SMITH & ANTHONY Boots
This boot design grew from a barter of skills: renovation of an 1888 Smith & Anthony coal stove in exchange for a pair of boots whose design would reflect the stove’s form and content.
The ceramic tile artist Arthur Osborne presumably created the stove’s decorative relief work, being the chief modeler for J. & J.G. Low Art Tile Works in Chelsea, MA (whose ceramic tiles graced the Smith & Anthony Hub stoves cast in Wakefield, MA) he was on loan to the stove company for their low-relief designs.The
overall form of the boot, with the horizontal cording and curved collar,
reflects the tin drum and top-oven from this Hub Round Art Stove. The leaf pattern from the base is replicated
in the machine-stitched/hand-embroidered patterns at the top of the
shafts. This stove is missing the front
cameo tile, so I used a “cuir bouilli” method to create leather cameo tiles
with the face of Obsorne’s Fire Fiend
from another of his works to simulate the flaming heat of the stove.
SMITH & ANTHONY Boots
This boot design grew from a barter of skills: renovation of an 1888 Smith & Anthony coal stove in exchange for a pair of boots whose design would reflect the stove’s form and content.
The ceramic tile artist Arthur Osborne presumably created the stove’s decorative relief work, being the chief modeler for J. & J.G. Low Art Tile Works in Chelsea, MA (whose ceramic tiles graced the Smith & Anthony Hub stoves cast in Wakefield, MA) he was on loan to the stove company for their low-relief designs.The
overall form of the boot, with the horizontal cording and curved collar,
reflects the tin drum and top-oven from this Hub Round Art Stove. The leaf pattern from the base is replicated
in the machine-stitched/hand-embroidered patterns at the top of the
shafts. This stove is missing the front
cameo tile, so I used a “cuir bouilli” method to create leather cameo tiles
with the face of Obsorne’s Fire Fiend
from another of his works to simulate the flaming heat of the stove.