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Bliss: Salt Sugar and Fat at GoldenBelt

Posted on by Kbaumlier

Last year the Bliss: Salt Sugar and Fat series was shown at the Durham Art Guild Gallery in GoldenBelt Studios from March 12 – April 5, 2020.

I was super excited to show the work in my hometown of Durham. Due to COVID health concerns and the start of the pandemic, the gallery was closed and the reception was canceled.

Five people saw the show which included me, the director, the gallery assistant, and my 5 year old daughter.

At that time, no one knew that we would still be dealing with the pandemic a year later.

New Work – Bliss (Salt, Sugar and Fat)

Posted on by Kbaumlier
Bliss: Salt, Sugar and Fat

 

Bliss (Salt, Sugar and Fat) is a series of photographic images that are intended to be visual portals into the foods that make our brains feel bliss.

Our brains love salt, sugar and fat.  Food manufacturers use salt, sugar and fat in order to make us eat and buy more. These images are meant to be meditative portals to honor these foods that like it or not make our brain explode into happiness.

The images feature the most popular eaten and engineered foods on the planet that are created in the perfect combination of ingredients to create “moreishness,” the condition that once we take a bite or sip, our brain wants more.  Doritos, salt, donuts, French fries, cheeze wiz, donuts, cookies, tomato soup, tang, Coke and Mountain Dew, Pop tarts, Hot Pockets are featured in this series of images.

The images are tondos, or in the round, and are presented for viewers to see these foods in a new way and to ask questions about our relationship to food and salt, sugar and fat.

 

More images and information coming soon!

 

Kbaumlier on Twitter — With Tiny Splashes

Kbaumlier on Twitter — With Tiny Splashes

Posted on by Kbaumlier

Eating on mars?  The microbiology of miso?  Food as a sense of wonder?  In the last few months I have gotten engaged with using Twitter both as a content producer and also to “network” with others engaged in food, sustainability, and art.

I tweet both as @kbaumlier as well as @foodfont.  I started to get back into using social media when I decided I would work to promote the final alphabets from Food Font.   What I found is that tweeting from my @kbaumlier account is really engaging, and I have enjoyed sharing news and websources about food, sustainability, creativity, and art.  I often am tweeting about things that I would have written about on my blog – but putting these sources into Twitter.

If you do not follow me or are not on Twitter, you can check on my @kbaumlier feed on the web to check out my tweets and all the cool things I have found to tweet about.

I also am posting for Food Font on Facebook, Google+, and Pinterest and am working to get the Food Font resources out to teachers and schools.

tinySplash bigView – Here and Now

tinySplash bigView – Here and Now

Posted on by Kbaumlier

How has media changed in the last four years?  In 2011 when I launched my new kristenbaumlier website, I was interested and felt a need to share about things that I saw and read about related to art, creativity, sustainability, and food.  I would goto an event or show, hear about a interesting social art piece, or read about something on the internet that was engaging and I wanted to share, and  tinySplash bigView was born.

I started tinySplash bigView with  a post on October 21, 2011 when I wrote about my experience of viewing a film screening for a film called Urban Roots. The name came from the idea that the blog was about engaging up-and-coming things, but written on my small independent media site.

For two years I posted 3-5 things each week, and sent out a bi-weekly e-newsletter that highlighted the best posts every two weeks.   In keeping up with the project, I felt as though I was “collecting” interesting things, and that by posting I was creating a collection of things that were so interesting I needed to share them.  By doing the blog, I got better and quicker at writing.  I also met a circle of other writers and bloggers and learned how quickly news travels.

I wrote a total of 440 posts over the past years.  Today some of the topics I wrote about are featured in mainstream media, and are now featured in radio, print, and online forums much more than a few years ago.

I have only written a couple of posts in the past year, and I am not sure if tinySplash bigView is done, but I am removing the logo from being at the top of the Blog/News area of this site.

I recently collected information about the “ugly vegetable” market that I might write about, but I wanted to post something about the beginnings of the project, and post something as I take down the logo.  tinySplash might not be visible as a name on this site but it is still here.

 

Chocolate That Explores Texture – Nendo Design

Chocolate That Explores Texture – Nendo Design

Posted on by Kbaumlier

There are many flavors that  affect a chocolate’s taste including the chocolate’s origin, the percentage of cocoa used, the technique of how it was made, and the flavor inside.  One aspect of chocolate that is rarely explored is a chocolate’s shape.

Nendo, a Japanese chocolate company, recently designed a box of chocolates that explores texture.  Each piece explores a chocolate’s shape and has such qualities as spiky tips, smooth surfaces, empty interiors, or rough surfaces.

Each chocolate is named after Japanese expressions used to describe texture. The chocolates were designed for Maison et Objet 2015, a furniture show in Paris.

Here are the 9 names and descriptions of the chocolates:

1. “tubu-tubu” Chunks of smaller chocolate drops.
2. “sube-sube” Smooth edges and corners.
3. “zara-zara” Granular like a file.
4. “toge-toge” Sharp pointed tips.
5. “goro-goro” Fourteen connected small cubes.
6. “fuwa-fuwa” Soft and airy with many tiny holes.
7. “poki-poki” A cube frame made of chocolate sticks.
8. “suka-suka” A hollow cube with thin walls.
9. “zaku-zaku” Alternately placed thin chocolate rods forming a cube.

In looking at them – it seems that some of the surfaces and shapes would affect the experience – from feeling bubbly shapes melt on your tongue, to having to bite into spikes.

Texture is said to affect how saltiness and sweetness are perceived, so the 9 chocolates most likely would vary slightly in its taste due to the shape and texture in the mouth. According to TIC Gum’s research area, food and beverage product developers spend very little  time examining how texture may impact a finished product, which makes this design project a novel adventure.   (and also tasty!)

Images and Links:

Nendo

http://www.foodnavigator-usa.com