Artist Gwen Murphy calls her series "Foot Fetish." Within a pair of old shoes, she can see expressive personalities. She adds those animistic personas with clay ash and acrylic paint. Since 2005, she's made about 150 of them.
Like Forrest Gump advised, you can tell a lot about a person by his or her shoes. And shoes have long fascinated Murphy. She writes:
A fetish is an object believed to have magical powers to protect or aid its owner I see a shoe as a kind of fetish, because it has a presence, and the power to protect and transport us. Since I was a very young child I have looked at shoes and found them looking back at me, each pair with its particular personality and facial expression. When shoes are lined up near a door or in a closet, they are trusty steeds, waiting to serve. Mouths yawning open, they sometimes look sleepy, grouchy, or fierce; sometimes they look like they are singing. They are like a species of beings made entirely of pairs of identical twins. This series of sculptures is my way of bringing forth the presence I see in each pair of shoes.
-via Nag on the Lake