Personal Geographies.... Revisited.

Ugh.

I am completely drawing a blank on how I want to revise my personal geography (superimposing my weekend driving to go to Fort Bragg over Ireland).

I could do the whole virtual tour thing and make a video in Google Earth, but I don't feel that is what I should do.

I looked at my stats on my fitbit the other day and in the last year and 20 days, I have walked approximately 965 miles (I say approximately because there are a lot of times I forget to put it back on after charging and there was a 2 week period where it appeared to have died but then was fine). In all likelihood, I'm well over 1000 miles at this point.

That's a lot of walking.... and a lot of wear and tear on shoes (when I choose to wear shoes).

I'd be barefoot all the time if I had my choice, but living in San Francisco does not allow me that luxury. I'm barely comfortable wearing flip flops for fear of being contaminated. I also prefer minimalist footwear, so I have an insane fear of stepping on needles as they would pop right through a 2 mil footbed.

Being self-employed and a student, I don't have a lot of money and I can't remember when I last bought a new pair of shoes..... I have a surprising number of shoes for a person who can't stand them, but I haven't picked up a new pair since before I started tracking my walking.

This got me thinking about a physical piece I could make instead of a virtual tour... While I am very comfortable working with technology, it doesn't feel like a "personal geography" with the direction I was headed.

I think I am going to make a piece that uses the worn treads of my shoes to create an image or texture. I think I will use black paper and white powder (likely diotomaceous earth or corn starch since I have both of those on hand already) to make the marks.

I briefly considered paint, but then got to thinking about my soft soled mocs and that would totally ruin them (the other shoes could handle rinsing washable paint from them).

I haven't quite figured out the layout I will use, but I will try to capture the wear and tear of my feet and my shoes. Perhaps this will become and ongoing thing where I capture the wear and tear from new to the point of discard for shoes going forward.