Author: elahehia

I love cooking. And baking. And food.

You may scoff and say “Who doesn’t?” but you don’t understand. I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE food. My father always says that other people eat to live but I live to eat.

The roughest part of living in dorms was always the food aspect. I missed cooking like I would miss a limb and I missed having delicious food. In high school, as soon as I came home from class, I spent a good three hours designing a four-  to five-course meal and then making it and then the glorious part: eating it.

While I have adapted to eating godawful shit dining hall food, I still miss food. Real food. That I made with my own hands. While listening to Edith Piaf. It’s especially rough after breaks, where I go home for the few days off class and cook again. I went home MLK weekend and haven’t fully adjusted back to dorm life. And the pictures and taste of the chocolate raspberry tart I made still haunt and taunt me.

Thus, in my despair and separation from sweet treats and savory wonders, I have turned to porn. Food porn, that is. And found a whole new world of art.

Food art is especially emphasized in Japanese culture, where it is commonly believed that people eat with their eyes first. Thus, food has an extremely visual aspect and a chef must not only train to prepare delicious food but also learn how to present it in an extremely aesthetically pleasing way. Beautiful geometry, symmetry, and variation in color are especially utilized.

And everyone who wastes their days away on Reddit and Tumblr knows bento art aka lunch box art. Bento boxes, Japanese lunch boxes, are known for having different compartments and are the inspiration for some crazy art.

Artistic fruit bowls are also becoming an extremely popular way to add pop to a party due to their relative affordability and DIY potential.

For the hardcore:

How I want to learn how to do that one day… Instead of having an ice sculpture at my dream classy cocktail party, I’ll just carve a bunch of fruits and display that.

Edible Arrangements have nothing on this.

Yes, the following is a real thing, not Photoshopped.

Microsculpting is also a thing.

Hungry yet?

Fruits, vegetables, nuts and other gifts of Mother Nature are already ridiculously beautiful but this is just a whole another level.

Sorry for the lazy post. I just wanted an excuse to search for more food.

I’m not sure why but I’ve been reminiscing about India a lot recently. Perhaps because it’s been a while since I’ve gone back and thus, my mind has decided to romanticize the notion of the country. Perhaps because I’m bored in Ann Arbor and India holds promises of adventure. Perhaps it’s because I am growing up and desperately long to hold whatever wisps I have left of my childhood.

And for some odd reason, I have missed rangoli more than anything. (In my language, Telugu, they’re called “muggulu” but most English words that describe Indian culture come from the national language, Hindi, but we’ll save the linguistics lecture for another day.) Rangoli are designs drawn with chalk, loose chalk dust, paint, or flowers outside the house, and less commonly, inside the house as well.

Simple ones are drawn everyday to decorate the house. My grandmother would ensure that by the time the sun was finished rising, there was a rangoli drawn outside. And as the sun set, the entire house, including the exterior, would be swept and a fresh one was drawn. She considered a house not decorated with a rangoli to be inappropriate and cold, inhospitable. When I came to the carpeted world that is America, the lack of the colors outside houses welcoming me only added to the infinite grayness of the frigid buildings.

Rangolis are ingrained into Indian culture at an inexplicable level. There are rangoli competitions and for festivals, rangolis go from simple chalk drawings to elaborate works of art. Women flock totemples to draw rangolis together. Gods and stories are drawn out. They become vehicles of expression and protest and love and tradition. Sometimes, I see my mother absentmindedly doodling rangolis on scrap pieces of paper while speaking on the phone and wonder how much she wishes to press and flick colorful chalk the way so many generations of women had done before her. Whether she thought our home was incomplete because there were no chalk flowers adorning it. Sometimes, I wonder if I had it in me, that inane agility of the hand to curve in a way that enchanted me whenever I saw someone draw a rangoli. I had tried it once, when I was younger, with loose powder. I sucked. I was trying to draw a favorite god of mine and He ended up looking like a weird blob. The girl next door giggled but reassured me that it came with practice. Oh. Okay. So when can I practice? The few months I spend in India every few years? Grr.

My mother still draws rangolis. Every festival, she goes outside and draws a tiny flower with some flour (loose chalk powder can’t be found in the States). And I think while that flower remains untarnished, our house becomes a home, filled with the infinite colors of a rangoli.

Another artist this week!

This time, artist Bronwyn Lundberg who recently grabbed headlines for the following piece of art she composed. Yes, ladies and gentlemen. It is indeed The Last Supper and the lovely Ellen DeGeneres in the  infamous Bjork swan dress is indeed the Jesus of the table.

Lundberg, a lesbian artist, upon having a discussion with a friend about how to decorate her bed, came up with the idea of redoing The Last Supper with a lesbian theme. Yeah, I don’t get how she got that idea either…

Needless to say, this piece has ruffled some feathers. Lundberg’s response:

I personally don’t think this is sacrilegious in the least but of course, there are those who would see Lundberg dead for defiling a classic religious piece. Hey, humorless nitwits will always be humorless nitwits, eh? Another Lundberg piece: The Creation of Neil.

And what’s an article about potentially blasphemous art without Piss Christ, the Andres Serrano photograph of a crucifix submerged in his urine? Here’s a copy for good luck.

When I came across this piece a few years ago (thanks to Wikipedia, I’m sure), I didn’t know how to respond. I’m not Christian yet there was still the shock. A crucifix…? In… pee…?! At the same time, I didn’t really see anything offensive about this picture (read: not Christian). To me, it was clearly Serrano making a statement on what the organized church had become and its values compared to Christ’s values, etc, etc. It was a statement of fact to me. Like a number or a scientific truth I learn in class. It did not strike me as the statement of a (very controversial) opinion, most likely because I shared that opinion, thus making it no longer an opinion but a concrete truth in my eyes.

Is it the same thing again? Am I being cray cray when I think Lundberg’s isn’t offensive in the least? It’s fun. And cute. Ellen as Jesus? Ha ha. It captured my attention for, like, an entire five minutes. I wrote a blog post about it.

Religion + politics + art = volatile beauty

In case you wanna check out Lundberg: here’s the Huffington Post interview with her about the Ellen painting. And here’s the link to her  website.

Peace.

Piss.

Ha ha. Okay. Bye.

Alright. Hold up. Can we talk about ads for a minute?

As someone who paints, draws, is in the business school, is kind of a socialist, is definitely a feminist, and calls herself a fashionista, advertising provokes contradictory feelings. I want to go into marketing and advertising (maybe) because of the strategy aspect; using imagery and visuals to provoke feelings that will then make you do something (spend yo money) sounds like an intellectual challenge I’m up for. But… is wanting to make people want to buy something moral? It is a form of manipulation and propaganda… right?

Je ne sais pas.

Mais, I have respect for people responsible for the images you see in the media today. Yes, most of them are fucked up for perpetuating stereotypes and causing insecurities but to me, they are still a form of art and extremely beautiful and, sometimes, even genius.

Like Tom Ford. Tom Ford is a goddamn visionary. He is one of the most talented designers ever but due to his lack of connections, he lied, cheated, and clawed his way to the top of the fashion industry. Known for a classic and minimalistic aesthetic, his ads are amongst the most controversial ever. Yet, there is something about them…

Yes, ladies and gentlemen. This is an actual ad. There is a raw beauty to it; somehow, Tom Ford managed to make a woman with a bottle of perfume covering her vagina classy, not vulgar. Yet, it objectifies women and portrays the stereotypical thin, white woman we see all too often in the media. So, what is it about that image that I (and other people) find beautiful? Is it the angle? Is the audacity that went into the conception and creation of this ad? Je ne sais pas.

And Apple. Oh my goodness, Apple. If there ever was a company that epitomized marketing genius, it is Apple. I remember taking a basic marketing class and reading Purple Cow by Seth Godin, the modern bible of marketing. Apple popped up more times than any company and was used as an example for… well, every good marketing strategy. Remember the ad below? And all those just like it? How could anyone forget?

Goodness gracious, the glorious minimalism of it. The sheer genius of not having that much text on a poster. <3

And Coca-Cola invented Santa Claus. Let that sink in. A company created the phenomenon modern Christmas is centered around through a marketing strategy and compelling and artistic visuals.

The art used in advertising… I’m not sure if I’m impressed or repulsed. It’s beautiful. But what purpose does it serve?

The above is not a painting. It’s a distorted digital image by Sergio Albiac and I’m in love.

I have no idea how I came across his work. I think it was, like so many other artists’ work, probably coming across a beautiful image of a woman on the Internet and clicking the link. I was shocked to find out that a brush and physical paint never touched this piece. Albiac’s work is generative art.

Generative art is art done by an autonomous system, like a computer. Programs are created and software is coded; then, magic happens. These programs create the artwork, using the algorithms coded into them. Mind blown.

According to Albiac, the work process is something like this:

Once my idea is translated into computer code, I search and select the visual results that better express my point. Sometimes, these generative images are the final work and sometimes I use the programs as an electronic sketchbook to visualize my concept before I transfer it into a painting . As I value freedom of expression, I do not feel constrained to a single medium or style and I use either traditional or new media to express my artistic vision.

Artists can also code randomness into their work. Huh? Intentional randomization? Yes. Let the mind-bending philosophical and artistic implications of that blow your brains out.

There’s something quite unbelievable about having art that was not created by a human. Making something that can, in and of itself, make something is itself art. The idea of structured algorithms and equations, with their structure and strict patterns, combining with randomness, in all its chaos, to create something beautiful and real is  breathtaking: it’s the way the universe itself works, n’est pas? More wonderful words from Albiac:

I create visual imagery to articulate my thoughts about the beauty, contradictions and emotion of the act of living. My work revolves around the interior worlds we create in our minds and the tensions that arise when confronted to our realities. The illusion of control in a world much governed by randomness and the elusive nature of emotions are also recurring ideas in my work.

The one below is a particular favorite of mine.

Took it easy on the abstract philosophy crap this week. Just wanted y’all to learn about something cool and someone cool I just found out about and explore on your own. Click here for Sergio Albiac’s Facebook page. Click here for his website.

I’ve been thinking about presents a lot lately. Many friends have had their birthdays fly  by recently and mine is coming up and I might be seeing people I haven’t seen in a long time for Thanksgiving and Christmas is almost upon us and blah blah blah and my bank account is fucking empty and I will have the pleasure of giving. I just don’t know.

A friend whose birthday is a few short days after mine is one of the classiest people I know so that thought of presenting him with a favorite book of mine or a nice painting has crossed my mind various times but I’m hesitant. I’ve always thought the idea of giving art was slightly pretentious. Setting aside the stereotype of being an activity reserved for the wealthy, it seems to imply that art is an object and can have an owner who will then hang it up the way museums do.

As much as I love museums and art exhibits, I always feel slightly uncomfortable while attending events. All the people who come in, look at the art, try to “figure it out,” and move on to the next piece of art don’t seem to be swept away by it. This process, to me, seems extremely artificial and mechanical. Of course, that could be because I’m listening to Animal by Neon Trees right now but still. The idea of art being owned is silly. It’s not. I watched a documentary about street art recently in which much of the street art was being auctioned off. Blasphemy. Street art is the most liberated form of art. The anonymity it grants results in some of the boldest and most audacious works in history; street art is almost synonymous with liberation and absolute freedom. So, what the hell is a rich old guy going to do with it hung up in his basement? Does spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on acquiring and “owning” something that defies ownership a perverted form of exhilaration? How can something that was meant to please the masses not feel trapped and suffocated in the emptiness of a house, where, at most, a handful of people passively walk by every day?

Did I digress? I think so. Okay, bye.