Author: Kbaumlier

Kristen Baumlier’s work spans the full spectrum of interdisciplinary media, including performance, interactive installation, video and audio works.
Special Meal – Serving the Last Meals of Death Row Prisoners

Special Meal – Serving the Last Meals of Death Row Prisoners

Posted on by Kbaumlier

If you could choose your last meal, what would you choose? Would you choose a family favorite, most indulgent food, or a comfort food?  Most of us do not know when our life will end, or when our last meal will be.

One group that does have this choice is individuals who are scheduled to die as part of their prison sentence, and on death row.  Prisoners are allowed to choose their last meal, which is often called a “special meal.”  According to the artist Jason Metcalf, “in most cases, prisoners have been served whatever they request. However, some have chosen to decline their last meal, while other requests such as “a cup of dirt” or “Justice, Equality, World Peace” have been denied or left unfulfilled.”

Last month, at the experimental food and art space, Thankyou For Coming, Jason Metcalf prepared, fulfilled, and served the special meal requests of death row prisoners.  Some of the meals are from well-known individuals, and some of the meals were never served, and were denied.  The artist did the project hoping to prompt guests to think about the significance of food in their lives.  The artist Metcalf states that, “I am not looking to promote a specific agenda or perspective surrounding the death penalty or the prison system, although I am definitely interested in a dialogue happening as the project unfolds – and it no doubt will.”

During August, visitors to the space could choose a special meal from the Special Meal menu.

For the first week of the project, here are some of the selections that were served, listed with the prisoners’ names:

James Russell – An Apple
Gerald Lee Mitchell – 1 bag of assorted Jolly Ranchers
Charles Rumbaugh – One flour tortilla and water
Velma Barfield – Declined. Had Cheez Doodles and a can of Coca-Cola instead
Karla Faye Tucker – Banana, peach, and garden salad with ranch dressing
Victor Feguer – A single olive with the pit still in it
Gary Michael Heidnik – Two slices of cheese pizza and two cups of black coffee
Phillip Workman – A large vegetarian pizza to be given to a homeless person
Mario Marquez – Fried chicken, baked potato, cinnamon roll
Perry Smith – Shrimp, french fries, garlic bread, ice cream, strawberries, whipped cream

You can read more about how the project went at the Thankyou For Coming website.

 

Image Source and Links:

Thankyou For Coming – Jason Metclaf Special Meal  

 

Flying Buffet: Sonja Alhaüser’s Fantastic Food Event

Flying Buffet: Sonja Alhaüser’s Fantastic Food Event

Posted on by Kbaumlier

Feast: Radical Hospitality in Contemporary Art was an exhibition that focused on the act of sharing food and drink in order “to advance aesthetic goals and to foster critical engagement with the culture of their moment.”  The show premiered at the Smart Museum of Art at the University of Chicago, and presented more than 30 artists works that explored the shared meal as an artistic medium. Feast featured gallery works, and also many participatory projects, meals, and performances.  I recently read about the show again, since it recently traveled to The Blaffer Art Museum at the University of Houston.

One of the artists in the show includes German artist Sonja Sonja Alhaüser, who created a “catering performance” for the show when it was at the SMART Museum.  The piece, entitled Flying Buffet, had servers wearing silver outfits and wearing white wigs who moved through the space like a  “flying buffet”, serving food.  “The piece moved through the lobby and had lots of movement, like flying,” the artist says in the online video created by the Smart Museum.

The performers would carry trays of food that included skewers of fruit, cheese with Marzipan figures; small canopies with signature drawings posted on toothpicks, and large sculptural elements. On the trays, and also on tables were angels, animals such as fish and cows, and figures out created out of margarine, which gave the food a baroque look, and pushed the edge of buffet food.

The artist says about the piece, “All together it is a big picture, or a landscape of food.  All who want to come and eat are able to eat.  I wanted to have all kinds of foods:  meat, bread, cheese, fruit and others, so that all foods are in the buffet.”

Her planning for the process involved creating large recipe drawings, which were large wall-sized detailed sketches made in pencil and watercolor.  The drawings featured images of ingredients, and also sketches of the sculptural elements, and the overall piece.  The recipe drawings look fantastic, but when you see the video of the piece, you realize that the artist was able to realize her vision.  The flying buffet comes alive.

The video and images of the piece can be seen in the Flying Buffet Vimeo video.  Make sure you don’t want it hungry.

Image Source and Links:

Flying Buffet Vimeo video.

Feast Exhibition-  Smart Museum

Sonja alhaeuser – Website

 

Feast Exhibition at the  Blaffer Museum, Houston, TX 

 

Kbaumlier – Rooting and A Room of One’s Own

Kbaumlier – Rooting and A Room of One’s Own

Posted on by Kbaumlier

Ok, I’ve started rooting.  It’s been what seems like a long journey to get here, but it is so worth it. This summer we relocated to Durham, North Carolina, and spent the summer looking for a new house, getting setup with new accounts, ids, etc; buying a new house, moving out of our summer apartment, moving into a new house, and finally unpacking a new house.  All of this went on while having to use a GPS and Google daily to find and navigate to new places.

I had read that moving is one of the most stressful life events, and is on the list with new baby, death of a loved one, losing a job, and getting a new job.  Now that  I can navigate on some days without using a GPS, am living with our furniture and our “stuff” again, and have had one full week break from unpacking boxes and sorting – I feel rooted.

Things are still new and take more energy than I am used to, and some things are in the works that take research and lots of paperwork to do, I feel ready to be in the studio again.

The studio itself is not done.  I am waiting for the shoe molding to get done on the new floor.  I have to touchup the painting I did on the top edge of the room.  But – I feel grounded and rested enough to jump back in to writing on my blog and developing Food Font.

The last few weeks when I was not posting, and not working on Food Font – I would often recall an essay that we read in graduate school, A Room of One’s Own, written by Virgina Woolf in 1929.  The essay focuses on the idea that, ‘a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction.’  It also focuses on whether women have been free to create art, and gives a critical and historical account of many women writers.

The past few weeks, since we moved into the house, my studio was not setup, and I felt unable to do anything creative until the house felt “settled.”  I felt unable to just run to a coffee shop and work, and just as unable to work on creative things when there were 50 boxes in the room. I do not always work in my studio space, but is has always been a space that I setup where I can keep track of what I am working on , and also work in if a project demands it.

I love North Carolina, the new people I am meeting, and new places I go to.   These weekend is our first “vacation” from moving,” and we are heading to the beach, which is only 2.5 hours away.

But – the big news is that I am back, somewhat rested, and ready to go.

 

Make a Chair Out of a Washing Machine

Make a Chair Out of a Washing Machine

Posted on by Kbaumlier

Clothes washers are about 65% percent steel, in addition to the motor, oils, electrical components, hoses and other materials.  Each year some 60,000,000 washing machines are sold around the world.   Usually the steel is recycled, but designer Tony Grigorian created a design to create one or more chairs out of a single washing machine.

Griogorian created some simple directions to follow, which starts with the first step of disassembling the washing machine and mapping the parts.  Using specific parts and some thick foam, you can assemble and cut the pieces to create a series of modern chairs for your house or studio.  The chairs have a space-age, futuristic feel, and if you like modern décor, these pieces would work well.

The project is called  “I Used to be a Washing Machine” and you can read more on Yanko Design or Tony Grigorian’s website.   You also can watch the “I used to be a washing machine music video,” where you can see a washing machine be disassembled.

Image Sources and Links:

Yanko Design – Washing Machine Furniture

Tony Grigorian Website

I used to be a washing machine video

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Recycling a Bottle, Flashmob Style

Recycling a Bottle, Flashmob Style

Posted on by Kbaumlier

If there was a plastic bottle on the floor near the recycling bin, who would be the first to pick it up?  To raise recycling awareness, a flash mob infiltrated the food court of a Quebec shopping mall and waits for someone to recycle a bottle.

The event was organized by the Testé sur des Humains team at TVA in Quebec.  The video is online, and you can see how most shoppers in the mall walk by a plastic bottle that is lying directly next to a recycling bin. If you watch closely, you can tell that there is something else going on in the mall.

Earth 911 reports that in 2008, the United States generated about 13 million tons of plastics in the MSW stream as containers and packaging… The total amount of plastics used was about  about 30 million tons, which was 12 percent of total waste generated in 2008.

You watch the act of recycling, and see just who picked up the bottle see the energy that the Flashmob brings to the event on Youtube.

 

Image Source and Links:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYnd5JRu86E