Hi friends,
I’m hopping on to let you know that I have work up at a gallery! I have ten pieces up at the FOCUS gallery at the Penland School of Craft until September 27th, and the work is available on their website.

If you want to jump right in, the work is available here.

I don’t often sell original work, so that’s a treat, and it’s a new adventure. Plus there’s even a bunch of 2D work mixed in, which I’m excited to explore further. And it goes without saying that all of the pieces center on CAKES.

Why cake?

I started making paper food simply because I like to eat and taste. Cakes came about when I realized that they check off many boxes for me. Technically speaking, cakes as a subject have abundant possibilities in texture—a long-time obsession for me. Beyond the technical aspect, eating dessert often brings about a special moment where emotions become concentrated to a fine tipped and pure feeling called JOY. And directly before that moment: anticipation. Anticipation of that joy, flavor, texture, and delight of a little something extra. And maybe this anticipation stems from memory: a past cake, an occasion, a person. I challenged myself to conjure that anticipation and memory with these pieces. So you’ll see that these new cakes aren’t simply paper cake slices, but that they have elements to surface this feeling: forks sliding into pristine slices for a first bite or sheet cake pieces from childhood that have just had a candle removed. I’m looking forward to leaning more heavily into nostalgia as I make more.

Needless to say, I’ve been looking at lots of delicious-looking reference images, and I finally caved and learned to make a pretty decent chocolate cake this summer (this recipe, minus the frosting and sub in strong coffee for the boiling water!).

I hope you’ll enjoy viewing these pieces which are a culmination of time, love, problem solving, and patience that filled the first half of my year! More of these beautiful images, shot by my friend Andria Lo, will be shared on my Instagram.

Thank you for being along for the ride as my work evolves in new directions!