Jamie Okuma is a Native American artist renown for her work with beads and the fashion world.
Jamie Okuma was born in Glendale, California in the year 1977. Okuma grew up on the La Jolla Reservation in California. The artist attended the School of the Institute of American Indian Art. Her father was of Hawaiian decent. Her mother was of Native American descent( Luiseno and Shoshone- Bannock.
She turned to the fashion world as she had become exhausted with the mediums she was working in. She had been working with beads and dolls for the most part.
She made her first miniature dress whilst in high school.
Below we visit the studio of Jamie Okuma:
One work with a figure takes on average four months to complete. Okuma goes into great detail in parts of her work except the face.
For time periods the artist focuses on clothes and fashion that were popular in the late 1800s and early 1900s.
She is based out of the La Jolla Reservation in San Diego County.
Price range information: Sorry none available.
Its great to see clothes and similar designs that were popular in the 1800s and 1900s come back en vogue again. Okuma’s dolls have a tremendous amount of detail.
I enjoy looking at objects that humans have in common over the centuries. Items such as shoes, combs, rings and jewelry, coffee cups all interest me a great deal. It intrigues me to see the changes in technology and human desires on the change of these products over the years.
If you love shoes, the first artist to talk about would be Wayne Thiebaud. I have written about the artist’s wonderful paintings of food such as cakes and donuts, but he also has made some wonderful art concerning shoes. This piece is titled Shoe Row. Thiebaud is still alive today and was a leader in the Pop Art movement.
Below is a great color version of his artwork.
Another artist working with shoes, in this case ballet shoes, is Deborah Bays. Bays works frequently in pastels and oils working mainly with the still life. She even sells her prep drawings and sketches of ballet shoes alongside her original art. From a collector standpoint its fun to see the process of an idea from a sketch to a finished painting. An example of Deborah Bays artwork is below. She achieves great depth in her paintings of shoes by placing them at great angles to lead the viewer into a painting. Similar to the way an artist might place a long stemmed flower on a table to give the art dimensionality.
Here is a wonderful drawing made by the artist and our suject du jour!
And of course we cannot forget my favorite artist of all time Andy Warhol. The master business artist made his way to the top by taking the ordinary and making it come to life on paper. Simple items from a cigarette package or soup can or shoe were made in exquisite works of art. Warhol made many works using shoes as the subject including heels, boots, and flats. Below is a clip from the Museum of Modern Art located in Nice, France that has a serigraph by Warhol that was embellished with diamond dust. What a great sense of design by the master!
Here is a gallery showing the many varieties of shoes painted by Andy.
When it comes to painting the footwear of cowboys and the western life no one is more skilled than Nelson Boren. The artist paints his shoes with the people wearing them. The viewer is left to imagine what the rest of the person looks like and if there are a pair of shoes what the situation might be. Boren enjoys working in watercolors. Below is a wonderful example of his artwork.
My favorite work of art I have seen personally within the past month were wonderful paintings with shoes as the subject by Van Gogh. The pieces are part of the exhibit at the Denver Art Museum until January 2013. I highly recommend visiting the show and you can see how great Van Gogh was with color. In one still life we see a grouping of brightly lit oranges on a table that appear ready to burst with color! Below is an example of Van Gogh’s work with shoes.
Its true, I saved my favorite shoe artist for last! He comes from Holland and his name is Diederick Kraaijeveld. He works with one of the things I love BASKETBALL. He also doesn’t use any paint. He uses found wood for his art and the wood is already colored so he sees no reason to change it. Under his artistic medium it lists colour salvaged wood! How unique! Below an example of the Kraaijeveld style.
In this clip we visit the artist’s studio warehouse. Its great to see all the different shapes and colours he has found over the years. As he says in the beginning of the clip, he makes nice things out of what people throw away!
I hope this post got you to think about the many types of shoes warn by people throughout the world. Not only in modern times, but over the thousands of years. From a simple sandle to a Jimmy Choo they are fantastic subjects for their designs and color!
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