Lisa Sorrell, cowboy boot maker

The vegetable shoes have been inseamed and I’m getting ready to lay the soles. 

Boot tops with five rows of stitching and a French calf top band

The vegetable shoes are on the last now!

I started a pair of boots today that will only have stitching on the tops. I consulted one of Jay Griffith’s old catalogs for design inspiration and found this one! I don’t remember ever seeing it before and I’m excited to resurrect it. 

Facing a blank piece of paper gives me anxiety because I don’t know if I’ll be able to fill it with a design, but picking up a pencil and watching a design flow out soothes my heart. I don’t think it’s magic and I don’t think it’s natural talent — I believe it’s years of paying attention and filling my head with beauty, and gradually I become confident and sure when I pick up that pencil. 

I read Tom T. Hall’s book about songwriting; he was working at a radio station where he had a filthy little office and that’s where he wrote songs. He went on vacation one time and they remodeled his office, and it took him months to write again because everything was all wrong. I feel that way about my workbench. I can’t draw unless I have the correct pencil and the poster board I like and I’m sitting at my bench. 

I spent all day on the computer and I was supposed to be somewhere by 6pm, but instead I treated myself to an entire half hour of getting to work in my studio. 

My friend Carina sent photos from my presentation at the conference! I spoke briefly about the history of leather inlay and overlay, and then talked about the making of the Oklahoma boots which are now on permanent display at the Oklahoma State Capitol.