Before her artwork gained popularity on social media, Aylesbury native Stella Stockbridge started by recreating an old Jordan sneaker. A kid has garnered plaudits for turning used shoes into public artworks that include lampposts.
Until her experiment “blew up” online, the 19-year-old was already using social media for her business.
She remarked,
“I expected them to get a lot of nasty comments, but by and large people were really supportive.
She created a seven-part video series demonstrating her process, in which she cuts out pieces of the shoe, paints them, and even adds a light-up miniature lamp post.
Stella claimed that even though the shoe was already damaged, she felt motivated to make something out of it rather than throwing it away.
She claimed that it took a week to reconstruct the shoe using unusual materials like plaster, clay, and foam board to turn it into a work of art.
Miss Stockbridge described the look as “sneaker sculpting,” adding that she receives inspiration for the additions and graffiti from her social media followers.
The last pair of sneakers, she said,
“had a little bit of everyone that supported me on it, and it makes it even more important to me.”
Thousands of people watch her videos, but one of them received over a million views, with comments disputing whether or not her work should be considered vandalism or graffiti.
“People become fairly possessive overshoes,” she said, “so I anticipated them to get heaps of hate comments, but by and large people were incredibly supportive.”
Negative remarks, according to her, sparked a discussion on what constitutes art. On TikTok, Miss Stockbridge also came across a brand-new group of ardent fans and claimed that she felt like everyone “had her back.”
Graffiti and street art have had a significant impact on Ms. Stockbridge, who discovered that it has aided her in defining her own identity.
She remarked,
“Graffiti is such a self-expressive art style, and it can transform even the most bare wall into something so lovely,”.
“I feel like art has really helped me with that because when I was younger I was fairly anxious and I didn’t have the best sense of myself,”
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