Local Los Angeles artist C.R. Stecyk III used every square inch of the Los Angeles Artist Series Air Max LeBron VII to unite the passion of his city park playing days with the artistic inspiration he draws from the urban sprawl.

He paid homage to the new monuments of urban shift in the city, infusing the multiplicities of LA on the surfaces of the shoe - from the rich, rusty bronze of the Pueblo’s clay soil to the incandescent sky blues.

Glimpse inside and you’ll find sole theatrics as a hand-engraved metallic plate view of Los Angeles City Hall symbolizes the city’s center. Other unique elements of the extended city - including telephone poles that sometimes function as basketball standards and palm tress - mark the exterior.

Basketball elements and themes have played a constant role in many of Stecyk’s designs. He’s also labored aesthetically on extensively modified and adorned cycles, automobiles, skateboards and evocative documentation of other Angelino pursuits. His loose affiliation with Nike dates back to the Blue Ribbon Sports days, when they had their original store on Pico in Santa Monica.

Stecyk, one of the first to cross modern basketball shoes over into skating, was also a writer and production designer on the documentary film Dogtown and Z Boys, which won awards at the Sundance Film Festival.

“There are countless thousands of places to shoot hoops that range from makeshift defacto rims to full-blown arenas,” said Stecyk, adding, “Basketball is an integral fact of the populace’s life -- in LA it is literally the sport of the people.”

Check out the photographs, and tell us what you think in the comments.