Ian's Challenge - January

Before I launched the site I asked Ian and Linda Dorian, two very good friends of mine, to review the site and give me their take on it. Ian and Linda are both great artists. They are my lifelines to the art world since I left the city many years ago. Ian is an accomplished comic book illustrator/sculptor. Linda is a fine artist who works with sequins and their inherent reflective properties with light. Art is one of our common passions. So I really value their opinions.

After clicking through the site they both gave me some positive an insightful criticism. I could see Ian was still muddling over his thoughts and I waited until he was ready to let it rip. He finally said, “It’s awesome, but I want to see more of your artwork reflected in your desserts. Why don’t you bring your artwork into the kitchen.”

We are always talking about art when we are together and they are always trying to get me to make art again. I tried to explain how much I enjoy making edible art, He acknowledged the fact, but was insistent in making it more mine somehow.

I put it off at first then I began thinking just how would I go about doing this? So I decided I would take Ian up on his challenge. After much consideration I decided I would pick out twelve of my paintings one for each month of the year. And every month this year I would develop a new dessert inspired by one of my pieces. I’m sure they won’t be overly burdened by sampling the dessert to see if I accomplished my objective each month.

I am really looking forward to revisit each piece and reinterpret it through food; taking into account the reasons why I painted them, the color pallet I chose, and the process I went through to develop a finished painting. Some of the work I chose is objective while other pieces are abstract just to make it more stimulating for myself.

The first work I am going to attempt this with is entitled Moon Phase. It is one of my earlier abstract paintings. The color pallet is primarily muted blue and green with touches of muted oranges and browns. It was inspired by my love of geometry, patterns, and how things are always in constant motion. It also reflects a consistent theme I discovered about my work later on in life. I noticed that the space in my abstract pieces often convey a closely layered, compact, almost flat, two-dimensional space. Depth is only suggested by luminesces of the background coming through the paint. In this watercolor painting the shapes overlap allowing the bottom color to come through. I also wanted the shapes to merge in some way so that they create other shapes. I was always interested in making a place where one can stay for a while and discover new things just by looking. And also a place you could come back to and regain that sense of discovery through the piece. It has been hanging in my living room since I painted it. At times I’ll turn it perpendicular to the way it was hanging previously. I’ve never grown tired of it.