Wednesday, March 14, 2018

The Feminist Art Cookbook

Julia Turshen thinks along my lines
For my final project I will be putting together recipes that represent the artwork of artists into a cookbook to spread awareness of the disparity between women artists and men. I will specifically on artists who have contributed to the feminist art movement which started in the 1970’s. Each recipe will be prefaced with an introduction to the artist whose artwork is being represented as well as a description of the art that is being recreated in the recipe. Each recipe will feature step by step pictures as well as a polished picture of the final product so that others can easily achieve the same outcome. By introducing the artist, those who make my recipes will be able to educate others on female artists and the constant struggle to be equally represented alongside men. Readers will have a foundation of knowledge to open up a dialogue around their unusual and interesting pastries which will spread awareness of the problem at hand.
I have chosen this topic because this class has ignited the fire within me to do something about the gap between female and male artists. As someone who has been studying music for the past 3 years I can only name you a handful of female composers whose music I’ve performed in an ensemble setting. This semester I purposely pushed for Madeleine Dring in my chamber ensemble because he work is amazing and severely underplayed. The director for my symphony purposefully chooses one work by a female composer every semester typically, this semester being the first time he hasn’t. The fact that he has to consciously make the decision to include women composers is ridiculous. I wasn’t aware that this was a universal problem across all the arts and my eyes have been forever opened.
Food is an integral part of cultural identity.
Food is the one thing everyone does on a typically daily basis. Food is everywhere, pizza commercials, drive thrus on your way home, it is unavoidable. Not only that, college students are always hungry for free food. The way I see it food is an incredibly underutilized medium to send a message, people generally always want it. Not only that, but people tend to eat with their eyes before anything reaches their mouth. I aim to create pieces that are visually striking, hopefully imitating the method in which the Guerrilla Girls gained attention from their posters. I want people to open their eyes like I did and see that there is a problem as well as being educated on the subject. Opening a dialogue is the first step to change.

Since I am only one person, If I were to make these things on my own surely I can reach a few people, but if I taught others to do it they can reach much farther than I can with the same message. It's like the old adage: Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and you feed him for life. I can open one dialogue that many are likely to forget and a few hold on to, or I can teach others to do the same and turn them into vehicles to spread awareness as well as becoming more involved in the issue at hand. I want to educate others on how to become a part of the feminist art movement.
Completing and publishing a full cookbook is my end goal, which might not be achieved by the end of the semester. HOWEVER, that will not hinder my ability to get this out to the public. I’d like to go out and personally test the dialogues opened by my recreations and document the ventures on a blog to hopefully gain some traction and keep myself motivated to finish the entire thing. In this way I can ensure that even if I don’t finish the book I can still reach an audience and start the conversations to facilitate change.
Ever since I started college for some reason I became obsessed with baking. So much so, that it has become a dream of mine to be payed to bake. During my second semester I had quit my job and needed to keep some sort of flow of income. I started asking around if people wanted to buy baked goods from me and my small personal business venture was born. I learnt a lot about baking in this time period and realized that I genuinely enjoy this hobby. I’ve been wanting to turn this hobby into a career for a while now and I believe this would be a great addition to my portfolio as well as a foot in the door of the culinary world to land myself a relevant job.
So far I've been getting quite inspired by artists such as Yayoi Kusama, Yoko Ono, Ana Mendieta, Georgia O’Keeffe, Judy Chicago and the Guerrilla Girls. The performance art of some of these artists has influenced me to want to add some sort of performance aspect to my recipes to further catch the attention of my audience. Yoko Ono’s Cut Piece has been of particular influence and I believe I have a pastry in mind to convey her performance. Currently I am still researching different feminist artists so that I can narrow my recipes down to the most striking and effective.
Yoko Ono Performing Cut Piece in 1964

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