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Showing posts with label cookies. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cookies. Show all posts

Friday, February 4, 2011

Tom Otterness Designs A Hip Home For Cookies. The Mama Bear Cookie Jar.




It's not easy to find a hip cookie jar that isn't ridiculously kitschy. This is the only one I've ever seen other than the Bunny Rabbit Cookie Jar by Momoyo Torimitsu. And it's a beauty. The white ceramic "Mama Bear" was fashioned after sculptor Tom Otterness' original bronze version.



The beautifully designed ceramic cookie jar measures 12.5 in (31.75 cm) h x 9.5 in ( 24 cm) w x 9.5 in (24 cm) d. The exterior white glaze is contrasted with a cadmium yellow interior glaze that emits a magical warm honey like glow when the top is opened. It is an open edition with a decal signature on the neck and ships is a beautiful box designed by the artist. Retail price is $185. (click here to order)




The edition was inspired by Otterness’ bronze “Mama Bear” [shown below] and shares the artists ability to attract the viewer to a wonderful inviting image while subtly introducing a mother’s concern for her children and their future in our environment.


images courtesy of Cerealart and Tom Otterness

On February 9th, Cerealart Projects will begin shipping The“Mama Bear” Cookie Jar by Tom Otterness


Artist Bio [courtesy of Cereal Art]:
Tom Otterness (b. 1952 in Witchita Kansas) is an American sculptor whose works adorn parks, plazas, subway stations, libraries, courthouses and museums in New York---most notably in Rockefeller Park in Battery City Park and in the 14th street/ 8th Avenue subway station---and other cities around the world. He was the first artist ever to have contributed a balloon to the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. "...he made a giant Humpty Dumpty suspended in an upside-down tumble, as though he might have jumped from one of the swanky Central Park West rooftops..."

His style is often described as cartoonish and cheerful but tends to carry a political punch.His sculptures are filled with multiple meanings and allude to sex, class, money and race.These sculptures depict, among other things, huge pennies, pudgy characters in business suits with moneybag heads, helmeted workers holding giant tools, and an alligator crawling out from under a sewer cover. The main theme of his work seems to be the struggle of the little man against the capitalist machine in a difficult and strange city. His aesthetic can be seen as a riff on "capital realism" and blends high and low, cute and cutting.

In 2005, "Tom Otterness on Broadway", his largest exhibition to date, featured 25 different works installed between Columbus Circle and 168th Street in Washington Heights. The project was sponsored by the City of New York Parks and Recreation Department, the Broadway Mall Association, and Marlborough Gallery, and traveled to three other cities - Indianapolis, Beverly Hills, and Grand Rapids, Michigan. The Grand Rapids exhibition featured more than 40 works across two miles of the city's downtown area and at Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park.

Known primarily as a public artist, Otterness has exhibited in popular exhibitions in locations across the United States and around the world, including New York City, Indianapolis, Beverley Hills, the Hague, Munich, Paris, Valencia and Venice. His studio is located in Brooklyn.

Beginning Feb 23rd Mr. Otterness will be exhibiting at The Marlborough Gallery in NY.
Tom Otterness: Animal Spirits
Marlborough Gallery
40 West 57th street NY
February 23, 2011 - March 26, 2011

Tom Otterness

Wednesday, February 2, 2011

Pantone Color Chip Cookies! Kim Neill Bakes Up Deliciously Divine Design.





Freelance designer and illustrator Kim Neill was inspired to turn Pantone color chips into edible cookies after finding the Pantone color tins by Seletti at a nearby art supply store.


above: Kim Neill with her fabulous Pantone Chip cookies in the Pantone Tins, above right

As a holiday gift for her clients, she filled the tins with rectangular sugar cookies topped with colored icing and used an edible marker to indicate the PMS colors.




Kim even made METALLIC pantone chips. Using bottles of silver and gold edible luster dust to rush atop the icing, she created cookies in PMS Metallic Silver 877, Gold 871 and Pink 8062.



The cookies in the tins were a huge hit with her clients. The faves? Seems that the PMS 485, PMS 183 and Silver 877 were the most popular.

How to make Kim's brilliant PANTONE CHIP COOKIES:

FOR THE DOUGH:
She used Mary’s Sugar Cookie recipe from the Betty Crocker cookbook. Super tasty. Recipe here.

Roll dough out between 1/4” and 1/8“ thickness. Thinner cookies keep their shape better. Cut 2” x 2.5” rectangles out of dough (using a stencil from cardboard may make it easier). Cook until lightly golden brown, keeping an eye on them as they cook because they cook quickly.

Note: If you are filling a Pantone Tin, three batches of cookies will only fill up the tin halfway. They are big tins, so to resolve this, Kim ended up lining the bottom of the tin with folded over bubble wrap to make the tin appear full.

An alternative to the tin would be to fill with Pantone mugs with the cookies, which make for a nice individual gift. Purchase the Pantone Storage Tins or the Pantone Mugs for your cookies.

FOR THE ROYAL ICING:
This is a great recipe to use because it keeps color vibrant, doesn’t fade and dries nice without being too hard. Flavor with white vanilla here if you can. Regular vanilla tends to darken the icing a bit. You might want to add a bit more milk then the recipe calls for to get the perfect spreading consistency. Recipe found here.

DECORATING THE COOKIES:
Make a big bowl of white royal icing. Start by spreading a strip of white icing across the all the cookie bottoms and let dry. Now use what’s left of your white icing to make colors.

Scoop 3-4 heaping tablespoons of icing in a tiny bowl and then color with solid food coloring. This will color 3-5 cookies. Once you are done with one color, rinse your bowl out and start again. Doing colors this way keeps the mess down and you don’t have to worry about what you just mixed drying out. Using a food dye pen, write the matching [or closest] PMS number down on the cookies.

Kim used Gourmet Food Writers, available for purchase here. To make the Metallic Chips, use a soft brush or cotton ball to burnish icing surface with gold or silver luster dust, available for purchase here.

all images and recipes courtesy of Kim Neill.

Saturday, December 25, 2010

2010 National Gingerbread Competition Winners In Each Category.



above: The Grand Prize winning entry in the National Gingerbread Competition featured Christmas-themed Russian Nesting Dolls by Heather Lewis.

Many gingerbread competitions feature some very amateur creations - unimpressive gumdrop laden homes with leaning chimneys, doghouses and lighthouses with lame landscaping and the like. But not the National Gingerbread Competition, which celebrated its 18th annual competition this year at the Grove Park Inn.


The impressive event garnered entries from 20 states and is not limited to "houses" but instead any gingerbread creation that falls within their guidelines. The competition is broken down into Adult, Teen, Youth and Child categories, all of which had several drool-worthy entries. These aren't for Gingerbread House kit-types, we're talking some serious gingerbread baking enthusiasts and fondant masters. Take a look at the winners in each category as well as the top ten adult entries.

ADULT CATEGORY

ADULT, Grand Prize Winner - Heather Lewis of Austell, Georgia (image at the beginning of the post)

ADULT, 1st Place Winner - Angel Adkins of Kodak, Tennessee:

ADULT, 2nd Place Winner -Barbara Evans of Edelstein, Illinois:

ADULT, 3rd Place Winner - Linda Carney of Asheville, North Carolina:

ADULT, TOP TEN - Ashley Howard of Winter Springs, Florida:

ADULT, TOP TEN - Tracy Navin of Franklin, Tennessee:

ADULT, TOP TEN - Suzanne Kanaly of Liberty Township, Ohio:

ADULT, TOP TEN - Ann Bailey of Cary, North Carolina:

ADULT, TOP TEN - Cathy Christiansen of Gainesville, Virginia:

ADULT, TOP TEN - Michael Billella of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma:


TEEN CATEGORY


TEEN, 1ST PLACE WINNER - Skyla Delerme of Asheville, North Carolina:

Teen 2nd Place - Carly Owens of Swannanoa, North Carolina:

Teen 3rd Place - Laura Malanowski of Newton, North Carolina:


YOUTH CATEGORY

YOUTH, 1ST PLACE WINNER - Lydia Gentry of Hendersonville, North Carolina:

Youth 2nd Place - Gabriella Arthur of Easley, South Carolina:

Youth 3rd Place - Emily Spafford of Maryville, Tennesee:


CHILD CATEGORY

CHILD, 1ST PLACE WINNER - Christian Ray of Charlotte, North Carolina

Child 2nd Place - Shan Patel of Asheville, North Carolina:

Child 3rd Place - Grace Lebo of Nashville, Tennessee:

above photos courtesy of Wright Creative

Each year there are several Gingerbread House competitions that take place in various countries and cities. One of the more popular, but not quite as professional, is the one sponsored by This Old House. 2010 was their third annual competition and you can view those 84 entries here