Since adolescence there has been two cultural forces that have captivated and cultivated my artistic output. Together they have occupied most of my time through the past few years, and are both became outlets for my creative and curious sides.
Photography and art making has become my chief focus in college, but in the background was my continuous involvement in cuisine and cooking. It has always been a secondary hobby and a means of income, but has become something much more as I became better at baking breads, preparing new ingredients, learning techniques and experimenting with flavours. Cuisine is complimentary to art, but a branch of art-making that extends into the everyday and necessary aspects of life. It affects every person who eats, yet often goes unnoticed to the people who don't dedicate their time to making food themselves.
Rice and Meat Pie, 2016.
Cooking As Art
The art of cuisine is a blank canvas, or unexposed film, and with the right balance in composition, it can open doors to new experiences. Like art, cuisine is an engagement, an activity. You cannot be a cook without getting in the kitchen and producing something, likewise you cannot be an artist without sitting down (or standing) and making art and creating images.
As I dedicated time to either activity, practicing while producing, the only outcome is something to share and something to learn from. From the age of 17 I started working in a restaurant, and I was very eager to be the one working with raw ingredients, being part of the process in making those vegetables or meats into something worthy or praise, that could be enjoyed and digested. I was inspired by the way the bounty of our surroundings provides the inspiration to make something worth eating. In a similar way, our surroundings provide endless things to see and reflect on and which can be used to make a work of art which could be digested metaphorically.
The chemistry and know-how required to make a photograph or a dish of food both require time, patience and practice. Over the years I learned that to make good food requires keen observation and the ability to attune to any problems that might arise. If you have ever made bread from scratch, you may know just how many factors affect the outcome of a good loaf of bread. It is a balance, and requires a bit of experience and experimentation to get right.
There are instructions, and recipes that can explain photography or cooking, yes, but these are tools to facilitate the process. Experimentation is where someone learns how the ingredients behave and interact, and by finding the balance in experimenting is what creates a beautiful work.
Cooking and art-making relate on so many levels that it is hard not to say that cuisine is not a form of art, in fact it can be a perfect form of art that engages on so many levels.
Collage of the Senses
Spending so much time in kitchens, I had to adapt my creativity to a scene where the outcome is judged by many senses. This is the biggest challenge that cooking brings, that ventures like art, music or other forms of art are not forced to engage in.
When you make a photograph, it is a visual engagement, something that affects you vision and can bring out other feelings or emotions. But it is mostly passive. When you make a tasty dish of food, it is like a wreaking ball that comes in contact with all the structures of the senses, it engages on practically every empirical level.
Successful cooking brings with it an atmosphere, it may begin with wafting smells and aromas that are like a preview for potential spices and sauces to try. As the food comes around the corner, and if it cooked with care and practice, then the food will look delicious. A good looking meal in a photograph is less engaging than a good looking meal in real life because that food is percieved in more than one way in person, and we can all attest to that was we try to explain how tasty our dinner was last night. Engaging on multiple levels, it has more sway on our impressions. As the food is set in front of you, and the warm heat of steam carries scents to your olfactory glands, it seems perfectly tempting. If only I could make art as tempting!
But neither looks nor smells could prepare you for the experiences of flavors when the food reaches the tongue! Flavors, like colors or sounds, defy perfect descriptions, and so it becomes subjective delight as the tastes intermingle in a composition in your mouth. The textures and feeling of the food both in hand and on tongue brings another level of experience. What would icecream be if you could not feel the temperature of it as it melts, or what would an apple be like if you couldn't sense the crunch and juice of its flesh. So many senses come together to present a perfect form of art, which if successful, will undoubtedly by consumed by the viewer. What a picturesque way to share art, when it is ultimately incorporated into the body.
Cooking is one of my favorite forms of collage, one that engages on so many levels and senses.
Cooking in Society
There are great things to learn from cuisine and the way that cooking is accepted in our everyday. Good cooks are figured based on the quality of the work, not whether it came from a professional, amateur or novice.It is a very important perspective to carry through life, that it is the outcome of work that leaves an impression. In many occupations, there are levels for professionalism, especially in art., but in cooking those lines are less distinct.
Being a chef is a notable title, but the title can also be self-proclaimed; only when put to the test and actually cooking is the chef measured for success, based on each and subsequent work. A chef is challenged by him or her self each time they cook, they understand each situation could possibly be a miss. It doesn't matter who the chef is, whether they are a beginner, or authentic, or classic; the only thing that matters is the success of the work. Cooking is casual and professional, and neither of them are considered superior. Fine Dining and Street Food are in the end compared by their food, and whether it was good.
Many chefs value experience over schooling, and this is because good cooking comes from steady work, not luck and style. The other art worlds could learn from this fuzzy line between amateur and professional, something Bill Ivey focuses on in his book Art, Inc (Chapter 3). Cooking is a part of life, and something that is capable of bringing meaning and joy, or leave you with distaste. It celebrates a part of existence and all its variation, and I think other arts like painting, photography, and music should be more like it.
When I'm cooking or in a kitchen, it feels much less like work, and partly like play. It is thrilling like the chemistry lab and involves measuring and balancing, yet holds flavors that escape expression like a beautiful painting. When I make art, I feel the very same way, it is a game of push and pull, of discovery, and rediscovery, improvisation, problem-solving and planning. Both activities engage me in ways I love to share, and that is why Cooking and Art are tools to a better life.
Great cuisine takes you by the wrists, shakes you and says, "See, there is still so much out there to try,", and is a reminder that the combinations are endless with endless outcomes and flavours. There have been certain meals that have change my whole perspective of what you can eat, and ultimately what life can be composed of. Some people spend their whole lives perfecting cooking, a magnificent activity that combines art and science into an experience you can completely engage in, and share with others. I wish to enliven myself as a chef, and bring that into my art as well!