Thursday, March 11, 2010

Taking up the challenge

"Do not bore. Do not be obvious."
Hamilton Easter Field

Back in December I extended a challenge to artists of any medium to make an original work inspired by the photograph at the end of this post. It's something that caught my eye but I have not been able to figure out what to do with it myself. I was curious what others might do with it, whether it be in fiber, with paint, with sculpture. It never occurred to me that someone's medium might be food! My niece has been doing a lot of culinary experimenting lately and decided to make the above upside down pear gingerbread cake as her response.

I was so impressed with the thought she put into this, presenting an "artist's statement" worthy of any exhibit:


"I thought the photo spoke of layers, soft and hard support, hardness of stone, the softness of grass. There is also a melding and mixture of the two, and a rather inspired conclusion that the seemingly weak (grass) can surmount the seemingly powerful (stone). Look at the grass, just growing up and around, no matter, I'll just grow here instead of there. Much like faith in the face of adversity."


"Well cake is not quite capable of such nuanced meaning but this does have a juxtaposition of round (stone/cake) and angular disarray (grass/pears), the soft covering the hard, with both providing different types of support, some additive (grass/pears), some formative (stone/cake base).
"

I was surprised I didn't have more takers - Perhaps the timing wasn't right being around the holidays. Would anyone else like to try?


3 comments:

Nora and James McDowell said...

I think I'd rather eat the cake.
I like your niece's artist statement.I'll have to meditate on the picture.

Cathie said...

What I'd really like to do is have a piece of that cake whilest I ponder the photograph - maybe then something would come to me. What immediately came to my mind when looking at that photo is how persistent nature is - like flowers growing up in the sidewalk cracks - and how the grass is growing around and up through the middle, but if you moved that cemend donut - the grass beneath would appear dead - but would certainly reappear in a week's time. Now - how to translate that into fabric. That is a good idea for a challenge - am I creative enough to come up with something - I'm not sure I'm at that level yet - but I will be thinking about that today - and who knows!

The Idaho Beauty said...

I know, I know - that cake sounds so luscious, but the niece is in Michigan so I can't have any of it either!

I find it interesting that my niece and Cathie keyed in on nature not being daunted by slabs of concrete. I wasn't really looking at the grass, but focused on the shapes of those man made structures and the juxtaposition to each other. You've made me see something I hadn't considered and may be helping chip away at my block over this photo.