in a time of surplus: an archive of food, memory and landscape 2014
for Mountains in My Spoon: Artists and Food at the Lucas Artists Residency, Montalvo Art Center,
Lucas Artists Residency Program, Saratoga, California. An exhibition curated by Donna Conwell.
I solicited preserves, and one’s proud seasonal store—what local residents and Montalvo staff had PUT UP this year. Jam, pickles, sauces, fruit, vinegars, honey, beer, kraut, beans, wine, and cordials. The foods we store for later use and eating pleasure are infused with memory, personal taste, and our own relationship to the land where the food was grown. Along with preserves, I collected written memories and stories about the California landscape, our changing climate, and economy, through labor and love. What do you most hold dear and long to preserve about our lives in relation to eating and local agriculture? The preserves accumulated over the course of the exhibition were tasted at the exhibition’s closing reception. The submitted texts were edited and presented in a broadsheet that was given away.
The Ugly Jars
Things we preserve are not always beautiful to behold and get uglier as time passes.The chemistry is not right, too much vinegar or too little sugar, or our own frustrations make the batch turn on us. We don't always know why but it happens. I find that I do not always throw the ugly jars away immediately either, for some reason I keep them in the cupboard hidden in the back. What rots and discolors or doesn't set up just right also preserves something felt about ourselves and life at times, something darkish and prone to breaking down and not as resilient and winning as last year' gorgeous apricots, halved and bathed in simple syrup that looked and tasted like bottled sunshine. SC Broadsheet Excerpt
