
An English sewn shoe in progress.
It was a long day in the workshop. Beside the many lasting and sewing I intended to make I realised that I didn't do so much for preserving my profession for a while. This is - taking the fact that I have a lot of orders and long waiting list - reasonable, but in 100 years all of those shoes I make will be forgotten (except the few in museums). This cannot happen with the knowledge what shoemakers collected, and practice.
What did I do until now? (definitely not enough)
1. I made some films about shoemaking (English and goiser sewn techniques)
Nice, nice but not enough. I didn't dare to speak with my horrible English, and I could have shown much-much more.
2. I started to teach.
Also nice - hopefully my students are very happy with it, but preserving a craft means more (I love to teach, so I will continue.)
3. I bought a few months ago the craftarchive.org domain. You can check: it is mine.. but I didn't have support, time and reasources to fill it, with with my materials, knowledge etc.. MAybe I should go for some tenders, but I am not so good in their stupid administration. I would fail.
4. Started to write a (actually two) book(s) about shoemaking with videos. I believe that books cannot replace a real master, but on the other hands books live together, masters pass. I already wrote the half of it.
Here are the cover design-plans.
5. Start to make a shoemaker's education center or something like this. I will organise regular courses, I take apprentices, and so on..