round 1
i have not written much about showpiece work. i enjoy it but is has nothing to do with being a chef. one of, what i think, the biggest misconceptions in the industry is that beautiful showpieces are made by the best chefs. the best chefs make great food. the best craftsmen make great showpieces. this is a conversation for another time….
in my own work i have tried to bring a different approach to showpieces. i have an interest in art, sculpture, design and architecture. this is where my interest in showpieces takes shape. i recently read a book the elements of design by gail greet hannah. it is intended for art and design students and includes a number of activities to develop the students understanding of how shapes and lines work together. the exercises transfer to my interests perfectly and the one i am working at the moment involves curves.
the instructor explains that all lines can be broken down into eleven basic curves plus the straight line. after explaining the differences the exercise has you create a sample of each curve then assemble four curves and two straight lines into one three dimensional structure. the images of the students work fascinated me. the only challenge was the mediums that we were working in. the students worked with metal, i was working with chocolate. using metal made their projects very strong, supporting the extreme curves and off-balanced weight. doing it with chocolate is a bit more challenging….
to make the curves i used robocoupe chocolate. it is very flexible and was a perfect way to recreate the shapes that i needed. the downside is that this technique give you a brittle product with minimal structural strength. i made the curves with no problem, putting it altogether was a different story. i broke everything many times. eventually the whole assembly worked. at one point the only way to keep the piece balanced and finish gluing it together was to hang it. it was all complete except one corner and of course while finishing, one careless action caused the whole thing to break into too many pieces to fix.
time to start over again. more to come. here are some pics from the first attempt.
