Breadshardsbread - November 2020

 

The work is the journey and the journey is the work. I started experimenting with bread in the Fine Art studio (Ruskin Drawing Room) during my foundation – keeping and feeding a sourdough starter there, mixing and proving dough, then taking it home to bake. I tested the properties of the bread I baked, sawing, smashing and sculpting with it. The sculpture hung on the studio wall where chunks started to break off at random shattering on the studio floor. As a result of the pandemic, the college closed in March 2020 and I was left with a box full of bread shards. These taunted me throughout the following months, as a project waiting to happen. I thought more of the associations I was making with bread and also how bread making was a new venture for some during the crisis – I distributed my studio sourdough starter, which I had kept alive, to friends along with baking instructions. Finally, six months after leaving the studio, I pounded the preserved bread shards to powder and mixed with some fresh flour and my studio starter to make new bread. From this I recreated the sculpture that that had hung on the studio wall. The final work is a film using the lifecycle of the bread as a backdrop for a series of reflections over the last 9 months.