Playing With Food

Last week I created a Roy Lichtenstein inspired image (a comic book) so I figured I would stay on the topic of pop artists this week and channel Claes Oldenberg (absurd food art…although Oldenburg made sculptures…).  The title itself relates the image to playing.  However, playing with food is perhaps a little different than normal play.  Normally when someone plays it's a use of their free time and is done for pleasure. Playing with food on the other hand is something children do when they don’t want to eat the food they have been given.  It actually is using up their free time (which we try to explain to them) and is not very pleasurable.
 
Play is always a distraction from reality but playing with food makes the distraction component the most important part of the play (as opposed to the enjoyment component).  Distraction is an interesting phenomenon. When one is distracted one subtracts oneself from the environment.  Often one is distracted by a simulation (television, music, a video game, etc).  But when a kid plays with food he/she is intentionally distracting herself/himself with the very thing that is to be avoided…which I find interesting. It would be like distracting yourself from mowing the lawn by fiddling with the lawnmower…which I imagine some people do! I think we probably call the adult version of playing with food…procrastination. While distraction is a part of playing I suspect that when it becomes the most important part…something has gone wrong.
 
Maybe procrastination is the Bizarro form of play (Superman reference).  It has some of the same characteristics but, in important ways, it is the opposite. Play is healthy, fun, and positive. Its hard to say the same things about procrastination. This image contains chess pieces mixed with food. This obviously is strange because the two don’t go together, which is possibly a metaphor for the fact that play and procrastination don’t go together. 
 
The image also continues to play with symmetry.  Furthermore, I used plastic wrap rather than rubber gloves to partially obfuscate the subject matter this time.  I also became aware of a resemblance of this image to a flower…I considered taking that element further but decided to leave it where it was.