I'm sure you pass by the Wenham Museum frequently as you go about your day, but how often do you actually take the time to visit? Join me, Samantha Frontera, for a special interview with the exhibition's curator Jane Bowers, as we explore the soul of the shoe, what this exhibit is and what it highlights.

OK, well, it's called the Soul of the shoe. And that's what we're really focusing on is the soul of the shoe and in this case soul is spelled S O U L, um, like a person's soul as opposed to the S O L E, which is how you spell

the soul of a shoe, um, and the reason we call it that is partly because of the pun, because it's fun to have a pun. Um, but the other reason for that is that we really focus on what shoes mean and explore those questions of how people have used shoes, how people have thought about shoes, and

the symbolic, uh, value of shoes, um, so. Focused on all of the traditional fairy tales and folk tales about shoes and come right up into contemporary culture as well. All of the songs about shoes and all of the poems about shoes and it's funny because in researching this exhibit, what I discovered is that.

People have all these sayings about shoes and they know all these stories about shoes, but they don't really think about them that much and it's not until you point out all of the sayings and the traditional folk tales and fairy tales about shoes that folks say, oh yeah. That is true.

There are a lot of stories about shoes, so you know, the oldest one that everyone thinks about or the most obvious one that people think about is Cinderella, but there's also a fairy tale called the Red Shoes, and then there's also the fairy tale about the shoemaker and the elves, and

then there's the 12 dancing princesses or sometimes that's called the shoes that were danced to pieces because these princesses wear their shoes every night to go out dancing and they wear them out and it's a big mystery about where they're dancing their shoes to pieces. And then there's the um poems about shoes, you know,

everybody knows one to buckle my shoe. And um there was an old lady who lived in a shoe and all of these stories and then when you come into contemporary culture we've got Paul Simon singing about the diamonds on the soles of her shoes and we've got a new Fergie song called Mary

Jane Shoes and we've got Paolo Nutini saying new shoes and all of these things that you know people are using shoes as this metaphor or this symbol of something and where is that coming from? Why are we using that? And that's what the basis of the exhibit is about. It's not necessarily answering all those questions, but it's

at least exploring them and getting people to think about it. And is this the first time that you guys have attempted this exhibit and showcase exhibit is unique. Um, and so yes, this is the first shoe exhibit that we've done here and, um, you know, we like to come up with a new

concept and a new idea for each, each exhibit and then we try to put a little twist on it. So for this particular exhibit we knew that we wanted to do a shoe exhibit, but the question was what kind of shoe exhibit? What about shoes? What can we say about shoes?

And that's when we discovered all of this, all these stories and poems and. Uh, traditional folk tales and, and customs that people have that that they use shoes to do. One of my favorite customs actually is this Armenian custom. It's, uh, the bride will, um, have all of the single ladies,

mostly her bridesmaids, write their names on the bottom of her shoe. Before the wedding starts and then at the end of the evening after the bride has worn her shoes all day, whatever name is still readable on the sole of the bride's shoe, she'll be the next bride. So it's a lot like our tradition of throwing the

bouquet, and that person, whoever catches the bouquet, will be the next bride. Well, this Armenian tradition is whichever name is still readable on the sole of the bride's shoe will be the next bride, and I just think that's a wonderful. Oh yes, that that's just it's very unique and interesting is very unique and interesting.

And what do you think what shoes say about different cultures or people's culture? Well, you know, it's, it's hard to say so many, so many cultures have used shoes in unique and different ways and sort of been thinking about feet and using feet and shoes in different ways, um, in Chinese culture centuries ago for some reason.

This idea that, um, small feet are beautiful, uh, became sort of the norm and they actually did this kind of what we would consider rather brutal practice of, um, deliberately preventing women's feet from growing. Um, but the notion was that it would keep the woman's feet small and therefore she's more beautiful because her feet are smaller.

What's kind of unique and interesting about that, uh, kind of tradition is that it found its way in small ways into Western culture. As well, so it's sort of translated from China into Europe and of course European culture influenced American culture and so um if you read a lot of the more traditional

versions of the fairy tales, the most beautiful princess is the one with the smallest feet. And so it's all these sort of little um funny cross cultural things that I was discovering that that really surprised me and the different ways that cultures look at feet and use

feet um for instance in Indian culture when a bride is getting married um she and her bridesmaids, uh, go through this uh ceremony called the Medi ceremony. And um what they do is they put temporary tattoos on the lady's feet and hands um made with henna and henna is a is a um a

plant that if you leave it on your skin long enough, um, it will dye it for, you know, a week or two. And so they go through this Mey ceremony and they, they create these elaborate beautiful symbols all over their feet and hands as part of a beautifying ritual and again why beautify the feet? Who who cares?

Well, that's what this exhibit talks about who, who cares? And. Again, we don't necessarily answer all those questions, but we at least point out that that feet have been such a big part. feet and shoes have been such a big part of so many cultures. What's the most interesting fact um to you that you've

found thus far in this? Oh well, I think the most interesting fact is that shoes are. Universal shoes and feet and stories about shoes and feet are universal. Um, Cinderella is again one of the most obvious ones, but what's so interesting is that there are Cinderella stories

that are, you know, the oldest one that we know of was written in China 1100 years ago. Um, but there's an Iraqi version, there's a German version, there's an Eastern European version. There's, there's the version that we're so familiar with, which is actually from France with the glass slipper and the

fairy godmother, but there's also a Native American version. Um, and they all involve shoes, they all involve this, this concept of this beautiful girl having kind of a bad life and then finding help from some kind of magical source and being found again, being sort of lost in the middle and then being found again through her shoes.

And the shoes representing how beautiful she is and how pure she is and how worthy she is of capturing the love of the prince, the best man around and in some stories it's the prince and in some stories it's the best hunter and in some stories it's um the chief or or whatever but it's always the

person who's most worthy and the shoes sort of symbolize how worthy she is of his love. And that's a universal concept and it's so interesting that the shoe is the symbol. So that's been, that's been really the most fascinating thing is how cross-cultural shoes are. So now, some of these shoes, where have you gotten these

shoes from in here? They come from all over. I've read, um,

00:08:30,100	the most, oh, I don't know, a shoe that really people are just come in here, they need to see this shoe. What are some of people's favorites? Children versus adults or the person it's so interesting. Um, for instance, we um borrowed uh two pairs of shoes from, from the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

We have a pair of Rod Stewart shoes which interests sort of the older crowd who remember Rod Stewart from the 70s and 80s. And then um we also have a pair of Jay-Z's shoes which You know, which obviously are more interesting to the younger kids, the, um, the kids who know more about rappers, um, on

the other hand, to interest folks um who are say more interested in sports, um, we have a pair of, um, uh, Larry Bird's shoes, and again, Larry Bird was a huge, uh, basketball player from the. 1980s that most people from Massachusetts would remember playing on the Celtics, um, and ML Carr as well who also played

for the Celtics, uh, so we have ML Carr's and Larry Bird's shoes. We also have for the political junkies a pair of Bill Clinton's shoes. Um, we have um a pair of Jay Leno's shoes. Uh, he actually autographed them, which is kind of fun. Um, so there's really something for everybody from the exotic

shoes that we got from, uh, other cultures. For instance, we have two pairs of, uh, golden lotus slippers from China, which are the kind of shoes that women who had, um, had their feet bound and therefore kept small. We have two pairs that would have been worn by women with bound feet, um, but we also have.

Shoes, um, for instance, uh, that would have been worn by the Jain Buddhists. Um, Jain Buddhists believe that they shouldn't kill any living creature, and so they wear special shoes that, um, prevent or, or, or, um, allow as little of their foot to actually hit the ground as possible. They almost sort of walk around

on kind of a stilt like sort of thong. Sandal and what that does is um it, it has very little of their foot actually touches the ground so that way they won't step on insects so they won't even kill anything as small as an ant or an insect. So there's really something for absolutely everybody in this

exhibit from sports to politics to performances. Well, I definitely see, you know, my favorite shoe right over there, number 13, Dorothy. Slipper, which isn't, but you know, um, wow, that's great and fairy tales, um, every kind of fairy tale there is elf shoes, um, shoes that were worn on Broadway.

We have a pair of Cindy Lou who shoes from the Broadway production of How the Grinch Stole Christmas, and we have one of the cat boots from one of the characters from the Broadway production of Cats. Um, on and on and on and on. I could go on for hours.

And so when you see little children or kids that come in here, what's the first thing that they run to or first thing Well, the first thing that they notice probably is our baby they notice? shoes case, which is right over there, and I think that's because those are the very first shoes that they remember wearing.

Um, the other thing that they're finding fun is that several of the cases actually have but that you can push that will play music that's related to the shoes, um, so for instance in our walking shoes case we have Nancy Sinatra singing these boots were made for walking and in our um happy

shoes or what we call our feel good shoes case, um, we have Paolo Nutini singing, uh, new shoes, and that case is obviously all about how how certain kinds of shoes can make us feel happy, can make us feel better. Um, the other thing that a lot of kids notice is the great big

Converse high top that we have, um, that they can sort of go behind and climb around and look through the, the Converse logo and sort of look through as if it's, it's, it's our version of there was an old woman who lived in a shoe. It's our modern and updated version, so we actually rewrote

the poem or wrote a new version of the poem, um, so there was a young kid who lived in his Converse. And the smell of those sneaks just kept getting worse. His folks bought him some new ones all shiny and new, so he went right out and found stinky goo so that's our updated

version of there was an old woman who lived in a shoe, um, but really there's something to interest everybody from little kids to adults and they're all really seeming to enjoy it. The ones with the lion faces, um, those are called lion slippers, obviously, and they are um. There's a Southeast Asian tradition of putting um

Shoes with uh fierce looking faces on them, lions, um, because the lions scare away evil spirits and keep the child happy and healthy and. Have good luck. Um, the little wooden shoes are obviously Dutch shoes and that's also a Dutch tradition that's similar to the Mexican tradition. Um, Santa Claus is what he's called in Dutch.

um, he'll come and he'll put candy and presents into the children's wooden shoes. Um, and then there's two other pairs of shoes in this case that are kind of interesting. Um, this is a pair of shoes that were made for one occasion only. Um, they're from 1918 and they were made for Armistice Day,

which was the day that World War One came to an end. So a woman bought the black shoes and then decorated them herself by hand with the glass beads in the shape of an American flag, sort of a patriotic symbol of, yeah, the war is over. And um these ones are just kind of cool because these were

literally made for one day, um, the, the year 2000, the millennium. So literally shoes that could only be worn once ever, ever, ever. cause it'll only be the year 2000 ones. Um, so those are kind of fun ones.

00:14:29,000	There's a couple of pairs of Native American boots in there. Um, these shoes are from India. These shoes are from Egypt. um, these shoes are also from India. That's the pair of little golden lotus slippers I was telling you about for the women with um bound feet, um, these

little green ones down here are child's shoe from from China. Those are shoes from India.

00:15:01,000	And then the ones in the middle represent all the different versions of Cinderella from the Native American version to the Arabic version.

00:15:11,830	And then all of these represent the other story. So the Wizard of Oz, how the Grinch Stole Christmas, the Seven League boots, Pussin Boots, um, cats, obviously.

00:15:48,769	The exhibit, uh, as I said, opened February 6th, um, and it closes May 10th, so there's plenty of time for people to come and see and, uh, enjoy the shoes. So, OK, and what is the cost for an adult and child? Um, admission for adults is $7. Um, I think children over the age of 2 is $5

but really, um, the exhibits change here all the. Time, so it's really worth it to get a family membership. It's only $65 for the year and um basically for a family of 43 visits will pay you back for the um for the membership it's totally worth it to become a member here and kids just they

just love it. Um, you know, we're featuring the shoe exhibit right now, obviously, um, but we always have, uh, the electric trains set up, um, on the lower level, um, we always have the wonderful dolls, uh, set up here, um, and you know there's really something here for all ages, everybody loves it and,

um, we have many, many interactive parts of the exhibit, so, um, the. Visitors can operate the trains themselves when they come into the shoe exhibit, the kids can put on different kinds of shoes that allow them to become different characters. So we have a pair of elf shoes that kids can wear, and we have

a pair of um diving fins that kids can wear, and we have a pair of ruby slippers that kids can wear. And um we also have a shoe shop that they can go into and pretend. To make shoes. So there's really something for all ages while the kids are

pretending to be an elf, the parents can wander around and look at the go go boots that are in the walking shoes case where Nancy Sinatra sings her songs. So there's something for absolutely everybody, and people will come back week after week and really enjoy themselves. And so, um, this is great. Thank you again.

Uh, what about the So what do you, can you give us a little? I can actually, um, after, well after this exhibit comes down, we're going to have a comic book exhibit. Um, the title of that is going to be Colorful Characters Storytelling Through Comics, and that's going to feature,

um, comic books and action figures and a whole lot of other interactive items that are related to. Comic books and comic book culture and um obviously the title as the title implies is called Storytelling Through mics and so we're gonna explore the idea of um telling stories with pictures and so we'll have some original artwork from

comic books and we'll have the comic books themselves obviously here the action figures and um we're probably also gonna have Superman's phone booth so. That might be fun for everybody to come and see you but confess.

00:18:43,400	You've been a messing. Well, you shouldn't have been a mess.

00:18:48,730	And Is getting all your best.

00:18:54,730	These

00:18:57,930	And

00:19:02,569	It's not gonna walk all over you.