5th Most Favorite Thing About the State Fair of Texas: The Glue-A-Shoe Contest
As I’ve mentioned before, the State Fair is positively teeming with contests. From livestock to cooking, competitive eating to feats of physical strength, the Fair has it all, should you choose to intersperse other activities between rounds of food-devouring.
Of all the competitions at the Fair, though, far-and-away my favorite of all happens first thing, bright and early on Opening Day. It is the storied Glue-A-Shoe Contest in the Creative Arts Building. Because it is literally the very first event I attend, this glorious competition has the honor of (and great responsibility for) setting the tone of each year’s Fair. I have absolutely no idea who first decided that a contest pitting wily, glue-gun wielding crafters against each other to decorate old shoes would be a good idea, but I believe that person should go down in the State Fair Hall of Fame (if such a thing exists), because this contest is pure genius.
Specifics are as follows: Categories include Boot, High Heels, Sandals, Flip-Flops or Loafers, and Tennis Shoes, and entrants are judged on creativity, originality and workmanship. Basically, come up with an interesting and clever idea, and glue stuff to shoes to make it happen. This concept is so perfect because you really don’t have to be a skilled craftsperson to make something interesting (or to make a prize winner!).
Let’s face it, we all have a blazing imaginative streak in us someplace. This competition simply allows that streak to fly out of us and splatter itself across footwear.
The first year I entered the Glue-A-Shoe contest, I honestly didn’t get it. I simply thought that arraying the most stuff around a boot would win a prize (also, I’d seriously underestimated the number (and quality) of the other entrants). As you can see in this picture, my effort that year, “Wedding Cake Boot,” was just a mess. An unfocused jumble of feathers, sequins, fringe, a wedding cake topper, a toy fan, and stuff you use in flower arrangements, this entry was, quite rightly, immediately relegated to the Honorable Mention table. I do give myself points for the fact that I successfully made a black boot disappear, but that’s a rather dubious honor, one reserved for losers. That was a tough year. Many of my friends won big-time, first place ribbons for their creations (my favorite was Tres’s cut-up, multicolored sneaker entitled “Picasshoe”), and there I was, stuck in Loserville. Really, though, look at that boot. What on earth was I expecting? It looks like a polar bear at a disco. Awful.
That first experience gave me time to do a little reconnaisance. I noted the judges’ decisions carefully and re-calibrated my own sensibilities for the next year’s effort. I vowed not to be embarrassed again.
My next entry was a bit more sophisticated. I decided to play off the boot-leg-foot triad complex to create an everyday action scene. I wasn’t sure the judges would appreciate it, but I had a picture in my head, and I knew I could not stop until it was immortalized forever in a boot-statue.
Ah, yes. The leg-shaving boot. There is a woman amongst the panel of shoe judges every year, and I knew she would (at least) get it. That green plastic item sticking out from the side is a razor, and the things pointing out from the toe of the boot are Lee Press-On Nails. French Manicure. As you can see, I was awarded second place for this little masterpiece. My friend, Meg, took the first place ribbon with her Muppet-Fraggle creation in the top right corner of this photo. She’d done some truly nice work with feathers, so I didn’t begrudge her the victory.
After finding out that my beautiful prize-winner would be displayed in the Creative Arts Building for the duration of the Fair, I made sure to point it out to EVERYONE on later Fair visits that year. I believe it was at this point that Sunni decided she needed to get in on the action. She may have to correct my memory, but I think it was the very next year that her masterful creation, the elusive “Shoe Fly,” made its appearance in the competition. You can barely see it in the photo below. It’s the black thing with the green, oval eyes next to the red-shirted lady’s hand:
Aside from the Shoe Fly, that was a banner year in the Glue-A-Shoe Contest. A few of my friends, including Ann and Lisa, were big First Place winners, and I, ladies and gentelmen, I was still a bridesmaid. I won second place that year (I have never actually won first prize in this particular contest, a sad state of affairs I’m hoping to remedy on Friday morning). But I must admit that I was EXTREMELY proud of my effort.
My creation that year was a mischievous wink to a current event (well, a current celebrity event, anyway), that had taken place not long before the competition. With this particular episode still fresh in everyone’s minds (you literally could NOT escape it), I figured the situation was perfect for a comedic, creative, Glue-A-Shoe twist.
Gentle readers, this is Celebrity Couch-icide:
Honestly, I couldn’t think of a better way to immortalize shoes that year. And this was BY FAR the most important event that had happened involving footwear of any kind.
The whole thing is a little tough to decipher in photos, but basically, what you have here is a crime scene. A boot has murdered a couch-cushion. But the boot is not just any boot — it belongs to 100-watt-smiley mega-star Tom Cruise. And the couch-cushion is not just any couch-cushion — it belongs to Oprah Winfrey, and it was hideously attacked and murdered during an overly-enthusiastic on-air exclamation of love and demonstration of furniture-jumping prowess the likes of which may never be seen on television again.
I honestly thought I’d get a blue ribbon for this one, but I think points may have been deducted for too many elements not actually attached to the shoe in question. Lesson learned.
Both Sunni and I have entered successive Glue-A-Shoe contests, but this particular entry has been my favorite thus far.
Am I currently hard-at-work on this year’s contender? Yes. Yes I am. Will this be my year to FINALLY take the blue ribbon? I dare but dream.
Friday morning. A full-on SMACKDOWN involving shoes, glue, and crafty-crafters will be ON at the Creative Arts Building.
THIS, folks, is how you start a State Fair.
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