The article that I decided to  read was called “The Smart Set: Can Food Be Art?” by Sara Davis who is a marketer for a university press and a writer in food in art and literature at Scenes of Eating. The basis of her article is discussing how she believes that asking the question of “is food art?” is the wrong question to be asking. What she thinks the real questions to be asked are: can food be crafted with artistry? can food convey meaning? can food be a vehicle or inspiration for some of humanity’s better qualities? should food be taken seriously as a subject of study? She went on to discuss both sides of the argument by pointing out such terms as “ear candy” and “eye candy” being invented for a reason. She talks about how food can not be considered art is one in the same with speaking about how music then can not really be considered art either. She states that William Deresiewicz (a writer who wrote and article shortly before hers about how food isn’t art) argues that “food is not art on the premise that art must be narrative or at least symbolic — which would also designate Imagist poetry, abstract expressionism, and numerous musical compositions as mere craftsmanship.” She goes on to counteract that argument by saying that food is an intersection of human relationships, and that “Memory, allusions, personal and cultural relationships, and aesthetic judgments are meaningful associations that anyone can experience, though of course we don’t all experience them the same way.”  I went on to read Deresiewicz’s article and the quote that he made that stuck out so clearly to me was this: A tall, green-eyed astronaut fell in love with a lawyer who recently lost her job: when you can cook me a dish that says that—and tell me how you’d change it if the astronaut were dark instead of fair—then we can talk about food as a narrative medium…food evokes emotions: but so do sunsets, or train sounds, or the cigarette smell of a bar. Food embodies ideas: but so does everything that’s made. To evoke is not to represent, and to embody is not to express.”

What I see in reading both of these articles and comparing it to the essay that we read this week is that the argument is that food is a craftsmanship, but not an art. Tefler towards the end of the essay goes on to say that “art is original creation, whereas craft is carrying out an instruction, following a convention or employing a technique”(15) and then goes on to give the example that the architect of a building is the artist, but the masons and wood carvers are the craftsmen. In that sense it would seem that food is nothing more than craftsmanship, and goes with what Deresiewicz would constitute as being art. To him it must tell a story, represent something and be able to evoke and express more than emotions. Telfer does make note, however, of how cookery can be constituted as a performance and performance may be an art. Not only that, but that the person who is making the food could be considered a performance artist because they are interpreters of recipes as well as creators. This goes with what Davis was arguing in asking the questions can food be crafted with artistry? can food convey meaning? can food be a vehicle or inspiration for some of humanity’s better qualities? should food be taken seriously as a subject of study?

Personally, I think that if a chef wanted to tell a story of a tall, green-eyed astronaut who fell in love with a lawyer who recently lost her job, he or she could. Food can be a form of expression for some professional chefs out there They want to use food as a narrative medium for not only the pallet, but also for the mind. Another point that Davis makes is that even in following a recipe, or even not, no two dishes will be alike. The strawberries you get in strawberry season to make that strawberry short cake is not going to be the same as if you get them in the off season. Is what people like to constitute as an art form not one in the same? No matter how hard any of us will try, we will never be able to make a Jackson Pollock drip painting the way that he did. Not even he could replicate the same painting in his own style, and I think that food follows those same conventions.

Soul Food. (n.d.). The American Scholar:. Retrieved October 26, 2014, from http://theamericanscholar.org/soul-food/#.VE3asUtH1FI

The Smart Set: Can Food Be Art? – December 6, 2012. (n.d.). The Smart Set: Can Food Be Art? – December 6, 2012. Retrieved October 26, 2014, from http://www.thesmartset.com/article/article12061201.aspx

The question for this week is can food be considered art. In my opinion I absolutely believe that food can be considered art. This isn’t to say that I think all food is art. To me I think that if you or anyone else on the planet is taking a good amount of time and many steps to create a product that is not only delectable, but looks just as pleasing as it will taste how could it not be considered art?

When I was younger, and even still sometimes today, I loved watching the Food Network competitions they have that involve creating an artistic piece out of edible food. There would always be competitions based around holidays like Halloween and Christmas where these professional bakers, confectioners etc. would be asked to create a piece that is not only huge, intricately detailed, and based around the theme of the holiday, but also made entirely from edible pieces. They would be given basically a full day to create a piece and when the time is up the judges would decide. A lot of time these competitions were not only based on how pleasing they were to the eye, but also how they tasted. The importance was now not only placed on their technical skills in designing and sculpting a piece, but also on the technicality of their primary skill which was making food that tastes delicious. I think this is one example that I can best give of how I think that food can be art.

In other ways I do think that on a smaller scale food that isn’t created in such a grand masterpiece type stature can also be considered art. Working in the food industry for quite some time, and especially in the job I have now working at TOGO’s on west 11th, I’ve seen the exact difference in what the fast food and slow food presentations were talking about. For me to be dubbed the title of sandwich artist is so vastly overrated for the food that I am serving to people. In my opinion what I am doing takes no more than 5 minutes to create, and the quality of the food I’m giving you took basically no time or thought to prep. I’m not handing you a turkey and cheese sandwich with turkey that was slow roasted for 6 hours, hand sliced and put on to artisan bread with cheddar that we produced in store and aged to have its finest taste and then topped with a fancy mustard. I’m giving you a sandwich with turkey that came pressed into a log, bread that comes frozen from someone who baked it in a store far away, and cheddar and mustard that’s cheap and comes prepackaged. To me, what I’m making you isn’t art, it isn’t something you are going to take your time eating and savoring or even giving a sliver of thought to other than how it will subside your hunger. You’re going to sit down, inhale it in less than 10 minutes and move on with your day without another thought about that sandwich until the next time you crave a sandwich and say “That TOGO’s sandwich was pretty good I’ll go there.” Now had that sandwich been made to the degree of craftsmanship that I talked about (slow roasted, hand carved turkey, aged cheddar produced in store etc. etc.) then I think I could consider that sandwich a piece of art. Because it was the time, consideration and an appreciation for the pallet that would have gone into making those ingredients for that sandwich that you would in turn saver and think about it for days to come. The quote from Telfer that I think came to mind most when I was thinking about this idea of art and food was “However, it might be said with justice that an art does not need to be representational in order to be a major art” (25). Food does not have to represent anything other than food to be considered an art. However, I think that caring for food on a deeper level other than the nutritional value and happiness it will bring your taste buds, does make it an art form.

So what art theory would I categorize food being under? Well when going back and reading through Dissanayake’s essay I would say that my view is postmodernist. Dissanayake says that postmodernist aesthetics “[proclamied] that there are a multiplicity of individual realities that are infinitely interpretable and equally worthy of aesthetic presentation and regard”(21). Food in the regard that I am putting it in is worthy of aesthetic regard. It brings forth emotion, it is pleasing to the eye and pleasing to our sense of smell and taste and if done right takes as much time or more than some other forms of contemporary art.

 

The term paleoanthropsychobiological was coined by author and art history major Ellen Dissanayake. The term is an adjective that she likes to use to describe how art encompasses human history, all human societies, and that art is a “psychological or emotional need and has psychological or emotional effects”(15). She combines an approach to art through Paleolithic, anthropological, and biological terms to speak about the idea of what art is really for. The way that she sees it “art must be viewed as an inherent universal (or biological) trait of the human species”(15).

When Dissanayake is talking about the phrase “making special” she is referring to the way that humans put a value onto things that they care deeply about. It is a phrase that she likes to use in referencing back to how art making and and experiencing art are human behaviors. I think that “making special” is related to art because humans tend to put a value on art as it usually evokes some sort of emotional response. In that sense art has moved from being a “form” to being a form that we care deeply about. In relation to human survival if we did not put value on certain things or have a strong personal connection to the world we live in it would turn us from the intricate and emotional beings that we are, to lifeless walking blobs of skin, bones, and fat. We “make special” our world because if we didn’t I think we would lose every sense of emotion that art evokes.

Three different theories/movement/periods that came to my mind were the Renaissance, modernist and post-modernist periods. The Renaissance movement was alive and well during the medieval time period where Renaissance artists “gradually replaced God-centered with man centered concerns” and the work focused on “using craftsman-lie standards of beauty, harmony and excellence” (16).  In the modernist period, stemming out of the 18th century, works focused even more about aesthetics. The focus of this theory was on defining what “fine” works of art were by being in a “special frame of mind for appreciating works of art–a ‘disinterested’ attitude”(17).  The works of art that met this criteria were ones that “became a world in itself, made solely or primarily as an occasion for this kind of detached aesthetic experience, which was considered to be one of the highest forms of mentality”(18). Postmodernism took place in the 20th century and was a theory that focused on questioning the values that the elite had put on works of art. Postmodernists idea was that rather than assume that “art reflects a unique and privileged kind of knowledge” it instead “points out that any ‘truth’ or ‘reality’ is only a point of view”(19).

This weeks TED talk video was easily one of my favorite TED talks that I have seen to date. I have taken a few other AAD classes and one of the universal questions in each course has been “What is art?” or “What do we consider art?” and every persons answer is different. I would not say that any answer I have heard or given has been right or wrong. Although many times the explanation given has never fully satisfied me. In this TED talk focusing on what beauty is, was such a different stance on how beauty and art are related, and exactly why we come to consider things to be “art.” To me I think that art can be seen in everything and everyone that we encounter each and every day. We were all born with the senses to see beauty in many different things, from drawings and paintings, to people and landscapes or even through plates of food. What was so interesting about this TED talk is that Dutton challenged the idea that instead of beauty being in the “culturally conditioned eye of the beholder” it is rather engraved in our minds because of the way our human psychology evolved from evolution. It is more than our culture or our values causing us to feel an esthetic appreciation or an emotional connection to something with beauty. The example that he gives about the landscapes that are similar to the Savannah landscapes in which we evolved from and how all across the world people are drawn to it whether they had seen or lived in areas like this was so eye opening for me. I had never thought about the fact that the forked tree, low grasses, presence of water in front, indications of animals and a path was seen in so many different forms from paintings to calendars to postcards and that people are always intrigued by it. Then I really took a second to think about it he was right. How many times have we gone to a doctors office, or worked in an office or gone to a restaurant where we see a painting like this hanging and can’t help but have our eyes be drawn to it for a period of time? How many of us, especially living in Oregon will take time to seek out places like this and hike to them as a past time? Do we do it because we have been taught in our culture to admire and value these scenes and seek them out? Or have we evolved from these very scenes and instinctually know that this is beauty and we should admire it?

The top 5 values in the life values assessment that I picked were family, health, friendship, security and independence. Today’s activities were nothing crazy, but consisted of homework, work, grocery shopping and more homework. When I think about each of these activities in comparison to the some of values that I chose I would say for the most part they are intertwined. I must complete my homework each day and on time as a means of security of a good grade. With that I am also working independently on each assignment. I have to go to work everyday that I am scheduled for security of a job, security of a paycheck and in turn security that I can pay for the groceries that I put into my fridge. With that comes health. If I did not have a job to pay for food I would not be in good health, and given how much moving around I do at work I don’t think I would be in quite as good of shape that I am in physically. When I went grocery shopping I did it with my roommate who is also one of my best friends, so that in turn correlates with friendship and in a smaller way family.

I think that in choosing each of these values I realize that they are all belief patterns inherited from my family. For the most part growing up my parents were really keen on me working hard for the things that I had and being as independent as possible. They were also intent on teaching me the importance of security. Meaning that I always be safe with my money. It is really hard for me to think of any kind of belief pattern they instilled in me that has authority over my thinking yet is no longer valid because I believe that each belief they wanted me to believe I learned to do so not only because they taught me, but also through being put into situations so often where they were so important to use. As far as goals that I have for myself that I have yet to pursue, I want to take some time off to travel to another country or multiple countries once I am finished with school and I also hope to pursue a career in a big city somewhere outside of the northwest. The only thing that stands in my way of pursuing those goals as of now is school, debt from student loans and the means to make traveling happen. Once I do have my degree I can only hope that it will take me to a city I want to live in, but until then I just have to keep working hard.

Life Values List:

Family

Health

Friendship

Security

Independence

Location

Integrity

Loyalty

Wisdom

Enjoyment

Leadership

Service

Creativity

Personal Development

Personal Accomplishment

Community

Wealth

Expertness

Prestige

Power

Upon finishing this weeks reading A Question of Values the point that I found most interesting and can agree with most is the difference in categorizing human instinct to that of human values. I believe that these two correlate with one another, but are in themselves two entirely different concepts.

Human instinct is exactly what it makes itself out to be, a natural and innate behavior in humans. Instinct is a behavior that happens intuitively without much thought. On the other hand I would say that values are the opposing kind of behavior or act to happen when humans are put into certain situations. A persons values are based upon what they learn. When we are born we are not born with any kind of value system like in the way that we are born with a flight or fight response system–a type of instinctual behavior. Instead we grow in a household, a community, a society, a nation and a world coming to learn what kind of values we hold for ourselves and for those around us. Values are, to put it simply, a matter of choice. As Lewis states it “This is a complicated subject, but there is a good deal of evidence that human beings are not primarily driven by genetically determined instincts but are rather free to make their own choices” (7).  What Lewis is saying is that although instinct lives in all of us, and at times it is used, it is not the primary behavior we fall to in making decisions. The way in which I believe these two correlate is that when faced with a situation there is a moment where instinctually we think to act or respond to the situation, but when it comes down to it how we do decide to act in that situation is not based on our instinct but instead encompassed in the kind of values we hold. We respond to that situation in the way that will best uphold or value system.

A question I have for anyone in the class would be if they could think of a situation that they were ever put in where instinctually they thought to respond to it one way, but in the end responded to it differently because of the kind of values that they hold.

http://www.thefestivalguy.com/reviews/2014-reviews/tomorrowworld-review

Tucker Gumber or better known as “The Festival Guy” is a blogger whose sole purpose in life is to travel around the US to music festivals of all sorts and write about his experiences and review of each of them. He writes about the good and the bad and has no censor when it comes to speaking about his experiences. The review I read about this time was about a music festival he went to called TomorrowWorld.

I chose to read this review because being a music festival junkie myself I like to keep up on what festivals are out there and exactly what people have to say about them. I had the pleasure of meeting Tucker at Sasquatch 2013 and have stayed up to date on his travels and his reviews since then. Before I consider a festival I read what he has to say about it. I decided to read this review as it was the most recent festival that he has gone to. I know a lot of other people who went to the festival, I have had an interest in it, and I wanted to hear what he had to say in comparison to other people have had to say about it as well.

What Tucker had to say was pretty straight forward. He gives a quick bit of information about name, date, location and size (amount of attendees) in the beginning and then begins his review. Each part of his reviews consists of: the line up, stages and sound (the production aspect), greening (how clean was the festival and its festival goers), security, sponsors, crowd, food, art, camping (if it is a camping festival), organization and then his overall opinion. His review on this festival was mixed. He saw a lot of good when it came to the stages and sound, the security and the sponsors and an equal amount of bad in the other categories thus giving TomorrowWorld a 3.5 out of 5 stars.

If anyone is at all interested in a festival I suggest they look through his reviews and take a look at his upcoming festival schedule for future reviews.