food + creativity = art
Coq au Vin with wine bottle by Betty Spindler
In an August 2007 post MadSilence discussed the watermelon special fruit carving of Takashi Itoh. We recently learned that there is more to food art than specially carved watermelons.
Edible Chocolate Art offers a variety of chocolate paintings, including this portrait of Marilyn Monroe.
Chocolate portrait of Marilyn Monroe from Edible Chocolate
According to Edible Chocolate:
The Marilyn Monroe Chocolate Painting is over 2Kg of solid chocolate!! An entirely edible work of art featuring a hand painted Dark and White Chocolate image on a Dark, Milk or White Solid Chocolate Canvas surrounded by a Solid Dark, Milk or White Chocolate Frame dusted with edible Gold or Silver gilt. Ideal to share! Created by Internationally renowned Chocolate Artist Prudence Emma Staite.
The Artdaily.org photo galleryprovides vegetal portraits created by the Italian artist Giuseppe Arcimboldo (1527-1593).
Vertumnus, a portrait of Rudolf II by Giuseppe Arcimboldo . Now at Skokloster Castle, Sweden.
According to Wikipedia:
Giuseppe Arcimboldo was an Italian painter best known for creating imaginative portrait heads made entirely of such objects as fruits, vegetables, flowers, fish, and books — that is, he painted representations of these objects on the canvas arranged in such a way that the whole collection of objects formed a recognizable likeness of the portrait subject.
Betty Spindler, a California ceramic artist, overcame a learning disability later in life to earn both associate’s and bachelor’s degrees in art and pursue a successful and rewarding career as a ceramic artist. Her ceramic sculptures are still lifes that celebrate the beauty and form of fruits, vegetables, sandwiches and other common, familiar items from her daily life. Heading this post is a picture of Spindler’s delightful Coq au Vin with wine bottle. Images from the Winfield Gallery website.
Pear Bowlby Betty Spindler, 1998; 15-inch diameter bowl
For sheer novelty there is arist Maurice Bennett of New Zealand. The Toastman, as you may have already guessed, uses toasted cocktail bread in creating his art. Here’s The Toastman with his portrait of Elvis Presley. Elvis is 2.4 x 2.4 meters square and consists of 3,525 slices of cocktail toast.
It’s okay to play with your food…sometimes. 
The blog mosspink.com provides images of food art in this post.
Image from mosspink.com
Finally, there is Playing With Food by kab from Squidoo. kab reminds us:
Don’t play with your food. You’ve were told this over and over as a kid. Why? Why not play with your food? Why not make a mashed potato snowman? Why not test your hypothesis that peas will roll down celery sticks faster then carrot sticks. Why not attempt an abstract sculpture with what is left on your plate? Why do they want to suck the fun out of mealtime? I say play! PLAY PLAY PLAY! Play with your food. Enjoy it. Live a little - and loosen up. There is nothing wrong with a little food fun now and again.
Go ahead and play with your food from kab on Squidoo
Well there you have it. Artists working in ceramics, chocolate, oil on canvas, toast, and fruits and vegetables, creating objects that many would term art. A tribute to human kind’s imagination and creativity and a lot of fun.
Watch for future posts on the subject of “food + creativity.”
~TAB
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And now there are edible books! In fact, I’ve now seen news for two years running of an Edible Book Festival. There’s something both exciting and sad about books as such ephemeral objects.
I’ve even heard of deep fried books (http://emilysaid.blogspot.com/2007/04/deep-fried-book.html). A painful & silly activity, no?
MadSilence
The International Edible Book Festival is held annually around April 1st. To date, the following countries have held this festival: Australia, Brazil, Canada, England, France, Germany, India, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Mexico, Morocco, Netherlands, New Zealand, United States of America, Russia. Hong Kong has just announced its participation in 2007.
http://www.diffusionadage.com/livremangeable/index.html
I was just curious on how you came upon my mother’s chicken pot and gallery site. You think those are impressive you should see her studio. Thanks for the nice writing about her, she really liked it as well.