November 2011 - John Fluevog Shoes

Canadian shoe designer John Fluevog, who recently opened a retail store on Stephen Avenue, will be in Calgary to celebrate the public opening of his new Community-Creative spaces on Monday, December 5th. When initially designing his new retail space, John was inspired to share the location with the community by including a rotating art gallery (The Peanut Gallery), a community breakroom with a Fluevoger-filled arts & crafts vending machine, and a permanent Fluevog Museum on the mezzanine showcasing Fluevog History & Design since 1970.

Flueseum

Located on the mezzanine of John's new Calgary store is the world's first permanent Fluevog Museum. Known in Fluevogian circles as The Flueseum, this retrospective will feature original drawings, rare samples, catalogs, posters, photos, and a wall of Fluevog Shoes from the past four decades.

The Peanut Gallery

Located on the lower level of John's Calgary store is The Peanut Gallery, a rotating gallery exhibition space available for shows by artists and foundations in the community. For the opening date John has installed an exhibition of FluevogCreative finalists from his open source ad contests. In the upcoming new year, John plans on opening the space to curatorial submissions and contests, possibly even jurying exhibitions himself.

The Break Room

Along with the Flueseum, John designed the mezzanine as a community breakroom - a comfortable place for Calgarians to relax and eat lunch, sip on coffee and draw shoes, or even an inspiring room to have staff meetings. John wanted to share his cozy space with the community as a place for creative juices to flow, encourage unique aesthetic designs, and to start conversations of collaboration.

By Fluevogers: For Fluevogers

While designing the Community Breakroom/Flueseum, John struck another moment of genius with his VogVending idea: a vending machine that sells crafts made by Fluevogers for Fluevogers. After a call for artistic submissions, John carefully curated his VogVending Machine to include functional and more importantly, non-functional handcrafted items that are hard to find, such as pocket ninjas, gourmet lollipops, DIY wooden sailboats, duct-tape wallets, and stuffies that celebrate insecurities and excessive body hair.