Tammy Beacham, the mother of triplets, is among an eclectic group of models photographed in Vasilis Stamatakis shoes, none of whom would accept payment for their work.

Never mind if the shoe fits.

According to jae Brown, it's sometimes better to cherish the shoes than to wear them.

Although Brown herself sports a sensible pair of square-toed pumps, a metal utility cabinet in her Emlenton home contains 39 pairs of colorful classics made by Greek shoemaker Vasilis Stamatakis.

The shoes represent a modest sampling of 36 collections made by Stamatakis between 1941 and 1969. And much like Brown uses the cabinet doors to shield the shoes from harm, for much of his life Stamatakis hid his creations in a private workspace adjoining his shoe store in Heraklion, Crete.

The obscure artist is being honored posthumously, as photos of his vibrant platforms are displayed in the Virtual Shoe Museum, curated by Liza Snook of The Netherlands.

“You don't get your shoes into her museum out of pity. She is very, very, very particular,” said Brown, a writer and founding member of the Allegheny RiverStone Center for the Arts.

Brown's many visits to the island of Crete began in 1966 through her second husband, but she did not meet Stamatakis until 1995, when jet lag prompted her to window-shop in the wee hours of the morning.A lifelong shoe fanatic, Brown was breathless when a few pairs of the unique platforms caught her attention from a storefront otherwise filled with trinkets.“I knew they weren't like any shoes I had ever seen,” said Brown, describing a pair of grass green sandals, the top layer of leather carefully cut to reveal white polka-dots beneath.Brown returned there at 9 a.m. when the shop opened, and the worker summoned Stamatakis.Through conversations with the shoemaker that day and over the next two years, Brown learned the souvenir shop had once been his shoe store, where he catered to conservative local tastes for sensible, nondescript footwear.“Many artists have this incredible creative ability but they do not have shrewd business sense,” Brown said of the store that kept him in business.“He realized early on as much as he loved his shoes, nobody was going to buy them.”So Stamatakis created the avant-garde shoes in secret, allowing them to accumulate by the hundreds in the expansive space behind his shop, Brown said.

The designs, according to Brown, refer to the “aura of Rembetika,” music of the Greek Underground that likely originated in hashish dens around the turn of the 20th century.“I'm so sorry now,” laments Brown, 72, at turning down an invitation to tour the Rembetika night spots with Stamatakis.“By then I was getting ... too old to be running around in most of those places.”By that time Stamatakis also had retired — renting out the building but displaying some of his creations there.“These were things that 15 years ago he would not have dared (to display),” Brown said, explaining the conservative community by then was infused with sophisticated tourists.“I was still living in Manhattan when I bought the first batch of them,” Brown said.“A famous dominatrix did beg for these at the Chelsea Hotel,” she added, holding up some tall red platforms piped in white.“You could whip these out in Milan right now and stop traffic, she said of another pair.Despite the whimsy Stamatakis expressed in shoes, Brown also holds dear his more stately designs.Of those, she presented some black suede pumps, embellished with subdued black star bursts and patent heels.“I think these are the most beautiful shoes I ever saw in my whole life,” she said.

Brown is not the only one captivated by Stamatakis shoes.She bought the first few pairs in her own size — a 9 — but soon decided to save them as artwork, especially since commonly worn sizes quickly were lost to eager shoppers.Brown also was not alone in thinking the shoes should be displayed: During their conversations, Stamatakis shared his plan to open a shoe museum.She later learned that Stamatakis died before realizing that dream. A son reportedly sold the building, which likely was razed with shoes left inside.The shoes did find their way into a museum, however, after Brown met Dennis Keyes, a Butler dentist who exhibited photographs two years ago at the RiverStone Estate in Foxburg.“When I first saw Vasilis' shoes, I knew they would be great fun to photograph,” said Keyes, 64, who lives near Karns City.“jae's granddaughter happened to be visiting at the time, and I recorded several interesting images of her with the shoes,” Keyes said.“After that, jae and I both found models and locations for what is proving to be a series of exciting shoots,” he added, noting some photos were set up spontaneously at musical events in Foxburg.Along with Brown's granddaughter Magda Jobb, the assortment of models includes Japanese violinist Akiko Kobayashi, Hewlett Packard executive Elizabeth Knight and former Foxburg librarian Jessica Hermiller.A sampling of those portraits along with more technical images of the shoes were accepted in November into Snook's Virtual Shoe Museum.

Launched in 2004, the site features 200-plus designers and draws close to 300,000 visitors per year, Snook said.“The core of our Virtual Shoe Museum collection focuses on designs that question the very essence of the shoe: ‘Is this a shoe? ‘Is this wearable?' ‘Does it matter? Is it tickling your imagination?” she said, adding a sense of humor among the criteria for acceptance.Although the site accepts about half of the 150-plus submissions it receives each year, most designers exhibit by invitation.“To me, Vasilis Stamatakis (and) his colorful platform shoe designs are a great inspiration for today's fashion designers,” Snook said.Brown said the shoes also are slated to be part of a fashion retrospective tentatively planned for 2012 at the Andy Warhol Museum.Despite their exposure through photos and shows, the shoes command interaction.“The shoes seem to inspire the wearers. They just light up and somehow know just what to do,” Keyes said of the models, none of whom would accept payment for posing in the shoes.“It's as if the shoes were made for entertainers.”Brown agrees.“Those shoes were meant to be on glorious legs on special occasions,” she said.For more information on Vasilis Stamatakis and his shoes, go to http://www.vasilisshoes.org or http://www.virtualshoemuseum.com/vsm/.To see more photos, go to http://www.denniskeyesphotography.com/.

jae Brown of Emlenton shows one of the shoes made by Greek designer Vasilis Stamatakis in her collection. Brown has 39 pairs of the shoes.

Eric Siepkes, a classical pianist from PIttsburgh, shows off his skills with the keyboard and a pair of Vasilis Stamatakis's shoes.

A peek at others in Brown's collection.

Jae Brown of Emlenton and examples of shoes created by Greek designer Vasilis Stamatakis .