Mold Making

This week I have been making molds of foods and slip casting them.  After meeting with Mia last week and writing my Theory, History, Research paper, I have decided that I would like to explore ideas about the relationship between food and memory.  Food plays a powerful role in human memory. Although a memory can remain with a person for years and in this way has a sense of permanence, the reliability of the memory tends to become distorted over time as senses morph and change. Similarly, there is an ephemerality to the nature of food.

I have begun working with this idea.  I think that the process is a key element with this body of work. It's almost partially performative.  I begin by baking a food that holds a significance to me. I then freeze the food, make a plaster mold of it, and slip cast the molds. When I pour plaster over the food it becomes distorted and the mold captures that distortion - alluding to the distortion of human memory.  Although it does not look exactly the same as the original, it can still be identified.  I am creating something permanent (the ceramic form) from something that is impermanent (the food itself).  I am also discussing the permanence versus ephemerality of memory itself.


I am going to continue to bake, make molds and cast them. I have only tried casting small objects (like cupcakes) so I want to expand and try something that's larger.