meredith cutler :: arts marketing :: artist

Sometimes, I flip lightly through the table of contents of my day, free from the prickly sensation of self-conciousness that can surface due to the human density of an urban lifestyle. Other times, I harbor no illusions...keep your nose clean, for here the walls themselves have eyes. Occhio!

I can't speak for the rest of you out there in the world today, but here on my spit of land it's positively arctic. The gear-piercing chill makes me feel sorry for the many stray cats that run wild in this dockside neighborhood of Fox Point.

Still, the stray cats hold a few cards over poor "bear-face-down-in-the-gutter" here; such as: body heat, real fur, life force, and that crazy lady named Meredith (who provides cat food and speaks to them in a high-pitched voice).

Below: "Bear: Face Down In The Gutter" - Fox Point, Providence.

I admit it, I have never been much of a morning person; but I have developed quite a taste for breakfast as one palliative strategy for the inevitability of the alarm clock and the crankiness it bestows upon me.

The love of my life realizes the risk and power this time of day holds in its glowing palm, and luckily for both of us, he is a fabulous and inventive cook. Believe it or not, he fixes me breakfast each and every morning (which is one of the many reasons why I will be marrying him in less than two weeks!)

His latest breakfast offering: a crispy variation of my own corn grits with sage combined with the crowd-pleasing "egg in the hole", looked so tasty that I was inspired to shape it into a familiar character from my own artwork archive. This was also a convenient reminder for me to update my online portfolio with my Sequence Block series (from way back when Bush first took office). Tasty!

I was long overdue for a new cell phone last summer, and so it was especially fortituous when my final pick turned out to have a fantastic onboard camera, enabling me to easily capture special moments on the fly. An avid public commuter during my many years living and working in the cobbled and crooked city of Boston, my daily wanderings brought beautiful untold narratives with each firm footfall.

My favorite photo documentary project records lost and abandoned stuffies (softies). Always a sympathizer for the interior emotional lives of inanimate objects...I'm such a bleeding heart.

Below: "Butterfly" - Boylston Street, J.P. / "Kitty" - Providence Place Garage, Providence, RI

Since it's Christmastime, my daily task list has centered around creating (vegetarian, Jewish and Italian in-law-friendly) menus, shopping at various locations to support said menus, returning to said various locations to purchase the things forgotten on the first pass, consulting cookbooks in several languages, consolidating recipes into plain English,

slicing, peeling, dicing, pre-heating, mixing, seasoning, greasing, venting, rolling, baking, stirring, re-heating and refrigerating. Not to mention cleaning.

But I'd like to focus on the first part, as the theme leans graciously towards my ongoing (cellular phone camera) mini photographic series documenting the symbology of served food (i.e. playing with food).

There are a host of artists out there exploring food culture in other ways; ranging from amigurumi, like these crocheted clementines from Eternal Sunshine:

to tasty felt, such as this winsome irked tofu from Button Arcade:

to just plain fakin' it, like Jenni B Original's faux sweets:

...Excuse me, I must go floss now.