Wearables Made for Storytelling

“Cowboy boots have always been an expression of personal style. Folks, for a long time, have made cowboy boots with traditional imagery, whether it was top stitching or flowers, cactus, things like that. I wanted to make cowboy boots, but I wanted to draw, and I wanted to take things that you might find in the West—whether it’s the palm trees from California or you know, scenes from a National Park—do a little bit of storytelling, something that allows me to put my own spin on it.”

—Graham Ebner

LESSON OVERVIEW

In this lesson, students meet bootmaker Graham Ebner from the Craft in America WEST episode. Ebner creates leather cowboy boots for clients that cross-pollinate traditional bootmaking and leatherworking techniques with contemporary imagery, yielding unique wearables that tell a visual story. Ebner’s approach strikes a harmonious balance between the worlds of conventional leatherwork and dynamic illustration, and his practice of co-creative collaboration with clients imbues each pair of his boots with deep personal meaning for the wearer. The lesson focuses on the way collaboration, co-creation, and technical tradition can work together to produce wearable art that suggests a story. Through investigations, students consider the way the artist cross-pollinates his illustrative designs through collaborative and co-creative planning as well as the way the artist relies on traditional methods to produce his work. Students then create their own illustrative designs, collaborating in the planning of wearable embellishments that suggest personally meaningful stories. In studio work, students use a range of decorative methods such as embroidery, applique, fabric stamping, or iron transfer to translate their illustrative designs into wearable embellishments that intrigue and engage viewers about the stories their works suggest.

Grade Level: 8–12 

Estimated Time: eight 45-minute class periods

Craft In America Theme/Episode: WEST

This education guide is supported by an award from The Windgate Foundation.