Buttered Toast: Take One, 2021
Site-specific photo diptych created for the Crossroads Artboards in Kansas City, MO. Installed July–September of 2021. The artboards are awarded by Charlotte Street Foundation—more info can be found here.
Buttered Toast: Take One, addresses the performative nature of the everyday and the constructed imagery that documents it. It is a scene of an image in process. Taking a photo of an Instagram-worthy breakfast is a familiar concept, yet this feels distorted. The banality of store-bought, whole-wheat toast is made more appetizing through a decorative grid of butter, apparently applied with a caulking gun. Blue tape, screws, and clamps also reference the space of the garage, but don’t seem to have an active role—perhaps leftover or just on-call. A green fabric form resembling a pant-leg serves as the backdrop that connects these two images in a single space. This green references the use of green screens, implying that this piece of toast may ultimately find itself composited into another location and speaking to a need for escapism. From the right, a hand dressed in a green rubber dish glove is captured maneuvering a stick of butter, and a smear of unidentified material suggests that other processes have taken place before this. The ambiguity of why these items are gathered here, and what exactly is happening, renders this scene strikingly curious. These everyday domestic materials become a means of looking at ourselves with more criticality, but also with a sense of humor. Especially over the last year, anything that makes the mundane more interesting becomes an act of self-preservation. The absurdity of taking the time to make your breakfast look this good might be just the nourishment you need today. And it certainly makes it more fun.
Site-specific photo diptych created for the Crossroads Artboards in Kansas City, MO. Installed July–September of 2021. The artboards are awarded by Charlotte Street Foundation—more info can be found here.
Buttered Toast: Take One, addresses the performative nature of the everyday and the constructed imagery that documents it. It is a scene of an image in process. Taking a photo of an Instagram-worthy breakfast is a familiar concept, yet this feels distorted. The banality of store-bought, whole-wheat toast is made more appetizing through a decorative grid of butter, apparently applied with a caulking gun. Blue tape, screws, and clamps also reference the space of the garage, but don’t seem to have an active role—perhaps leftover or just on-call. A green fabric form resembling a pant-leg serves as the backdrop that connects these two images in a single space. This green references the use of green screens, implying that this piece of toast may ultimately find itself composited into another location and speaking to a need for escapism. From the right, a hand dressed in a green rubber dish glove is captured maneuvering a stick of butter, and a smear of unidentified material suggests that other processes have taken place before this. The ambiguity of why these items are gathered here, and what exactly is happening, renders this scene strikingly curious. These everyday domestic materials become a means of looking at ourselves with more criticality, but also with a sense of humor. Especially over the last year, anything that makes the mundane more interesting becomes an act of self-preservation. The absurdity of taking the time to make your breakfast look this good might be just the nourishment you need today. And it certainly makes it more fun.
