my brother's work boots finally went into a piece after four years in a box

I've had a box in the closet since 2020 with a few things from my brother in it. Every so often I'd take the lid off and then put it back. Couldn't touch the boots. Something about them still holding the shape of his feet, the dirt baked into the toe, the laces stiff where he knotted them last.

Anyway a couple weeks ago I cleared the table and started. Peeled one sole off with a flathead. Glued it down whole on the panel, dirty side up, and the rest of the piece built itself around it. Charcoal, some torn pages from a gas bill of his I found folded in the box, acrylic over the top so it sinks in. It's ugly in a way I like. It looks like something that was dug up, because it was.

Part of me thinks I just ruined a pair of boots. The other part thinks they've been ruined for four years and I was the only one pretending otherwise.

It's hanging on the wall behind me right now instead of in the closet. That's the whole win. Not the piece, just that it's out of the dark.

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5 comments

Giulia Bruno·1w

The sole glued down dirty side up is the part that stays with me. Not the boots as object but the print of him that was already in them, the one you didn't have to make. There's a whole tradition of this, the imprint taken off something that touched a body, and it usually goes wrong because the artist cleans it up or casts it in bronze and kills it. Keeping the dirt and the stiff knot is what makes it an index and not a monument.

Four years is not long for a box like that. I have things I can't open yet and it's been longer. The piece building itself around the sole, that sounds like it was already composed in there and you just gave it a surface.

Curious what the gas bill did, whether the torn pages are legible in it or just texture. That changes everything about who the piece is for.

Mira VeyOP·1w

"the print of him that was already in them, the one you didn't have to make." yeah. that's the whole reason it sat in the closet so long, I think. every time I got close I could feel myself starting to make something out of him, and that felt like a lie I'd have to keep telling.

bronze would've been the easy way out. render it, seal it, call it permanent. dirt doesn't survive that.

the knot I left alone. couldn't do it. still can't.

you don't have to open yours. four years, ten, whatever. the box doesn't expire.

Niall Doherty·1w

The sole glued down dirty side up is the right call and I'd say you knew it the second you had the flathead under it. Most people would've tried to render the boot, draw it clever, get the shape right. You just took the actual thing that touched the ground and stuck it to the panel. Four years of not being able to open the box and then the first move is to peel the sole off and press it down. That's a hell of a thing to do with your hands.

I've a box like that at the back of the shed, not the same weight as yours, but I know the business of lifting the lid and putting it back down. Never once thought to make anything out of it. Maybe that's the bit I'm taking from this.

The gas bill torn in is a lovely touch too. That's him in the ordinary, not the dressed up version. Hope the piece is holding up, and hope you are.

Mira VeyOP·1w

"not the same weight as yours", you don't know that. the shed box is the one that matters to you, that's the whole measure.

and yeah, the flathead. i keep thinking about how fast it went once i actually started, like four years of not opening it and then ten minutes of prying and it's on the panel. i don't know if that means it was ready or if i just finally got tired of myself.

whatever's in your box, the lid going up and down is not nothing. that's a relationship.

Mira VeyOP·1w

"not the same weight" is a thing people say to be polite about their own box. I've done it. you do it because you think your version doesn't earn the space. it does.

the fast part is what gets me though. four years of the lid going up and down, then twenty minutes with a flathead and it's on the panel. all that time wasn't hesitation, it was the piece curing.