Late Winter: Food as Art

Trying a new food dish with an enticing yet unidentifiable flavor or encountering an intriguing contemporary artwork for the first time can inspire a transformative experience. Both scenarios beg a simple, powerful question: What is this? Searching for a secret ingredient or the root of an emotion can give new depth to your world.

We live in tumultuous economic and climatic times, which demand inspiration, collaboration, and engagement. Art and food present effective tool kits for navigating extreme and unpredictable circumstances; both bring people together, stir curiosity, and can incite positive change. The practical side of food can impact the creative side of art and, reciprocally, art can provide new ways of interacting with and reflecting on food and culture.

In the last year, since edible first focused an issue on art and food in New Mexico, the conversation between these two worlds has deepened and expanded, compelling us to devote a second issue to their intersections. How does art make us better farmers and better eaters? How is eating and producing food an artistic act?

We brought together artists who work locally to answer these questions. Whether it’s Taos artist-architect J. Matthew Thomas researching our communal needs for food and shelter, or Santa Fe artist-in-residence Miriam Simun pushing the boundaries of food production, or chefs engaged in creative practice outside their kitchens, these stories are meant to inspire. We also take a close look at some of the regional/seasonal foods from the farm of artist Jeanette Hart-Mann and the practices of Alexis Elton to better understand the artistic processes of farming, harvesting, and sharing.

We know that food is more than sustenance, and the artists featured in this issue show us that art is more than what it represents. We hope in reading these stories you’ll consider ways that your food inspires creativity, and ways that art feeds you and your community, fueling you to ask, “What is this?”

Trying a new food dish with an enticing yet unidentifiable flavor or encountering an intriguing contemporary artwork for the first time can inspire a transformative experience. Both scenarios beg a simple, powerful question: What is this? Searching for a secret ingredient or the root of an emotion can give new depth to your world.

We live in tumultuous economic and climatic times, which demand inspiration, collaboration, and engagement. Art and food present effective tool kits for navigating extreme and unpredictable circumstances; both bring people together, stir curiosity, and can incite positive change. The practical side of food can impact the creative side of art and, reciprocally, art can provide new ways of interacting with and reflecting on food and culture.

In the last year, since edible first focused an issue on art and food in New Mexico, the conversation between these two worlds has deepened and expanded, compelling us to devote a second issue to their intersections. How does art make us better farmers and better eaters? How is eating and producing food an artistic act?

We brought together artists who work locally to answer these questions. Whether it’s Taos artist-architect J. Matthew Thomas researching our communal needs for food and shelter, or Santa Fe artist-in-residence Miriam Simun pushing the boundaries of food production, or chefs engaged in creative practice outside their kitchens, these stories are meant to inspire. We also take a close look at some of the regional/seasonal foods from the farm of artist Jeanette Hart-Mann and the practices of Alexis Elton to better understand the artistic processes of farming, harvesting, and sharing.

We know that food is more than sustenance, and the artists featured in this issue show us that art is more than what it represents. We hope in reading these stories you’ll consider ways that your food inspires creativity, and ways that art feeds you and your community, fueling you to ask, “What is this?”