With all the Halloween-themed baking competitions on Food Channel these days, it's rather difficult to escape the urge to manipulate the food in front of you, especially when you've made a hobby of sculpting animals out of wasabi over the years. I don't usually take pictures of them, because I believe that photographing these edible (or inedible--personally, I avoid eating wasabi because the stinging sensation it sends up my nose is rather painful) creations detracts from the aesthetic sense of ephemerality and [insert more artistic mumbo-jumbo]. In reality, I just forget to because I'm preoccupied with the dinnertime conversation. However, I remembered this time, so here's a miniature teddy bear sculpted uniquely from Japanese horseradish paste: Now, some may be quick to dismiss such activity as unsavory (pun intended), citing one of the cardinal rules of childhood: Don't Play With Your Food.
But, mommy, why? Because it's Bad Manners. Ooh. Manners. I like to say I was a good kid. I knew to say the magic words "Please" and "Thank you" and had the whole etiquette thing down. I'm told that I hardly cried in my toddler years--which is interesting because now I sniffle uncontrollably while watching Disney/Pixar movies. I suppose it's true that greater understanding engenders greater empathy, and thus more tears. I'm a sympathetic crier (Gus from Psych, anyone?). However, as a firm believer in the philosophy of "waste not, want not," I'd say re-purposing what I can't use gastronomically is a perfectly valid reason to "play with food," if "play" in this case means to make art out of it. Personally, I wouldn't debar creativity at the dinner table, especially not when the creator's still actively participating in the dinner talk, and her act of creating is even providing conversational fodder. It's a win-win-win! Anyway, this concludes my spiel for today. I'd be interested in knowing about other peculiar food habits out there. I've met people who take apart the components of their pizzas or sandwiches and eat only one ingredient at a time. Anyone else? Cheers! Clem
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Happy October! About time I wrote up an art post. Recently, Inktober has been trending on the creative interwebs. To be honest, it completely slipped my mind until a couple days ago when posts started showing up in my Facebook newsfeed, and I haven't gotten around to making up for the missed days. I don't use an actual ink + brush. I'm more of a pencil + watercolor sort of person, so black watercolor pigment suits me fine. Here's a page from last year's sketchbook (but not inktober). I'll post new ones this month, once I catch up. On another note, my favorite season's upon us--Fall! To mark the occasion, here's an excerpt from The Impromptu Speeches of Nicholas L (oh boy, I finally get to use the Block Quote element on the site editor): "I went to Niagara Falls when it was fall. It was very pretty. I would chase leaves on the sidewalk...blown by gusty winds...we went there the day after the Maid of the Mist shut down for the season...we were on the Canadian side. I like maple leaves. We didn't see any, cause they were probably all oak or something. I don't know. I'm not an arborist." -Nicholas L. Rust- and gold-colored foliage start taking over the trees this time of year. The orange-ness of it all is certainly a highlight, in my humble opinion. One of my seasonal hobbies is walking through leaf-littered streets and kicking up an orange-gold storm. Where I used to live, the street was lined with ginkgo trees that shed massive numbers of perfectly fan-shaped, bright yellow leaves--it's fantastic, like confetti. I used to play a kind of game with myself: searching for the biggest ginkgo leaf each time I went out for a walk. The leaves haven't quite begun falling yet in my current neighborhood, but I'm definitely looking forward to it. Speaking of promenades, I was walking around town the other day and saw some neat fashion doodles on the Banana Republic storefront...reminds me a bit of Picasso's one-line drawings, or the illustrations in Shel Silverstein's Where the Sidewalk Ends. That's all for now. More to come!
Cheers! Clem |
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