Footnotes - Sutton House

Invited by the London College of Fashion to produce new works inspired by their shoe archive,   Linda responded as an artist and tool-maker who reads objects through their construction methods.  The crafting of this Geta is true to traditional Japanese techniques, yet it was made rapidly. The master craftsman who made the Geta by hand was left-handed, given the direction of the knots in the twine.

By re-imagining and handmaking her interpretation of the craftsman’s tools, Linda has explored a new area of her practice by undertaking a ‘silent apprenticeship’ in the shadow of the Geta maker, who she will never meet.  Using her new tools, she read the original shoe and used this understanding of production to shadow the movements needed. 

Following the scar lines left by his damaged tools, she ultimately learns to create a perfect copy of his geta.  

Ten shoes were exhibited for the exhibition, in addition to the tools created; each one illustrates a particular stage of the making process.  This method replicates the artists own formative apprenticeship as a jeweller, where each incremental production stage would have to be repeated until perfected before continuing.

Exhibited in Footnotes; an exhibition showing the remarkable history of the selected shoes revealing new interpretations of historic objects under the guise of five categories – Scale, Balance, Fragility, Singled Out, and Common/Uncommon.  

“London College of Fashion’s shoe archive has been compiled to inspire and instruct students in the making and designing of shoes. As objects, the shoes have so many interpretive possibilities for artists because the provenance of each one is unknown.

“Sutton House provides the perfect backdrop to Footnotes because of its own extensive history. Through this exhibition and accompanying programme of workshops and talks, we want to immerse people in the history of the everyday and in shoes as ways to reanimate the past and access personal and shared cultural memories among the audience.”

-Alison Moloney, curator and research fellow at London College of Fashion, UAL