Who: Louise Padden, publishing in pastry
Padden typically works in paper and ink, binding books by hand and making prints using the old-school techniques taught by the Lafayette-based Book Arts League. But once a year, the Boulder artist sets aside the fiber and “publishes” in pastry for the Edible Book Show and Tea, a fundraiser for the nonprofit education group. This year, St. Julien Hotel pastry chef Amy DeWitt will enter the show – her work will be auctioned during the event – but typically, the artists are amateurs who cobble together witty confections from food products ranging from shortbread to Spam.
The Edible Book Show and Tea traces its roots to the Edible Books Festival, a California April Fools’ Day goof back in 2000 that is now celebrated in 16 countries. How did the Colorado version get going? Five years ago, I got a call from (Book Arts League president) Julia Seko. She said there was this very strange event in other states, and said we’ve got to do it. At the last minute, several of us threw a meeting together. The first one was so much fun, we started taking it a little more seriously.
What book did you make that year? I did five. I went a little wild. I did “The Iceman Cometh” and used dried lotus root to create things that looked like bones between layers of ice. Dried lotus root looks like raffia and is kind of wheat-colored. I soaked it to make it soft and shaped it to look like a skeleton. Then I had to research how to make ice be clear, which wasn’t easy. I also did “Papyri Pages: Hieroglyphics From an Altered State.” It was pages of dried bean curd, and I wrote on it with food coloring. One of the best places to find interesting food items is in our ethnic grocery stores.
Your 2005 entry was a very elegant edition of “Buddhist Art of the Tibetan Plain.” How did it come together? I needed a white base. I bought so many different candy bars, which was a problem because I don’t eat candy. Eventually, I found these white chocolate coconut bars that had completely smooth backs. I ganged those up and drew the basic shape onto the backs of the white candy bars, and then started filling it in with sugar dyed with food coloring. It was a fairly intense process because you can’t tell what color the sugar is going to dry and I worked with tweezers.
Whoa! It sounds like you were working on a Tibetan sand painting, not a dessert. Initially, my goal was to do a mandala, but then I realized I would have had to start that months in advance.
What is the oddest book to appear at your event? The strangest book we ever had was by (Jefferson County Public Library book conservator) Karen Jones. She made a book and sent away for real bookworms. She left them in her creation for weeks in advance, so when you looked down at it, you could see their furrows and tracks and marks. And believe it or not, someone ate them. We typically try to pull the things that should not be eaten, but we got there too late. That was a great one.
It sounds like the creative bar is set pretty high for this event. The books are all wonderful; we don’t want anyone to be discouraged. Come. Have a good time.
EAT YOUR WORDS
The Book Arts League’s fifth annual Edible Book Show and Tea is open to anyone who wants to enter.
You can do something punny, or play it straight, but get your entries to the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art, 1750 13th St., in downtown Boulder, between 3 and 3:45 p.m. Saturday.
People who just want a little taste of the literature can check out the books between 4 and 5 p.m. The pages hit the plates about 5:30 p.m. Admission is $3 for folks entering the show; $6 for people interested only in sampling the works. For the details – and a peek at past entries, such Denver artist David Ashley’s work in Springerle, above – visit eatyourwordsboulder.com.
