Feasting on Art

Even after making frozen yogurt and jelly, our seemingly never ending supply of wild blackberries still provided enough berries to make a pie. I am writing this from Sydney although the pie was made while home in Michigan. I had a wonderful and relaxing holiday and am thankful to have spent so much time with my family. I love this pie and the only thing that could have made it better would have been cooler weather in which to bake it (and maybe some ginger). It was oppressively humid when I finally slid it into the oven – making the ice cream accompaniment a necessity. I cut down the sugar in my recipe from the original Gourmet instructions to make it a bit more tart. Our berries were very juicy and the pie overflowed onto the baking tray making me glad I used one!

Willem Claesz Heda, Breakfast Table with Blackberry Pie, 1631
oil on wood, 54 x 82 cm, Gemäldegalerie, Dresden

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After a beautiful weekend in the Upper Peninsula visiting my mother’s side of the family we have returned to the humidity of the Lower Peninsula with a bucket of wild blackberries in tow. My aunt and uncle know of all the best berry picking locations and while I was asleep in my bed, my parents joined them for some early morning picking. I did do a tiny bit of thimbleberry picking (pictured below) and I  sat through the 7 hour car ride home thinking about what to make. It is too hot to bake and I just made a batch of jam so I settled on a frozen dessert. I seem to be a creature of habit – the last post I did about Raphaelle Peale was a recipe for orange & lemon ice cream and exactly one year ago I posted a recipe for a frozen watermelon margarita. For another cold treat check out my post about coconut milk ice cream.

Raphaelle Peale, Blackberries, c.1813
oil on wood panel, 18.4 x 26 cm, de Young Fine Art Museum

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On August 5th, the exhibition Slow Burn – A century of Australian women artists from a private collection, will open at the S.H. Ervin Gallery. I have spent the past four months working very hard on the exhibition catalogue and am very proud to be a co-author on such an exciting and important project. Of the 102 artists from the collection, I researched and wrote 47 of the bios – the reason the Feasting on Art posts have been quite infrequent. The collection ranges “from the delicate pastels of Janet Cumbrae Stewart to the modernist prints of Margaret Preston through to the bio-techno sculptures of Patricia Piccinini. The works in the exhibition demonstrate the skill and versatility of women artists over the past hundred years” (S.H. Ervin Gallery). In honour of the exhibition I plan to do a mini-series featuring a few of the artists represented in the collection as well as one or two of the artworks that I did not write about for the book. The exhibition will be on view at the S.H. Ervin Gallery until the 19th of September.

Margaret Olley, Still life with mandarins, c.1975
oil on board, 76 x 122 cm, Private collection

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Sometimes I can’t help myself, I just have to indulge in a bit of kitsch.  Cupcakes and  pharmaceuticals are not a likely combination but I stayed true to the spot painting production and created a slightly different shade for each little cake and arranged them in a random order.   The cake is the red velvet variety sans the red colouring. It is moist and rich and wonderfully sour paired with the lemon cream cheese icing.

I want to send a quick thank you to Sarah and Otiena. Sarah designed beautiful business cards for my blog and business and Otiena interviewed me for the site Under My Bed. Also there are only 26 more days until the recipe contest closes – entries are already rolling in, don’t forget to submit yours!

Damien Hirst, Cineole, 2004
etching in colours, 114 x 112 cm, edition of 145

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Although Frida Kahlo is best known for her striking and emotionally revealing self portraits, she created about 40 still life paintings that provide just as much insight into her preoccupation with death and her overwhelming loneliness. I was recently given an anthology detailing Kahlo’s entire body of still life paintings and have become so enamored with her work that I will be completing a five part series of my favorite artworks. This is not the first time Kahlo’s art has appeared on this site and I hope by the end of this series you will adore her work like I do.