Artist Statement - Haley Livesay

What an amazing honor it was to participate in this shoe
design project. I must first admit that I was very nervous about the inspiration behind my shoes. I was afraid I would be incapable of presenting the image in my mind onto paper. Fortunately, my dedication towards this project, along with the purpose behind it, encouraged an exceptionally finished product.

These shoes are inspired by the artist Fransisco de Goya and his artwork. To give a bit of backstory to Goya, his artwork started off as common Rococo paintings. I decided to base one shoe off of this period. After the Rococo era, Goya went insane and began painting black paintings during the Romantic period. During the Rococo period, Goya only worked on his light paintings.There are two pieces that tie into his Rococo paintings. The first one is titled The Seesaw. This piece takes place on a homemade wooden seesaw and can be found on the outer side of the blue tongued Converse. The Seesaw is one of Goya’s light artworks, which took place in the beginning of his career pursuit. In this piece, there are two children resembling, with skin like porcelain and a resemblance of cherubs. The boys seem to be overdressed for a day of play, however by viewing closely, the boy on the right can be seen with his socks ruffled and falling down. This can address the importance of play, instead of being too worried about their looks.

Moving along to the inner side of the blue tongued converse, another light artwork piece by Goya has been recreated. In his painting, The Meadow of San Isidro, there are buildings in the background of a fountain of both men and women. Even though I had the choice to focus the piece on the men and women, I wanted to incorporate Goya’s architectural side to show that he painted more than human figures under blue skies. The light artwork shoe is there not to take away from the main shoe, the dark period, but it is there to resemble the once innocent paintings of Francisco de Goya.

Looking at the black shoe, there are also two art pieces that can be seen. These paintings look quite different from the first two and do not represent the Goya that was introduced. These paintings are some of the changed Goya and they both took place in the Romantic period. This shoe as a whole represents Goya’s artwork after he went insane. During this period he painted artwork called black paintings. These pieces were all dark, twisted, and mostly black.
From viewing the outer side of the black Converse, the famous black painting titled Saturn Devouring his Son has been recreated. This artwork is one of two examples that show after Goya fell ill with insanity. This piece portrayed Goya’s emotions, and it is evident that the emotions behind this painting were grim and violent. Saturn Devouring his Son was the painting that had started the inspiration for my shoes, therefore I had to choose another black painting that would compliment both the black background, as well as the hue to the first painting, onto the other side of the Converse. After searching, I came across a beautifully terrifying piece titled Two Old Ones Eating Soup. Goya had used colors that would rather compliment his painting recreated on the other side of the Converse. This black painting is strikingly different from the once light and dreamy paintings Goya had created. Diving deeper into this piece, Goya changed the looks of dressed up men and women, to unspecified gendered figures that resembled skeletons. This way of painting was recurrent throughout Goya’s entirety of his dark period in art.
Goya’s lifetime shown in his artwork inspired the design of my Converse. I feel that such a change in someone’s art should be appreciated, while there is still a remembrance of their original works. Change is what I intended to show for the Step Up project.