Wire Shoes

This is a more advanced challenge. I have done this project with food before HERE, but I wanted to see if my Art 2 students might be able to handle something more complex. I thought a shoe is something that might translate well into wire, and everyone has a different style of shoe they wear. I made a sample with a single wire to challenge myself. I have also created some videos to help understand the process.
 
Food is fairly simple, and I have done that with my middle school students, but even for me, the shoe was a challenge. The only way to get there was to have students create some small wire sculptures to build up their skills. (I got my wire from NASCO) I created a list of 10 things they should attempt first:

• Coil
• Cube
• Sphere
• Cylinder
• Cone
• Ladder
• String of pearls
• Spring
• Their name
• A 3-D letter

​All these items might become components of a shoe. I told them I would grade these for attempts, not successes. If you tried all 10, you got a 100%. I also looked at their work, those who truly struggles I said to try the shoe, but they could opt for a complete meal (All food groups, drink, and dessert.) Of my 22 students, 2 did food.
 
Their "homework" was to bring in a shoe to model from. This way the scale would be life-size, and they could translate the lines of the shoe into wire. I tried to discourage using flip-flops, but some did anyway. I had some ribbon too that some used to embellish their work, and some left over spray paint we used on some for color (spraying outdoors).

I also shared this with our technology teacher that does 3D printing as they cover wire-frame images too. She's considering doing a collaborative project with me next year. I always love to collaborate with colleagues. Reaching out is always good for the art department.
 
Below are the videos I created to help students, as well as their finished works. You can find more of my resources at Firehouse Publications that you can use and copy for your own students.