable shoes. As we get closer, I’ll keep you posted on how you can help by buying a pair of shoes.

Here’s how I made my shoes:

I started with blue pumps purchased for $2 at a local thrift shop, sanded them lightly with sandpaper, and painted them with gesso. The shoe in the front is the original color, and the shoe in the back is painted with gesso:

I painted them sky blue with brown tree branches:

I bought the nest, eggs, silk dogwood blooms and the bird at local craft stores, and auditioned them:

The birds did not resemble any I’d ever seen in nature, so I trimmed their feathers and repainted them to look like chickadees, my favorite bird. Then I glued wads of paper inside the shoes, and glued or pinned in the moss, lichens, nest, eggs, birds and dogwood blosssoms. Here they are, all done!