Shoe Design.

Led by Madison artists Maria Schirmer Devitt and Nia Jackson, the Making Justice shoe design project found a groove and continues to excite students and build out more opportunities to create a personal brand, wear something you make, and learn about the business angles of the craft. 

Maria and Nia built many relationships with youth and other mentors, along with a toolkit for best supplies and practices to finish a product within the structures of the Juvenile Detention Center and the Juvenile Court Shelter Home.

Check out the showcase of shoes created during the quarterly workshop series at the Detention Center and Shelter Home.

During the year of experimenting and perfecting our workshops, we learned that students are usually able to finish one pair of shoes during our weekend series at the Shelter Home. But with less time and more constraints at the the Juvenile Detention Center, we learned that while shoes were tough to complete, students were able to easily knock out a pair of custom sandals over a weekend.

And we are excited to incorporate the shoe design option into our new bi-annual Rebranding series at GROW Academy.

Teaching artist, Rodrigo Carapia, uses his painting and graffiti skills to start students out at square one by considering meaningful shoe design options on paper or canvas prior to grabbing a real pair of sneakers.

SCROLL through the paintings below:

Teaching artist, Sam Christensen, led an afternoon shoe painting workshop with students at the Dane County Juvenile Detention Center that resulted in some one-of-a-kind products. Some students finished within our visit, and some students were allowed to continue working on their shoes when time allowed throughout the rest of their stay, and all students were allowed to put their creations into their personal property to take with them upon release.

Teaching artist, Carlos Eduardo Gacharna, came home to Madison to facilitate the Bubbler's inaugural Shoe Design residency in a weeklong series with youth residing at the Dane County Juvenile Court Shelter Home. Carlos and the students, along with Carlos's teaching assistant who originally suggested shoe design to Carlos as a teen participant in a different Bubbler program one year ago, worked together to experiment with different types of footwear and different levels of design while documenting their processes and sharing all of their findings -- all in an effort to begin building the foundation of an in-depth shoe design program for Madison teens.

WATCH the intro video with Carlos below: