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Portraits By Richard Seven
Tony Cunningham / A saver of soles
Shoes don't just walk the walk. They talk the walk, too. Just listen to the tales of these work boots, pumps, Reeboks, penny loafers and knee-length pointy things lumped onto one another at Johnny's Shoe Service in Ballard. Owner Tony Cunningham, a cobbler for 20 years, took one look at the bottom of the penny loafers a first-time customer brought in and noticed grease and chemical stains. "These look like they belong to a restaurant person who spends more time in the back of the house than the front," Cunningham said. The customer turned out to be a famous local restaurateur. Plenty of other lives and lifestyles are living in the heaps of footwear waiting to be re-soled, de-scuffed and reborn. While his bone-gnawing dog, Major, sprawls about, Cunningham does his one-man rescue job. He looks at a pair of ornate tan suede boots that look like they are 2 feet tall. "She spilled wine on them." Cunningham, who refers to the footwear spread around his shop as "that guy" and "that gal," says, "Some gals wear out their right shoes faster because that's the only side they wear their purse. Some people drag their toes." He points to a pair of well-worn industrial boots. "That guy down there is obviously a concrete finisher who spends all his day on his hands and knees. You can tell by what he does to the toes." The menagerie includes flimsy sandals with diamond flowers, Jimmy Choos and a snow-white pair of Reeboks. ("She has one leg five-eighths of an inch shorter than the other so I put a lift in one.") Cunningham, 41, says he takes in more than three dozen shoes on a normal day, more than enough business for one man. Partly, he's busy because cobblers are harder to find these days. Unlike many, he is not carrying a family tradition. He learned the trade from a friend. He holds up a pair of dainty black evening shoes and calls them the doggie chews. He had to get creative and re-route a strap. Just minutes later, the owner comes in to pick them up. She turns one over in her hand and her eyes tell him she is thrilled. "Wow," she says, "I had no idea they could look like this. They're wonderful." Major tickles her from behind, ruining the moment, but as an artisan, Cunningham seems more comfortable with a lathe than a compliment anyway.
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