By
Maggie Burnett
Arizona Daily Wildcat
UA art students put edible pieces on display at the GOCAIA
As part of a class project, more than 75 UA students have put together an edible art exhibit showing Saturday only at the Gallery of Contemporary and Indigenous Art (GOCAIA).
"Edible art is a fun thing, but we wanted a more serious aspect to it," said University of Arizona sculpture professor and GOCAIA executive director Moria Geoffrion. "This is an opportunity (for students) to show their work in a professional gallery that they wouldn't normally show in for a long time."
As the GOCAIA director, Geoffrion was able to free up the space for the exhibit, allowing the majority of students to participate in their first gallery showing.
The pieces, a collaboration of work from four different art classes, are made of foods ranging from gelatin to chocolate to flan.
One student chose to create solid chocolate noses as a symbol of sexuality.
"(I portrayed) the nose as an undiscovered phallic symbol, every girl's best friend," said art education graduate student Christina Lieberman. "When you're done, you can eat it. It's useful."
Lieberman set the chocolate noses in a mock-candy box with the label "Eat Out" on its lid.
Although most of the students' projects are made of actual food, the methods they utilized to create the sculptures are not necessarily appetizing.
"I would definitely not tell someone to eat my crayon," said visual communication major Sophie Clarke. "It's disgusting."
Clarke decided to make crayons out of Jell-O brand gelatin for her sculpture project. Each mold, however, is comprised of an entire box of Jello in a more concentrated form than is usually ingested.
For those willing to purchase the edible art, each piece will be clearly labeled with a "nutrional fact label" including both the edible and inedible ingredients used to make the piece so that no one is taken by surprise.
Leilani Lindley, a studio art senior specializing in two-dimensional studies, said many of the students fashioned molds from rubber, plaster or wax and then poured their food into the mold in order to create their pieces.
She added that the most expensive medium to use for molding was the rubber, running over $100 for a two-part container of the material.
"It's a two-part process. There is an A and a B rubber. You mix them, they react together in a chemical reaction, and then you pour it over the object," Lindley said.
Though students were allowed to work on the projects during their three-hour, four-day-a-week classes, many of them put in extra hours to complete the projects on time.
"Art is difficult. As a ceramics student, I should be there now working," Lindley said. "Everyone puts in extra hours. I probably worked 16 hours-plus in addition to the three-hour labs."
"Edible Art" can be viewed - and eaten - Saturday from 5 to 8 p.m. at the GOCAIA gallery, 302 E. Congress St.
