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“I feel like I really never have not been at it,” he says.

And what fueled his interest and livelihood long before that, he says, were the strong feelings women have about their footwear: appreciation for the craftsmanship of a new riding boot, the emotional high from a super-sexy stiletto, the relief of slipping on a ballet flat.

Weitzman, now 70, grew up in Long Island surrounded by shoes; his dad was also a footwear designer and shoemaker. Of course that meant a closet full of them for his mother.

“Is it nature or nurture? It’s both. It’s a craft,” Weitzman says during a recent telephone interview. “I was always artistic as a kid, I’d draw these elaborate holiday scenes as a kid, but I didn’t expect to be an artist in a commercial sense.”

He adds, “At the time I had never drawn shoes, but I’m sure as a 4-year-old, I probably pranced around in my mother’s pumps. But then I started drawing them, and people bought them. It’s cool that I was working at my hobby, and that’s never changed.

Source: Long Island Press