Final Project: The Ephemeral

For my final project I opted to complete the second option, which was to make an art project that conveyed meaning, convey meaning visually through some sort of visual component, and also was edible.  Initially I considered choosing the first path, which was to create a response artwork to my last piece, yet I hesitated, since it's not every art class a project that involves food is directly assigned.  For my initial brainstorming, one phrase stuck in my mind: how can I play with my food?

The obvious answer, stemming from that, was to complete an interactive piece of some sort, that involved both food and the viewer (eater).  For some reason, images of my favorite childhood toys were repeatedly conjured, with my mind finally landing upon the thought of Lincoln Logs, essentially, simple miniature logs which you can build structures with.  This somehow related to a memory I have of exploring Venice in summer of 2006, fascinated by the "floating city" (or rather, sinking city) that, for better or for worse, has been constructed almost entirely on fragile, rotting piles of logs.  In its barest terms, one of the seven wonders of the world, built on the same stuff that we make desks out of.

This irony struck me, and coupled with my earlier idea of an interactive piece, led me to the choice of my food, which I decided should be pretzels and melted chocolate.  The idea was the pretzel sticks would be buried vertically into the melted chocolate, creating a sort of "piling" design, that the viewer/eater could then build on top of.  The work would be inherently time-based as well as delicious, since the chocolate would harden quickly, making it nigh impossible to add or subtract any building materials from the construction site.  However, this struck me as too difficult and frustrating, and I slightly detracted from this element by adding the option of using chocolate cake frosting as a cement.

The in-class crit went well, and it turned out delicious as I expected, although I have many leftovers that I don't know what to do with.  I was a bit unhappy with how the work turned out visually, however, as it looked like a mess when I brought it in, and only slightly improved when I left, as everyone saw the example I had made with my terribly-wrought foundation and proceeded to build upon it (everyone knows what happens when you build upon a bad foundation.)

However, this became a part of the work as anything, it being an interactive piece, and overall, I'm happy with how it turned out.  Taking this class was awesome, and I'm looking forward to a project like this in the future (it was fun)