TAKE A WALK ON THE WILD SIDE

Meet Mik Wright, from Swaziland to West Virginia. Mik was born in Zimbabwe (Rhodesia) in 1949. He spent a blessed and loving childhood in Zambia, then a teenage of discovery in Botswana where he was fortunate to travel frequently into the Kalahari desert and Occovango Swamps. It was during this period that he first met Peace Corps volunteers who turned him onto Jazz and Blues and rapped about life in the "Great American Dream."

In 1968, Mik was working as a Field Officer for Anglo-American when he had a motorcycle accident which resulted in the shortening of his right leg and permanent damage to his knee. Three years later in Swaziland, he met a lady who was making an idyllic living from leather work and organic gardening. He fell in love, got married and learned about leather. They expanded the business to South Africa. Mik started making shoes and boots suited to rock climbing and bushwear, and created a special pair for himself to meet the demands caused by his injury. Things changed, as things will, and they separated nine years later.

After working for 18 months teaching his craft at "Jabulani" (happiness), a rehabilitation center for paraplegic Zulu people in Zululand, Mik went into business with his brother Pat and his sister-in-law Beth. They moved back to Swaziland and soon were exporting thier clothes and shoes to England.

After establishing markets at Covent Garden, Camden Lock, and Portab-elle~ Rd., and moving to Somerset from London, Mik moved to the United States. Here he displayed and sold his work at the juried craft shows around the country. Mik is now blessed with the caretakership of 180 acres in Lewis County, West Virginia, where he lives and creates "THOSE SHOES".

With his new found love and inspiration Barbara Ann Volk, a prominant artist and beadworker, and daughters Autumn and Leila, he is moving into new dimensions combining beadworking and gemstones on custom knee high boots and many exciting collaborations in designs.
There are now many imitators of Mik's shoes in England and in the U.S, and even his display booth has been copied; however, none compare to the original, ever contemporary, distinguished work created by Mik Wright at his home located in the West Virginia wilderness.