Root: Historic Food for The Modern World

Subscribe
Archives
July 23, 2025

Artist's statement: A life in balance

Humoral theory, food as art, and a book as a portal

Following up on my last newsletter issue, my humoral theory artist’s book is all boxed up and ready to mail off to the Center for the Book.

Below are some thoughts on the work, but also some sneak preview photos of the finished piece, and my artist’s statement if you’re curious what the heck this thing is.

Subscribe now

When I initially conceptualized this piece, it had a lot more moving parts: Symbols written on the SCOBY themselves, along with text about each humor calligraphed along each page.

As I worked, it became clear that simplicity is key: That by trying to layer on too much text I was making the work didactic rather than allowing for the kind of individualized interpretation that felt key to a work about a highly individualized medical system.

I wanted to provide a sort of entry point of structure, to show the layering and interconnection between the humors, without forcing the concept too much.

The resulting book is, to me at least, a representation of that. Here’s a video of me going through the final work before I boxed it up:

In the video, I mention that each page is stained with an item from my own apothecary that corresponds (roughly, at least) to each humor. Those are:

Sanguine (hot, wet): Red wine

Yellow bile (hot, dry): Ginger, hot pepper, and peppercorn tea

Black bile (cold, dry): Motherwort tincture

Phlegm (cold, wet): Chickweed vinegar

Subscribe now

Here’s an example of one of the pages with the stain at the bottom. This one is chickweed vinegar:

The chickweed vinegar was the mildest color of the lot: The other preparations (like this ginger and spice tea, below) are a bit more noticeable, with the red wine being the most visible and vibrant, not surprisingly. I’ve been inspired by this to get back into playing with natural pigments, something I used to do often in my artwork but which has kind of fallen by the wayside.

I also mention the figure on the back page, who doesn’t show up well in the video thanks to the lighting, but who you can see here:

It’s hard to do fine-detail line work on a treated SCOBY, I’ve learned. But this still turned out alright.

The illustration she is (loosely) based upon is this one.

This piece has been a reminder to trust my instincts, and a reminder of one truth I always carry with me, which is that the process of creating matters just as much as whatever we make.

If I had just churned out my initial idea, it wouldn’t have been as interesting or as visually striking. But by letting the idea and the work evolve, and by treating my ideas as trusted collaborators rather than products or specs to plug into a machine, the work has a chance to really blossom, and to teach me as well as move through me.

I’ve been working with creative, intelligent people (and as a creative and hopefully intelligent person) for decades at this point, and I firmly believe the people who allow surprise, the joy of process, serendipity, and curiosity to lead them are the ones doing the strongest work.

This is something I take with me into the kitchen, my writing and research, and into my artwork, and it was deeply refreshing to my creative practice to combine all of these in a new way.

I’d love to hear what you think! Here is the artist’s statement: And if you’ll be at the UICB alumni show (I don’t have details yet, but keep an eye on their event page), I’d love if you sent me a photo of the book on display!

Leave a comment

Artist’s statement: A life in balance

Humoral theory posits that we each have our own unique state of balance, which lives at the intersection of our inner world and the world beyond us: the food we eat, our daily practices, and the medical treatments we undergo.

Humoral theory is rooted in the Classical world, and was carried forward in various forms through the Early Modern period, when other theories emerged. Though humoral medicine is no longer as common, its language (such as hot, dry, moist, and cool) can still be found in some regional medical traditions and herbal traditions, such as in the Southern Appalachians. It can also be found in some European food pairings (such as lemon and fish or pork and mustard, where the hot, dry flavoring was added to counteract the moist, cool nature of the meat).

Food is medicine, and this book explores what it means to create an artistic rendering of a life in balance rooted in the humoral medical perspective.

Each page represents one of the four humors, and centers around a dried kombucha SCOBY, allowing us to explore transformation through food on a microscopic level (and to ask how transformation can also occur on a macro level through food). Each page also uses dyes and inks made from preparations in my own apothecary that align with each humor's properties.

On the final page is a body in balance, a visual representation of humoral balance as a journey and process, rather than a quick fix. The representation of the humors as overlapping windows, which you can hold to the light to see the body in balance, further emphasizes this point. While all of us have the ability to live in balance, most of us are on a journey to understand what that means for our unique bodies and lives.

P.S.

Part of why I love writing this newsletter about (mostly) food is that it gives me a chance to share my food-centric life in a very expansive way. I rarely feel boxed in by the kind of content I share because readers seem to enjoy and appreciate seeing artwork, nature essays, and history as well as recipes. So thank you for being your curious, wonderful selves and for reading!

Don't miss what's next. Subscribe to Root: Historic Food for The Modern World:
Powered by Buttondown, the easiest way to start and grow your newsletter.