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The
Artist’s Sole
Turning
inspiration into flashy footwear is paying off for one local
artist.
By Cassandra
Wentworth
Ryan Graham owns more
shoes than his girlfriend. And the 50 or so pairs of utterly
unique high-top Nikes, low-rise Adidas and old-school Air Force
Ones in his closest are nothing that can be found in a mall.
Graham, 29, runs PGH Sole, a service in which he takes an ordinary
pair of sneakers and paints and personalizes them to his client’s
liking, often incorporating movie characters, musicians, and other
bits of popular culture.
Custom-painted
sneakers with bold, attention-grabbing designs are a hot trend
among young people right now, a shoe subculture that’s creeping
toward the mainstream. Personalized shoes are showing up on
celebrities like Justin Timberlake and rapper Nas, while artists’
contests on websites like SoleCollector.com draw scores of entries
from artists around the country. One episode of the popular HBO
series “Entourage” featured
a character shelling out $20,000 for a pair of shoes customized by
a fictional artist named Fukijama. The actual shoes used in that
episode were later auctioned off on eBay for 15,000 real dollars.
Major shoe manufacturers like Nike, Adidas, and Reebok have gotten
in on the act, introducing their own online customization
services. Graham got his start in the shoe game about a year ago
during a shopping trip in Los Angeles with his sister, Danielle. A
stop at the Fred Segal store revealed a line of flashy
custom-painted sneakers. They caught Graham’s eye, but what
really got his attention was the price tag: the suped-up sneaks
ranged from $800 to $1,800.
Graham, a student in
the Pittsburgh Art Institute’s interior design program, knew his
own work could hold up to what he saw selling in such high-end
boutiques. He had already dabbled with custom shoes previously,
and his lifelong love of footwear made such art a natural fit.
His sold his first
pair at a personal show in East Liberty’s Shadow Lounge for
$400, though his price isn’t always quite so steep. Basic deigns
can run around $75 plus the cost of the shoe, but he has made sets
worth $500.
“I do it for the
fun of it,” he says. “It’s amazing to see people get so
excited about it. I’m never going to do the same shoe
twice. No one on the planet will have the same shoe as you.”
While Graham’s
inspirations can include anything from friends’ ideas to pop
culture, his best ideas come from his own brainstorming. A pair of
shoes with a trim of gray fish scales and a fleshy pink-orange
coating Graham created as tribute to Wholley’s (“They’re my
ode to fish,” he quips). Another, made for girlfriend Megan,
depict the famous scenes from E.T., with the alien in the bicycle
basket on one side and the “E.T. phone home” moment on the
other.
“I like stuff that
makes me laugh,” he says. “I mean, fish scales? E.T.? There
have been so many crazy ideas.” One
of his favorite sets of shoes is a pair showing a post-swing
Roberto Clemente on one side and a close-up of the baseball great
on the other. There’s also a shoe tribute to the 10th Street
Bridge, a pair he calls Bridge City Infiltrators, with the bridge
depicted on the tongue and 412 printed on the back.
Sitting in South Side’s
Beehive and sporting a Pirates baseball cap, Graham exudes
hometown pride. A graduate of Mt. Lebanon High School, he and his
girlfriend Megan live in a six-bedroom house in Highland Park,
where he also has a studio and a collection of vintage bicycles.
He’s lived in other states on both coasts, but he still
considers Pittsburgh his ideal home. “It has a neighborhood vibe
you can’t find in many places,” he says. “And with the scene
in South Side, the East End and Downtown, I feel like I know
everybody. Pittsburgh is getting cooler by the minute.”
Some of Graham’s
clients are local deejays, who wear his work and display his
designs at shows, but the bulk of his sales are made from his
MySpace page, www.myspace/pghsole. He’s looking into selling his
work at local high-end stores like Ulterior Motive.
 With mainstream
designers like Mark Ecko bringing personalized shoes to the
national fashion scene, Graham expects the trend to gain
popularity in coming years.
Adam Rorick, CEO of
Rebellion Customs in Philadelphia, a company that’s catered to
celebrities like Justin Timberlake and rappers T.I. and Nas,
agrees. Many of his clients wore a Rebellion design to the last
MTV Video Music Awards — a sure sign the trend is reaching
America’s youth. “A lot of people want to have something that
no one else has,” Rorick
says. “They want that one-of-a-kind piece.” Rorick
is dismissive of attempts by big-name shoe manufacturers to create
their own “customized” products. “A lot of sneaker companies
try to do what we’re doing, but they don’t cut it,” Rorick
says. “It’s not as artistic. They want to put out more of a
product that is super simple. We take the time and do intricate
work.”
Rebellion specializes
in Adidas sneakers. While he’ll work with almost any shoe (he
even hopes to one day lend his designs to high heels), Graham
prefers the old school look of Nike Dunks, the high-top shoes with
a flap near the top of the tongue for holding up pant hems so they
don’t drag on the street. His penchant for old school style isn’t
exclusive to shoes. In an upcoming pair of shoes, he plans to give
a shout out to his hometown’s football team with a throwback
Steelers shoe, complete with headshots of Terry Bradshaw and
Franco Harris in a Mt. Rushmore-style design. “I love anything
vintage. It’s the best genre,” he says. “Anything that
inspires people to really look at it, I like.”
Making a
One-of-a-Kind Shoe
The process of
customizing a sneaker starts with Graham rubbing the entire shoe
with acetone until it’s down to the bare leather. He then
applies an acrylic paint used specifically on leather that flexes,
so the design will not crack. Each color requires about three or
four coats, with each layer taking 30 minutes to dry. Then it’s
covered with a waterproof sealer. The shoes can be worn anywhere
and if they get dirty, simply clean them with a sponge. Graham
will also help with touchups, should the need arise. “A lot of
people are too serious about their sneakers,” he says. “They’ll
have $30,000 worth of shoes and they’ve never worn them. Shoes
are meant to be worn.”
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'Tis
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