One should either be a work of art or wear a work of art.

I spend a non-negligible amount of time pontificating about the nature of art both on-blog and off, so I was delighted to find these two posts. First, from Pop Matters, In Praise of Ugly Shoes:

Fashion and art are now irrevocably intertwined. Gloriously impractical and surprisingly sculptural, ugly shoes may be the new affordable art.

. . . One Prada pump was red velvet, with a pink bow on the toe and a candlestick heel sculpted to look like violet petals; another had the same design but in lilac and chartreuse; another was sewn from wavy panels of multi-colored suede—mint green, purple, yellow—with cut-out panels along the sides.

And this from American Craft, Let Them Eat Cake:

I believe the simple act of making something, anything, with your hands is a quiet political ripple in a world dominated by mass production... and people choosing to make something themselves will turn those small ripples into giant waves.

. . . “I spoke to my mom about it; she’s a Quaker who lives very simply and I really look up to her,” she explains. “I thought she would say yes, you are making things for the elite, but instead she told me it was OK to make money for something I spent a lot of time on. She said it’s not that we shouldn’t have nice things, it’s that we shouldn’t have as many things. I decided I could participate in the model of making things intensely, with consideration, and making things that will last.

Let us leave the gallery and go to the bakery in our Sunday finest!