My beautiful new book of postcards is now available on my etsy shop.
They look great framed as a set.
June 14, 2011
January 29, 2011
Show at Castle in the Air
February 8 through March 25, 2011
Opening reception Tuesday, February 8, 6 p.m.
In Cleo Papanikolas' novella Cook Until Desired Tenderness, layers of paintings, sketches, recipe cards, and handwritten notes tell the story of a young gourmand learning to live each day as a banquet, even when things get a little messy.
The tale, with its patchwork presentation, isn't far from the truth. When Papanikolas was two years old her parents went back to the land, launching the family headlong into a world of vegetables, sheep, chickens, and mud. The experience followed Papanikolas into adulthood where - as an artist, cook, and mother of her own young children - she perfected her recipes, both real and make-believe.
With familiarity and humor, the paintings in Fancy Mud Pies capture what Papanikolas calls "the sense of beauty and chaos that is food." Whether picturing canaries perched atop popsicles or a faun encased mid-stride in a luminous serving of Jell-O, her juxtapositions offer a taste of a culinary wilderness which, while reverie, is remarkably recognizable as a metaphor for life.
"A Studio for the Imagination," Castle in the Air's shop and classroom have inspired local and visiting artists since 2001. Since its opening in 2009, the gallery in our upstairs loft has quite literally taken inspiration to new heights and provided a venue to showcase current and historical works.
Gallery open 11 a.m. - 6 p.m. every day
CASTLE IN THE AIR
1805 FOURTH STREET, BERKELEY, CA 94710
(510) 204-0801, WWW.CASTLEINTHEAIR.BIZ
January 28, 2011
Terrarium Pastry
yummy? or gritty?
Culinary Wilderness
Clint called my paintings "culinary wilderness" when he was writing the description for the show invitation. Here's a little bit more about my art process.
Wheat Paste: formerly a fine art material that I used when printmaking or bookbinding. Now it is the familiar coating on every surface of my kitchen after cooking with my boys.
When I was writing and illustrating Cook Until Desired Tenderness, I worked the pastry and salad stations in two very nice restaurants in The City. The plating of food was a delicate art. The due date for my manuscript was the same as for my first baby. Then cooking and painting changed.
Cooking up a batch of wheat paste starts with the intention to make muffins. Stir together dry ingredients using two citrus juicers, a melon baler, two pairs of tongs, an ice cream scoop, two whisks, all the measuring spoons and cups, a bunch of stickers, a Lego, toothpicks…toothpicks? But toothpicks make better blow-darts then they do muffins. Show little brother how to insert a toothpick into a cocktail straw and shoot it out like a spitwad into the sugar canister, pick it out and suck on it then repeat, repeat, repeat, grab a slobbery handful of sugar and use the toothpicks for a swordfight. The muffin tin becomes an arcade game that is a mix of basketball and whack-a-mole. Clean up the floury mess with a bench scraper, used like a bulldozer, and a wet sponge. When the little brother wants to use the only sponge, the big brother convinces him to rub his bare stomach in the wheat paste instead. He tries, but it’s not good enough. Above the ensuing fight, I hear a distinctive shout, “LAUNCH.” The rolling pin. A red knot begins to form on the little brother’s forehead. Game Over
I used rabbit skin glue to make these new paintings. Cooking it smells just like cooking Knox or Jell-o. The subject of the paintings is a combination of my childhood art: mud pies, and my grown-up art: Still life oil paintings, and the culinary arts. First I make the actual mud pies, running around getting Jell-o in my garden and mud in my refrigerator. Then I photograph them. I print the pictures in many tiles on “rice paper” that I have crammed through my desktop printer. The tiles are reassembled and bonded to crinoline fabric using rabbit skin glue. This becomes the canvas on which I paint the still life, changing and adding to the photograph. Creating the sense of beauty and chaos that is food.
