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!

Norma "Duffy" Lyon (A.K.A. The Buttercow Lady)

Norma "Duffy" Lyon (A.K.A. The Buttercow Lady)

Buttercow

Wood, Chicken Wire, Lard, and Butter

Life size cow 6-8' 600lbs

2005

Norma Lyon was born in 1929 and had been drawing horses since she was 8. She began sculpting when she was studying at Iowa State University. She began sculpting Buttercows in 1959 to take over the job for Frank Dud. When she did her 1st cow, she was pregnant with her seventh child. She made two other Buttercows when she was recovering from giving birth to her eighth or ninth child. It wasn't her idea to make a cow out of butter; the tradition was first started in 1910 by a man named Mr. Daniels. Lyon saw a picture in an ad for the Iowa State Fair and claimed she could do better. That's where her new career and nickname  "The Buttercow Lady" originated from. Lyon sculpted more than just cows, she also did a bust of Obama, Elvis, a Green Eggs and Ham exhibit, and even The Last Supper. She unfortunately had to retire in 2005 due to health issues but her assistant Sarah Pratt took over and is now the new Buttercow sculptor. When Norma isn't at work sculpting, she passes the time by taking care of her own dairy cows on her farm with her husband.

Artist's statement:  Her favorite artistic medium is now butter. She drew farm animals since she was little and now she sculpts them through butter. She raises cows herself as another pastime. Before sculpting, she would take multiple pictures of the breed of cow she wanted to create and then would make many sketches before actually modeling them with the wood and wire frame. She loves what she does and even quoted "I live for it all year long!"

Buttercow-

This sculpture of a Buttercow is the actual size of a real cow. It weighs 600 lbs and is about 6ft tall. The cow is a wooden model with a wire mesh to form the basic shapes to build on. The rest is made from lard and butter. In order to sculpt this cow, the butter has to be at the right temperature of 30-40 degrees so that the butter is a soft cream. They sculpt in large refrigerated rooms or display cases so that everything stays in place and doesn't melt off. Before even getting to the muscle, horns, and hoof details, Lyon took many photographs of the breed of cow she was going to sculpt. She would make numerous sketches and then she would start sculpting the detail of the cow. The entire process took only two days. Though it may sometimes take up to a week depending on how the artist works.

This piece connects with our theme because, since it is a dairy product, it is edible and a type of food that was handmade. Why we chose this piece is because most artists would sculpt with clay and it amazes me that somebody sculpted with butter. It's just crazy and so impressive what artists come up with and what they are able to do. Who would have thought you could use butter as a sculpting medium?

Miyuki Sagamori

Miyuki Sagamori

Pink Leopard

Soft rice dough (similar to American corn syrup), food coloring, and icing

3-5"

1984-2011

Miyuki was born and raised in Tokyo Japan. When she was young, her grandfather was a renowned candy artist of Japan. Candy artists date back 250 years in the Edo era. Her grandfather taught her this art when she was a young girl.  Her grandfather was one of the best and most well known masters of this art. She first started becoming his apprentice in 1989 in Amezaiku, Japan. She moved to Italy when she finished her training and became an independent candy artist in 1994. There are only 15 people in the world who know how to do this art and Sagamori is the first known woman to be taught this candy art style. She now works at Epcot theme park of  Disney World making her edible candy art for her customers. Unfortunately, Disney stopped her from giving out her rice candy treats in 2010 because health inspectors said she couldn't give out contaminated food due to her not wearing gloves while sculpting her masterpieces.

Artist's statement:  Sagamori has a very rare talent that isn't seen very often. She uses small scissors and knives to cut and mold creatures out of rice dough. She became an independent artist after being taught by her grandfather. She is very serious about her works and always created them with a smile and even sings sometimes when she is creating them. Candy sculpting is her passion and her work shows it.

-Pink Leopard

This candy sculpture is one of the many creations she has made. It is a soft rice starch ball sculpted to look like a pink leopard painted with pink food coloring. The process of creating this takes barley over a minute to create. It starts out as a hot moldable rice ball and is pulled like taffy to make it flexible. It is then pulled and trimmed with small scissors to create the desired animal or flower the artist wants to create. Once the form has been finished it is painted with food coloring and icing. It is then placed in front of a small fan to harden the shape so the sculpture stays in place. These creations usually do not last for long because most people eat them so they weren't named anything. When they were named, they were not documented because they were always given to the chosen child to eat.

This artwork connects to our theme because it was made out of another type of edible materials. Why I chose it was it was such a rare talent to have and was sculpted so quickly with using a type of rice clay. It was another edible work of art whose creation was fascinating to watch and I felt like I just couldn't pass it up.

Maurice Bennett (Toast Man)

Maurice Bennett (Toast Man)

President Obama Portrait

Polyurethane, Toast

2.7m x 2.4m

2010

Maurice Bennett was born in the late 1950s in Paeroa, New Zealand.  He spent his young school life moving many times. At Auckland University, he got a certificate in civil engineering and a bachelor's degree in architecture. He was and still is very absorbed in all art forms. He is an abstract artist and loves to find all new forms of art and can see art through everything. He can find a way to express art from just about anything. Bennett's parents owned a local dairy which Maurice worked at, arranging stock and stacking cans. To entertain himself, he would arrange the bags of chips and the canned items in all sorts of uncommon ways instead of just the typical pyramid stack.  He once came across a burning motorbike and was so fascinated by it because he could see the remnants of what it was and what it became. That inspired him to burn objects to make another abstract kind of art. He burned a TV, a sofa,  a pile of women's shoes, and many other odd objects to make them look naturally abstract. This is when he knew that the flame was his paintbrush. One morning, he was making toast and was looking through a magazine and saw a picture that caused him to get the idea to make art out of toast. He took the toast out and started arranging it on his kitchen floor to look like the picture in the magazine. This is how he became "The Toast Man." He began making portraits and made one that was as big as a billboard.  His discovery caused an explosion of commissions for portraits. He was also entered in the Guinness Book of World Records for the largest toast mosaic.

Artist's statement:  Maurice Bennett is very passionate about art. He can see art through everything and can transform any object into something artistic. For his toast art he uses a flame torch and metal molds to make patterns. His art really is different because he uses bread as his medium and makes it into mosaic style.

- President Obama Portrait

This portrait is of President Obama made entirely out of toast and bread. He used 4,234 pieces of toast in this creation. The way it is made is by making certain designs with metal that aren't flammable, then burning (or toasting) the design on with a blowtorch to get it the right shade. Next, the bread is soaked in Polyurethane to keep it preserved. The style is mosaic art (i.e. to look like tiny pixels) where each pixel is made of a slice of toast. This one was made in 2010 to honor of the inauguration of Obama's 2009 inauguration. You can still see this portrait in person today at Walrus Gallery on Taranaki Street in Wellington, New Zealand.

This portrait connects with our theme because it is made with a type of food. This food may not be edible after being soaked with Polyurethane but it was still once edible.  I chose this work because it is so out of the box. They are large scale portraits that, from faraway,  look like computer made images; once a viewer is up close, it becomes apparent that the medium used is toast and slices of bread. I chose it because the artist took such a bland and boring thing and turned it into something amazing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKiAvQTLJQM

Michelle Wibowo

Michelle Wibowo

The Baby Cake

Dough, Food Coloring, Icing, Chocolate, Sugar

Base 20" square

2006

Michelle was born 1978 in Indonesia. She graduated from National Bakery School and was first employed as a cake decorator in London. In 2008, she was awarded a gold and silver metal for her creations in the International Exhibition of Culinary Art in Germany. After she was discovered, she began getting multiple commissions from celebrities to make them cakes. She just recently made a cake for the royal wedding (a bust of the royal couple).  She makes sugar sculptures and cake sculptures. In 2002-2005, she improved her skills by working in many bakeries around London producing over 2000 sugar sculptures. She entered many contests and was awarded the gold medal for many of her entries. In 2010, she was a of member of the Experimental Food Society and worked with other skilled British food artists and culinary experts.

Artist's Statement:  Michelle Wibowo has proven herself through her art.  She has won countless awards for her lifelike cakes. She uses cake and sugar as her mediums for her art. She uses little picks that you would use to sculpt clay but she uses them for her cake details. She is very skillful at her craft and obviously loves what she does.  Her style is realism but she expresses it through cakes!

The Baby Cake-

This sugar/cake sculpture was made for a cake competition in 2006. It was the exact size of a newborn and is made entirely out of dough, sugar, chocolate, and food coloring. It first started out as a regular square chocolate cake that was carved to resemble the start of a box human. The body is then pasted with a honey-like substance for the colored dough to be placed so it will stick. It is layered and layered with the sweet dough and is then sculpted with small tools. Once all the details of the eyes and mouth and nose are finished they are painted with food coloring to have blush, eye color, hair color, and even little finger nails. It is then wrapped with the same sculpting colored dough to form the baby blankets and then it is completed. This creation was eaten.

This cake sculpture is related to our theme because it was made out of food. It was edible and was a masterpiece that you could eat once you finished it. Why I chose this piece is because it is jaw dropping to believe that this entire thing is a cake. It looks so realistic that at first I thought it was a real baby. You could also eat it though it feels a bit morbid and would be a shame to destroy such an amazing piece of art. I couldn't pass this artist up because she is just too skilled to not be mentioned.

http://www.michellesugarart.co.uk/cakes/index.php

Conclusion

What we learned from organizing the exhibition works is that every artist has their own style. It was a good learning process trying to find some of their best works that speak out the most for their style. Each artist relates through the common medium of food, but what they turn it into and what they choose for a meaning was entirely different. What came naturally to us was finding their best work and understanding the work that they went through to be able to create such masterpieces. What was most difficult for us was finding the dimensions of their work: they could put up the title and date but it was hard to find an artist that would tell you how tall and how wide the piece was. The discovery we made was how food artists are only connected through the materials that they use. They each had a whole different way of expressing themselves and they each had their own meanings. Each artist was entirely different in their way of thinking when it came to getting inspired and showing a meaning. It was a fun and enjoyable task to discover what people could make out of regular food items that we eat every day. It just goes to show you that anything can become art.