Boots 1900 - 1910

This pair of boots by Peal & Co. lives at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Can you imagine the hands that crafted them? The cutting, the stitching, the careful placement of each button? It’s an intense, intimate process, like slowly coaxing a painting into being. I’m really into the way the warm, earthy brown grounds the stark white canvas of the boot's upper. It's a dialogue between raw and refined. Imagine the artist, or craftsperson, carefully smoothing and shaping the leather, maybe even smelling it as they worked. There’s a sensuality there, a bodily connection to the materials. And those buttons! Each one a tiny punctuation mark, adding rhythm and texture. They suggest a personal history of repeated use, of being carefully fastened and unfastened. You see, it’s all about touch, isn’t it? An ongoing conversation with the material, with the body, with the world.