Ceramic Shoes

These are the clogs I created in clay telling the story of my maternal grandmother who I have never met. She died when my mother was only 14, having immigrated to Australia two years earlier.
A few years ago my mother published a book telling the story of her immigration to Australia and childhood in Holland, ("From Tulips to Gumtrees"). One of the stories inj the book I'd not heard before, and it touched me as a mother.
During WW2 when the Dutch were literally starving due to the occupation of Holland, my 'Oma' loaded up the twins' pram (my mother's younger siblings) with all the precious things from her 'Glory Box' (now there's a term you don't hear much anymore!) and walked from the Hague to the North of Holland, where some food was still available from farmers there. She bartered her good linen and sundries for food for her children, then walked all the way back, no mean feat in war time.
This woman, my unknown Oma, who had only existed previously for me as a 'character' in my mother's childhood stories (which we heard all through our childhood!), became a person with whom I could identify with and admire.
I created these shoes to commemorate her and hand wrote this story (in underglaze) around the clogs.