WEBVTT 00:02:35.042 --> 00:02:41.555 - here talking to Regina Miller, director of Indiana Memorial Union Craft Shop, and Scott Belleville, 00:02:41.555 --> 00:02:48.199 - director of the IMU Craft Shop Gallery. And we're talking here before the opening of the first edible 00:02:48.199 --> 00:02:54.712 - art show. First of all, I'd like to ask, whose idea was it to have an edible art show? Mine, but it 00:02:54.712 --> 00:03:01.226 - wasn't originally mine. It's been done before, and they're usually a lot of fun kind of things. But 00:03:01.226 --> 00:03:04.222 - this is the first one done at IMU Craft Shop. 00:03:07.234 --> 00:03:15.098 - Okay. And who is allowed to enter their work in this show? Anyone is allowed to enter their work in 00:03:15.098 --> 00:03:23.119 - the show. Okay. And what are the criteria for eligibility? Just basically edible. The more edible the 00:03:23.119 --> 00:03:31.140 - better. In other words, made out of everyday household foods or tending toward the more exotic items? 00:03:31.140 --> 00:03:36.094 - The grocery store is just like an incredible art supply store. 00:03:37.634 --> 00:03:46.801 - and you can just go down the aisles and take your pick. Okay. Are entrants required to allow that their 00:03:46.801 --> 00:03:55.703 - work be eaten by the end of the show? Yes. Okay. And what are the criteria that are used for judging 00:03:55.703 --> 00:04:05.310 - the works? Taste, whichever way you want to look at it. Artfulness and originality. So it can go either way. 00:04:05.474 --> 00:04:14.154 - I mean, there's really no criteria. Whatever strikes a juror is the best or most interesting. How has 00:04:14.154 --> 00:04:23.175 - the jury been selected for this show? I mean, is it mostly IMU craft shop staff or is it from Bloomington 00:04:23.175 --> 00:04:32.110 - community in general? The head of the sculpture department at IU, John Paul Dario, was chosen as a judge 00:04:32.110 --> 00:04:34.238 - for the show. All right. 00:06:36.578 --> 00:06:43.661 - the exhibitors in the Edible Arts Show. Jamie, we saw you bringing your piece in. Did you have any problems 00:06:43.661 --> 00:06:50.219 - with getting it here? Well, I think it was just the transportation of it. We had a small car and we 00:06:50.219 --> 00:06:56.908 - were hopefully to have a station wagon or a truck to bring it into. And since we were kind of late on 00:06:56.908 --> 00:07:00.318 - and kind of had to make a quick turn, so it did not 00:07:01.410 --> 00:07:07.439 - I didn't like that at all. The head fell off and kind of hit the floor. But we salvaged most of it. 00:07:07.439 --> 00:07:13.528 - It didn't turn out too bad. Did you sample your art before you brought it in? Parts of it, yeah. But 00:07:13.528 --> 00:07:19.618 - most of the parts were meant to be whole, like the cake sections, so we couldn't really dig into it. 00:07:19.618 --> 00:07:25.647 - Kind of take away from the art. We wouldn't want to do that. No, we can't do that. Do you think you 00:07:25.647 --> 00:07:27.998 - have a pretty good chance in the show? 00:07:28.162 --> 00:07:34.317 - Well, excuse me. They wanted to walk right through this way. Well, it's kind of not that we have a good 00:07:34.317 --> 00:07:40.236 - chance. It's just kind of for fun. Since both the people who worked on the project work here at the 00:07:40.236 --> 00:07:46.154 - craft shop, we thought it might be nice to have lunch here. You're a craft shop people? I'm a craft 00:07:46.154 --> 00:07:52.251 - shop member, yeah. So I thought it might be kind of fun to put something together. Are you also a fine 00:07:52.251 --> 00:07:58.110 - art major? Yeah, I'm a drawing and painting major, which is a lot farther from the sculpture here. 00:07:58.210 --> 00:08:05.643 - Well, there's art in all of it. Well, thanks a lot. Thank you. I'm here with Mike Van Voren and Beth 00:08:05.643 --> 00:08:13.150 - Wamsler, exhibitors in the Edible Arts Show. I'd like to know, for example, what prompts artists such 00:08:13.150 --> 00:08:20.584 - as yourselves to go into such an ephemeral form, which is going to be gone in less than an hour from 00:08:20.584 --> 00:08:27.870 - now? Mostly this is just a fun type of thing. It's supposed to be spontaneous, not really serious. 00:08:28.034 --> 00:08:36.425 - People are so esoteric about their work that it's fun just to let loose. In other words, it's sort of 00:08:36.425 --> 00:08:44.733 - a sideline to your major artistic pursuits? Definitely. I'm not a farmer, so it would be rather hard 00:08:44.733 --> 00:08:53.206 - to always work in food form. Okay, are you interested in making a living from artistic pursuits or are 00:08:53.206 --> 00:08:55.838 - you simply doing it as a hobby? 00:08:56.514 --> 00:09:03.420 - I would say that it would be wonderful to make a living doing artistic pursuits, but to be realistic 00:09:03.420 --> 00:09:10.668 - here in Bloomington that that's not the situation. We both make serious art, and we both plan to continue 00:09:10.668 --> 00:09:17.574 - to do it, but it's not something that you look to get the bread on the table with right now. OK, are 00:09:17.574 --> 00:09:24.958 - you both primarily interested in sculpture, or do you handle other media as well? I'm a painter, basically. 00:09:26.562 --> 00:09:33.227 - And right now, I'm doing a lot of production pottery, but I do a lot of sculpture also. OK. Do your 00:09:33.227 --> 00:09:39.892 - edible creations, do you feel that they follow the same patterns or same general characteristics as 00:09:39.892 --> 00:09:46.556 - the rest, or do you assume sort of a more relaxed personality with them? I mean, you said that this 00:09:46.556 --> 00:09:50.622 - is definitely more of a fun type of operation. Oh, for sure. 00:09:51.074 --> 00:10:00.377 - It's not the same at all. My piece turned out to look a lot like some of my paintings. A whole different 00:10:00.377 --> 00:10:09.326 - attitude goes into it. It is just a spur of the moment thing. Something that I just have to ask, how 00:10:09.326 --> 00:10:18.541 - does it feel to put the time and creative energy into a work that is just going to wind up eaten within 00:10:18.541 --> 00:10:19.870 - a few minutes? 00:10:20.866 --> 00:10:29.052 - About the same as a drawing that you spend hours on and tear up in ten seconds. I think it's great. 00:10:29.052 --> 00:10:34.782 - I have no qualms whatsoever. Okay. Thank you very much for your time. 00:12:53.154 --> 00:13:02.945 - judge of the Edible Art Contest. Well, now that the judging's finally over, what were you looking for 00:13:02.945 --> 00:13:12.927 - as artistic qualities for the art pieces? I wanted to come in and pick some wild guess or see something 00:13:12.927 --> 00:13:22.142 - that was very outlandish. And then I saw the pieces that looked like they should be outlandish. 00:13:22.402 --> 00:13:29.036 - And I got tired of looking at them very quickly. And so then I had to try to figure out, well, the ones 00:13:29.036 --> 00:13:35.478 - I like, am I just liking them because I'm being conservative? Or really, do they have staying power? 00:13:35.478 --> 00:13:42.239 - So I guess I went to the pieces that had staying power for me that do like you're really getting involved 00:13:42.239 --> 00:13:48.745 - in making them and transforming the food stuff, too. Because when you know that everything's made out 00:13:48.745 --> 00:13:52.126 - of a squash and a thing and something's stuck in it, 00:13:52.418 --> 00:13:58.600 - That's a terrific one-liner, like one of those animals I wanted to give a prize to right away, you know? 00:13:58.600 --> 00:14:04.899 - And then I realized it was kind of a one-liner compared to the other stuff, so then I ended up gravitating 00:14:04.899 --> 00:14:10.904 - to the caramel head, and then I went to the, I saw the bread mask, and this collapse of the nose was, 00:14:10.904 --> 00:14:16.792 - you know, terrifically believable, and I love the transformation going on between the bread sinking 00:14:16.792 --> 00:14:18.558 - and the wrinkles of the nose. 00:14:18.786 --> 00:14:26.135 - on the mask, and then after that it got a little harder, because I do like the broccoli bouquet, I thought. 00:14:26.135 --> 00:14:33.280 - Yeah, that was real nice. So I find myself sort of gravitating towards things that seemed to have, where 00:14:33.280 --> 00:14:40.561 - there was some careful attention paid to putting together the components of something. And so that really, 00:14:40.561 --> 00:14:47.433 - I don't know if it's a real descending order when I get down to the bread chair, but I like the idea 00:14:47.433 --> 00:14:48.318 - of trying to 00:14:48.578 --> 00:14:55.990 - That was ambitious, to try to make legs that would stand up, you know, put them together in a structure. 00:14:55.990 --> 00:15:03.332 - And then I wanted to give a place of the chewing gum collage some place. Right off hand, it looked like 00:15:03.332 --> 00:15:10.956 - a very, very quick impression. It looked like, you know, the classical cubist picture, you know, analytical 00:15:10.956 --> 00:15:12.862 - cubism, Picasso, whatever. 00:15:12.962 --> 00:15:19.701 - It also obviously looked like it could be an ad. And then I realized, well, Double Mint would never 00:15:19.701 --> 00:15:26.440 - want to be represented that way, even though it looked like it could be a good Double Mint ad. So I 00:15:26.440 --> 00:15:33.179 - decided that it had that kind of crazy combination of slick and funky at the same time. And so that 00:15:33.179 --> 00:15:40.053 - wrapped it up for me. Because I really wasn't thinking about the whole thing of the contest. I wasn't 00:15:40.053 --> 00:15:42.142 - sure what was going to happen. 00:15:42.498 --> 00:15:49.066 - And I didn't know what I could get involved in. I had a hard day, and I said, oh, God, you know, arts 00:15:49.066 --> 00:15:55.633 - and crafts or something. And then I got into it. If you were asked to do the judging again next year, 00:15:55.633 --> 00:16:02.265 - what would you be looking for? What would you like to see as an exhibit here? I probably did like the, 00:16:02.265 --> 00:16:08.318 - I probably wouldn't stray too far from the things I look for this time. Maybe I'd like to see 00:16:08.866 --> 00:16:16.463 - the idea of things being constructed a little bit more, like that chair idea. Not necessarily furniture, 00:16:16.463 --> 00:16:24.061 - but it could be, you know, really the transformations of the food stuff, you see. I thought at one point 00:16:24.061 --> 00:16:31.441 - something, you know, like the paper plate thing, well, you know, that was like naked lunch. Oh, well, 00:16:31.441 --> 00:16:37.374 - how come nobody did a naked lunch? A real naked lunch, something naked lunch. OK. 00:16:37.890 --> 00:16:45.417 - So that's what I, you know, going back to the food stuff that you could too easily identify after like 00:16:45.417 --> 00:16:52.286 - a quick, like the squash with the muppet eyes, you know, which was like a funny one-liner and 00:16:52.286 --> 00:16:56.670 - very muppet-like, you know, and then after about, you know, 00:16:57.250 --> 00:17:03.563 - 43 seconds, you know, I was ready for something else. So then I found myself going back to things that 00:17:03.563 --> 00:17:09.693 - had been, you know, worked over and honed and shaped a little bit, like the ones I ended up picking 00:17:09.693 --> 00:17:16.190 - up. So that would wrap up what I'd be looking for. You know, maybe a little more far out transformations. 00:17:16.322 --> 00:17:25.939 - without losing it totally. So that's nice. Transformation is what is going on all the time in our culture. 00:17:25.939 --> 00:17:35.646 - Well, here is part of one of them, would you like to have some? Did you make this? No, it was the gentleman 00:17:35.646 --> 00:17:41.758 - over there with the ring cake. OK, that's all. Thank you very much.