At 18 I came to Europe for the first time in my Dr. Scholl’s sandals - not pretty, but comfortable. I traveled for six months and when I got back home, I promised myself that I would return to Europe. Years later I met my husband-to-be at a party in Perugia, and that is the city where I ended up. Ironically, his last name, Casavecchia, was similar to my very first dog’s name: Casanova.

I studied painting, drawing, design, and jewelry making in Los Angeles. My first design project related to food was a huge “fork” which I transported to my university design class by opening up the roof of my Volkswagon “Bug” and sticking the fork inside. Later my husband, then boyfriend received a scholarship to Berkeley where we lived for three years. There I studied life-drawing, etching, lithography, graphics and lettering (with Rolling Stones typeface design creator, Jim Parkinson) and created cards on a shoe theme for the Berkeley Art Museum.

I appreciate that I've been able to travel to such places like New Zealand, China, Taiwan and many countries in Europe . Traveling is a little like chocolate: the more you travel, the more you want to travel. Even staying in one place, however, my imagination travels a lot. Many of my ideas are ahead of their time, and often I see that ideas I created in the 70's and 80's are now produced and in fashion.

My passion in art is experimenting with materials, and making art that contains double meaning, both verbal and visual. I love to be original and love the challenge of coming up with a "new idea". A dear friend once asked me "How can you remember things if a new idea comes to you every second?"

Inventing slogans, and inventing ideas for publicity is something I enjoy doing. I have created many logos known to the city of Perugia  (shoe store included) designed window displays, illustrated posters, and created one-of-a-kind gifts on commission. I prepared my own embossed paper on an old hand press, inventing my "Embossed Watercolors".  With this technique I printed the alphabet and made humorous paintings with breakfast and chocolate as their theme. These were exhibited during two major events in Perugia and afterwards I was invited to exhibit at a delightful chocolate specialty shop called Hemingway, in Florence.

Humor is one of the main characteristics of much of my art. I wrote and illustrated with my cartoons the story of my life for an Italian magazine. I've published cartoons in a humor magazine in Perugia and participated in humor and illustration competitions. I have collaborated with a science museum in Perugia by creating paper projects for childrens'  workshops some which I have directed. I love to write and have both written and illustrated several books for children.

I was interviewed while painting with wine at the event "I Vinarelli". This became part of a DVD to promote tourism in Umbria.

Food has always inspired me to create illustrations and photographs. I love to photograph my artwork in artistic or humorous compositions. I have painted directly onto fabric shoes creating my "Fruit Shoes" included in a show in Milan . These shoes inspired the producers of Eurochocolate to commission me to create a collection of shoe/sculptures for the international chocolate event in Perugia . I then copyrighted both the name Deli'shoes Creations and the collection of shoes.

My show attracted the media and about 5,000 visitors. Newspapers and magazines wrote about my Delishoes and published photographs of me and my work. I was interviewed by various television stations. A troupe from RaiSat Ragazzi, based in Rome filmed the exhibition and then I was invited to be a guest on their children's program called "Stranezze di Giga". The special included an interview, the video of the show in Perugia, and a lesson in creating edible shoes from cookies, cake and candies. It was a real "star's" experience with hairdresser, make-up, television cameras - it was great fun.

The New York designer Stuart Weitzman commissioned me to create shoes for the Christmas windows of his Madison Avenue boutique in New York and from there, the shoes were displayed during Easter in his beautiful Michigan Avenue boutique in Chicago . Keeping in mind the theme of chocolate, I built and painted on sample shoes that he sent me from his collection. The shoes I have created aren't just simply "decorated" but are transformed into unique and unusual pieces: a "cake" floats over the toe of a shoe, or the heel of a shoe becomes a bird's beak!

Everyone thinks that my creations are made of chocolate and I continually have to remind journalists and the public alike that they are NOT. With the materials I use, synthetic leather, cardboard, paint, sponge, glue, fake jewels, etc. I'm able to give the shoes a delicious and creamy look.

Important things:

I love to joke, and keep people's morals high. It's fun to create objects that can be made with very little, but that get people smiling a lot. I strongly believe in creating using common everyday things and like to teach this philosophy to children.

My dreams are to:

1. Create a line of women's shoes with my designs
2. Use the designs of these shoes in the advertising field
3. Publish a book with the artistic photographs of the Delishoes, as well as my childrens' books
4. Have shows of my Delishoes
5. Create other collections of shoe/sculptures
6. Create, create, create.

P.S. My capabilities definitely are not limited to designing shoes! Anyone wanting to get in touch with me can write to:

seemoreart_4u@yahoo.com

Excuse me, but I think I'll just take off my shoes now and relax a bit...