mixed media created by carolyn tillie
comfort from grandma’s kitchen
Every year, the Sanchez Art Center invites artists to create 50 small works (6” x 6”) over the course of 50 days. With the arrival of COVID-19 at the beginning of 2020, many of us began a life of seclusion in the act of sheltering in place. To combat the anxiety of a future unknown, of a week or two of isolation turning into months of solitude, many of us began stress baking or anxiety cooking. As a salve for the unease of this troubling existence, bread baking alone caused a national shortage of flour and yeast, and a flurry of recipe-sharing on social media. I saw these angst-ridden gastronomic endeavors as more than just a way to kill boredom, but a global invocation towards the creation of that which one finds comforting: favorite foods from our childhood. The act of baking comfort foods became an entreaty to our subconscious to recreate those ancestral flavors, family security, and sense ofhome found in the kitchens of our mothers and grandmothers.
As both a working artist and culinary historian, the idea for the 50x50 series Comfort from Grandma’s Kitchen grew from my Mixed Emotion series of words from vintage cookbooks. I started by perusing my own collection of antiquarian cookbooks and choosing one that was at least a hundred years old: the 1919 edition of The White House Cookbook. Written by F.L. Gillette and Hugo Ziemann and first published in 1887, this book is comprised of recipes, cooking techniques, etiquette instruction, and household cleanliness tips, and includes recipes by first ladies Martha Washington, Mary Todd Lincoln and others. The recipes for the artwork I created were chosen based on vintage cutlery I have been collecting for the past thirty years – many of which are no longer relevant for our modern gastronomic needs, such as ice cream spoons, pickle forks, grapefruit spoons, and strawberry forks. Thankfully, oyster forks are still a necessity at the best oyster bars!
After deciding the recipe and appropriate utensil for each piece, I began painting the board to illustrate the main ingredient of the recipe. In an homage to all our grandmothers who cooked for us, these artworks reflect our desire to bring our ancestors back into our hearts and stomachs, through the foods that they once prepared for us: to help us heal, ease our suffering, and nourish our bodies and our souls.
