Art Becomes Mobile, One Step At A Time With BucketFeet

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Art speaks volumes through aesthetics, and the feelings invoked are the medium through which the artist and their audience connect. Stir together talented artists, dedicated founders, a dash of social media and hint of opportunity, and you’ve simmered up BucketFeet. As the old maxim goes, ‘art is a form of self expression,’ well, BucketFeet takes it a step further, figuratively and literally, with the connection of artists and fans through footwear.

With designs available worldwide through storefronts and their online shop, you have artists with roots in Brooklyn having their designs walk the streets of Argentina. Not only have they connected people through art, they’ve bought it to life. Art becomes mobile through submission of designs placed on sneakers, slip-ons and flip flops.

Founded by Aaron Firestein and Raaja Nemani, the melding of artistry, technology and business create the perfect recipe for opportunity. “One of the most beautiful things we do at BucketFeet is that anybody can be an artist. Anybody can go to the website and click “submit a design”. And from there it’s a work in progress,” stated Firestein. Artists are chosen through a review council and subsequent factors such as color range, specific trends and the individual designs.

The artists’ social media presence also contributes to the success, because, they can use that platform to reach their international fans. Through Instagram, the connection of people through art is dissolves geographic boundaries. A design can be sketched up in a local coffee shop in your hometown, and leave footprints half way across the globe. With each artist amassing about 2,000 followers individually; the total for the brand  at large is quite sizable, collectively.

The importance of connecting people through art, Firestein states, “is because the company wouldn’t have happened without that philosophy…. Art is one of those things, it doesn’t matter where your from, your social status, what language you speak, people can rally around and have a connection through art.”

When a shoe is sold, it carries the design with it, from trekking through New York city subways, taking a stroll in Grant Park in Chicago, your design has caught the eye of every passerby. As BucketFeet artist, Meera Lee Patel puts it, “they’re wearable works of art.” These artists all come from different areas of expertise, but the echo the same sentiment. BucketFeet has given each of them the power to connect with strangers through art.

New York-based BucketFeet artists, Meera Lee Patel, Col Wallnuts and Kelsey Archila shared their thoughts on what it means to be part of the artistically eclectic BucketFeet team.

Wallnuts creates art through aerosol, for the past 23 years he’s painted the streets of Brooklyn in graffiti. Patel puts her energy into creating art through painting with ink and watercolors, finding the beauty in India’s aesthetics, and Archila, whose art is created by using acrylic and sharpie on canvas shoes and accessories with an emphasis on geometrics and aztec patterns.

Art is entirely visual, and it’s seldom what we look at, it’s what we see. “What I paint is an extension of myself and for someone else to see it and appreciate it is a very special type of joy,” stated Lee.

When submitting a design to BucketFeet, each artist had a different outlet of motivation. “Most of my work is inspired by the natural world, and my Petals design is no different. It’s a reminder that we are all made up of many smaller parts and that each element is an integral piece of a larger, unified whole,” states Lee.

For Wallnuts, his work in general consists of strong graphic contrast with bursts of bright color. Filled with energy, his design “consists of mixing 3d styles and silhouettes of my letters that create a wide graphical palette with color and movement.” Drawing inspiration from his grandmother, a traditional painter, and growing up in Brooklyn, where aerosol aesthetics envelop the streets.

But, the most exciting aspect of BucketFeet, of course, is being chosen to have your design on a shoe. Archila jokes, “My design was actually chosen out of 50 artists in the MadeToStandOut contest. When I found out I was in the top 10, I nearly died of excitement. When I made it to the top 3, it’s possible that I did die, and then once I won the whole contest, that was it. I’m answering these questions from the grave right now.”

Opportunistically, the exposure for these artists transcends just the online entity of BucketFeet, these shoes are also selectively available at high end retailers, such as Lord and Taylor and Nordstrom.

Leaving us with the best description of this entrepreneurial footwear brand, Archila says “In terms of connecting people, art is the best way to do it, at least in my opinion. Sometimes ideas and emotions are much better expressed without words. To have thousands of artists be a part of a movement together without ever having to say a word — that’s cool.”

Head over to BucketFeet at their downtown storefront, located at 266 Elizabeth Street, and connect with the artists behind the masterpiece on their instagram!

Are you feeling inspired and want to be part of the incredible team at BucketFeet? They await your submission. Send them an email at artists@bucketfeet.com with your name, location, reason you want to be a guest artist and link to a portfolio of some sort.

By: Yasmine Rimawi