What is it about red shoes? Hans Christian Anderson's girl couldn't stop dancing in them, I can't stop drawing them....

Lots of interesting things happened this week. I accepted a new job, I helped my co-workers meet a frantic deadline at my current job, I got my spare room ready for another teenager moving in, and I received my first check for my freelance illustration business. And I received a blog award (more about that in the next post.) So with all this is going on, what was most prominent thing on my mind? Red shoes. Or more specifically, drawing pictures of red shoes.

Which goes to show…. um....what does it go to show? It shows that apparently what is going on externally with me has very little connection to what is going on internally. On a whim, I did one picture of a me-like person wearing red heels and reading a book. Complete fantasy by the way. In real life I have a crippled toe joint and cannot even walk in high heels.

Then a friend asked me to do a picture of her wearing red shgoes, and another friend, Michael Ann Riley, mentioned Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz in her blog (http://thinkinginmyheadma.blogspot.com/), and I was off on a series.

I’ve always loved red shoes. Maybe it goes back to that spring day when I was four and we had just moved into our new house in the suburbs with the the giant back yard. I was in the back yard and through the chain link fence I saw a fascinating scene in the back yard next door. There was a tire swing hanging from a big maple tree and next to tire, there on the grass, I zeroed in on a pair of tiny red T-strap shoes. I wanted desperately to meet the girl who belonged to those shoes. 

The owner of the red shoes came to my door a short time later, holding her mother’s hand. Her name was Karen and she was three, a few months younger than me. We became the best of friends. But I never got shoes like hers. I colored all the shoes red in my coloring books and have loved red shoes ever since.

Recently, as I began drawing pictures on this theme, I remembered a story by Hans Christian Anderson called "The Red Shoes." I looked it up and read a translation of the original. The story is not quite as charming as the title would imply – more like a combination morality/horror tale. The red shoes of the title become the obsession of a little orphan girl (whose name, it turns out, is Karen) and she thinks about them when she should be thinking about church or being obedient to her guardian. The obsession gives life to the shoes and when the girl puts them on her feet they begin dancing and will not stop, with decidedly unpleasant results. Read it if you dare. Complete translations are in the public domain and available on the Internet.

There are some newer kinder versions of this story. One is The Red Shoes by Gloria Fowler and illustrated by Sun Yung Yoo and another is The Red Shoes by Barbara Bazilian. One reviewer, Donna L. Scanlon, says of Bazilian’s book, "Bazilian's tale bears so little resemblance to the original that one wonders why the reteller bothered to use it at all." I don’t wonder at this at all. I don’t think there is much of a market these days for books about a child getting her feet cut off by an executioner…..

Anyway, there is something magical and maybe a little decadent about red shoes, and they are a lot of fun to draw and paint. Here are some more pictures inspired by the theme…..

My favorite dress

Day at the art gallery

Dancer