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catriot OP t1_j9l1n9e wrote

Reply to comment by 400asa in Daily Bread #12 "Kintsugi Toast", me, bread/resin/gold leaf, 2023 by catriot

Interesting take! You have certainly given me a lot to think about, especially in terms of cultural appropriation. My intentions with this piece were to explore the process and philosophies inspired by Kintsugi. This piece is one of many in a series I'm currently working on, "The Daily Bread". One of my personal rules of this project is to finish each piece to completion, no matter what might happen to the bread along the way. I've been so consumed by this project, that the breads have become like sacred objects to me (and also have become my friends). Dried bread is very fragile, there have been many near casualties along the way. I keep exploring new processes and techniques to incorporate those mishaps into the final pieces. I was hoping this piece falls more into "cultural appreciation" category, but I know I am definitely toeing a line.

For your serious question, I'm not entirely sure how expensive it would be off the top of my head. I made a silicone mold from bread at one point, and made a few resin bread casts. It wasn't toooooo difficult, if I remember correctly. I do intend to explore that process again at some point though! I haven't tried welding yet, so that could be a fun adventure.

As far as the longevity of the bread goes; I have some preserved breads left from the original series I did in 2017, they still look the same. I actually smashed one open last year to check the insides and they also seemed fine! Not sure how it would look under a microscope though haha.

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400asa t1_j9l5n20 wrote

I was asking just because I wanted to know more about your process, no judgmental intentions on my part. I'm using the phrase "cultural appropriation" very loosely, because I think it's usually ridiculous to accuse artists of that.

I was right on the money for the sacredness though! the love that's given to the subject carries through to the viewer very well. I mean, it's bread. It's not that hard to love bread. It's a powerful subject.

I'm glad to hear resin works well on toast. I was asking about that because I tried to encase perishables back in the nineties but I didn't have access to epoxy and stuff like that so whatever I tried didn't work too well...

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shadow_dreamer t1_j9nwsxq wrote

The most basic of foods. The staple of many cultures. A straight grain, ground to powder, reconstituted and baked into something new-- the shapes they take vary, from naan to piita to tortilla to brioche, the fiber they're made of varies, but again and again it arises.

Wars have been fought over it. Famines spring for the lack of it. We build our sandwiches, we start our days with toast.

What is bread, if not the embodiment of our hopes for the harvest? What is a slice of toast, but the collection of every hand that carried it to where it ends? Beginning like as a seed harvested from crop, tended with care if not love, by machine if not man, engineered over generations to grow larger and stronger than it ever would have alone, spread over more of the earth than nature ever would have carried it; cut low and given new life, ground down into something new to reach the ultimate of it's potential; mechanically cut by machines engineers spent hours putting together, years after the design was made by someone else; packaged in the reconstituted flesh of the ancients that has been processed into immortality and sent on it's way by the liquid form of more of the same. What is a piece of bread if not the result of every step to make it?

Bread is a holy thing. Just look at any harvest god.

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