I never know where my next inspiration will come for each art piece. This one came while waiting at a stoplight and watching a disheveled woman with worn out tennis shoes wander across the street in front of me. I thought to myself, “she is a lost sole”. From that point I knew I needed to create an art piece using the soles of old shoes.

As I search for images, one in particular captured my eye, it was a homeless man named “Dale”, photographed by Pedro Oliveira. His eyes had a story to tell and Pedro captured this so beautifully. Thank you to Pedro for allowing me to create this art piece with your photograph.

My first step was to posterized the photo and print it out to fit the plywood. From there I basically just had to fill in each color shape cut out of shoes. I nailed each piece to the board and painted them the appropriate color. Many have said the eyes are the window to the soul. For this reason I left the eyes shades of grey to keep the focus on the eyes. I never imaged it would turn out to be such a powerful image.