Jeff Shepherd

Jeff Shepherd

Octopus's Garden

Chocolate Nibs, Coca Butter, Coca Butter mixed Food Coloring, Modeling Chocolate

150 pounds of chocolate

2009

Jeff Shepherd is a 'chocolateteer' who owns his own company known as Lillie Belle Farms. He spent 20 years in the restaurant business and soon made his own chocolate company. His unique handmade chocolate has become quite popular especially during the holidays. He and his team of nine enter a chocolate competition every year called Oregon Chocolate Festival. There they show off their amazing ideas and chocolate sculptures, which they make bigger and bigger every year. He has a wide variety of what he makes out of chocolate that range from truffles and sculptures to even-colored chocolate painted on a canvas with a dark chocolate frame.

Artist's statement: Jeff Shepherd loves cooking and prefers chocolate as his medium. He loves to outdo himself every time he makes a new project (they just get bigger and bigger). He would use small tools to sculpt as you would with clay. He used many different types of chocolate mixed with modeling chocolate to form all his creations. He also works with a skilled team of nine people. He just likes to show that he loves what he does.

Octopus's Garden-

This was a contest entry for Oregon Chocolate Festival of March 2009. It first started out as a sketch and then was brought to life. This sculpture took 6 weeks to make and around 100 hours of work. His daughter suggested that for this year's entry he should do a coral reef. So he chose to do an Octopus's Garden since her favorite band was the Beatles. They said they listened to Octopus's Garden and Yellow Submarine while they created this to help them go all out on this sculpture. The first part of making this sculpture took them three weeks to construct all the components which they made back at their kitchen. They brought all of their finished segments to the hotel where the competition was being held and put it all together there before the judging took place.

This piece connects to our theme because it's edible (i.e. you can eat it). It was also made by hand, it wasn't factory built making it even more special.  We chose this piece because it's so bright and there is so much detail that it's hard to believe that it's chocolate. It looks like it would be clay, but it's edible and made with one of America's most favorite candies, chocolate!