Like Ferragamo, my shoe sculptures are driven by my desire to reveal and to satisfy.

FERRAGAMO HAS ALWAYS BALANCED INNOVATION WITH ARTISANAL EXCELLENCE. DID YOU FIND ANY RESONANCE BETWEEN YOUR OWN PROCESS AND THE BRAND’S APPROACH TO MAKING?

As an artist, innovation is important to me. I think of myself as creating like nature, but also like a jazz musician.

You know, in music you have the written sheet music, but then your solo comes, and the solo is the rearranging of the notes that are in the main head or chorus of the song.

So I think of it as just improvisational act based on existing knowledge.

YOUR WORK OFTEN TRANSFORMS EVERYDAY OBJECTS INTO SOMETHING ENTIRELY UNEXPECTED. WHAT INITIALLY DRAWS YOU TO AN OBJECT, AND HOW DO YOU KNOW IT HAS THE POTENTIAL TO BECOME PART OF YOUR VISUAL LANGUAGE?

Most of the objects I choose, I feel they chose me.

You know, it's just attraction, and that attraction is because of my tendency and desire to transform. I'm more fascinated with the potential. I feel like I am working to prove to myself that I can make anything out of everything and everything out of anything. And shoes just happens to be one of those things.

CAN YOU WALK US THROUGH YOUR PROCESS? AT WHAT POINT DOES AN OBJECT STOP BEING WHAT IT WAS AND BEGIN TO BECOME AN ARTWORK?

I look at the objects in different ways. Once it's in the studio, I don't look at it as what it was. I look at it as a cell or a particle, element or component that when put together in multiples can become something else, just like the human body, just like everything in here really is made from the same particle, but everything looks different. So I see it that same way with the shoes. It's almost like trying to create life with a different molecule.

And when that life starts to appear in the object, I know that the object is complete.

TALK ABOUT THIS SPECIFIC PIECE OF ART

This chair probably contains about 3.000 shoes, maybe 2.500. And the process in this particular piece is like a cage where a cage has bars on four sides.

So my cage, I keep the back high, I cut the front lower, and I keep the sides in the middle. So now I have my assistant, she moved the heels from the shoes and it's just like making a necklace, you know, or putting a string through some beads. The top ones give the illusion that they all have heels, but only the top ones actually have heels on them.

WHY WOMEN SHOES?

Women's fashions in general are more interested in men's fashions. And the shoes just have so much attitude and so much aesthetic beauty to me. I think they challenge the wearer and the walker, but they also challenge the viewer and I like all of that.

I get more colors in women's shoes than men's shoes. Got a variety of different heel types. And then just the personalities. It's like I had an assistant once who would come in the studio and she would say, this is a prom shoe, this is a wedding shoe, this is a graduation shoe.

WHEN PEOPLE ENCOUNTER THIS WORK, WHAT KIND OF EMOTIONAL OR INTELLECTUAL RESPONSE DO YOU HOPE IT LEAVES BEHIND?

The response that I want is “oh” and I get that a lot, you know, because we're all smart with brains and we think we know that it's a shoe. But because of the composition of the objects, you begin to see something else. And it's usually a surprise.