Process

Most of the shoes I create in glass start from the original shoe. Occasionally I model the shoes in clay. Every shoe style requires careful consideration for how to approach the various parts. 

I prepare the shoe to pour plaster-based molds to create the soles, uppers, heels, straps and in the case of boots, the calves. 

Once the plaster has set, I remove the shoe (now destroyed), and fill the molds with cold crushed glass. This process allows me to place specific colors and add details that would otherwise be impossible to access in a closed mold. These filled molds are fired in my kiln to fuse the glass particles together.

I clean and grind the fired parts to fit them together, and using a glass paste, I secure the pieces. I then refine the connected pieces. If a shoe has more than 2 mold parts, each section will need to be connected in the same way. 

After all pieces are connected and the whole shoe has fired for the final time, I hand polish the shoe to the desired finish.