Stella's Bakery

Chrissie Calvert
Apr 2, 2023
2 min read

"I wanted the paint to look as good as it did in the can" -Frank Stella

That was the inspiration for a mini series of cake sculptures I have done. Made entirely of paint, (besides the 1L paint lid plates they rest on), I wanted the sculptures to make the paint look as indulgent as it does in the can. I was thinking in terms of cooking and baking as often when I open a fresh tin of paint the contents looks tasty. Thick like a milk shake, smooth as running cream, hell, even SpaceCote Low Sheen smells a little like ice cream. I was also thinking in terms of a recipe. A recipe to make a paint-thing that maintained its tastiness.

One thing I have learned trying to make paintings entirely of paint is that there is a recipe to make it strong enough not to crack. Enamel, (be that water or oil), creates the base layer of my larger painting cakes. It is sturdy and strong enough not to crack. Or even better X200, X400 or Resitex, as these products have an advantageous stretchy quality. Ceiling paint is just asking for trouble. It is seemingly the weakest link. The thinnest and most brittle of paints, ceiling paint seems to create havoc in my paintings recipe's similar to how margarine in chocolate chip cookies can ruin the texture, or, how pasta with extra virgin olive oil always tastes better than the same recipe with canola oil. Also thin crumply plastic masking film, (I'm looking at you FutureProtect), is a TERRIBLE idea. The plastic must be heavy enough not to wrinkle, otherwise the little mini folds the thin plastic create keeps patches of paint wet, until the paint is exposed to air.

So where am I going with this?

In the spirit of Stella, I want my paint-cakes/paint-things/paintings to look as good as the paint looks before I use it. And in the spirit of David Batchelor, I'd like to inject colour into my paintings. The top 20 colours in Resene are mostly off-whites. Feature walls on the other hand, reveals the colourful side of people's spaces. Bold blues, sage greens, pinks and ambiguous yellow-greens at lest hint to a secret chromophillia in an other wise Black-White with Alabaster trim-ed world.

Above are my mini cakes and below are my larger works-in-progress. The works below are currently flipped upside-down to dry out where the FutureProtect has done its job all to well in keeping the paint wet. You will notice a grid-like plastic netting which I have added to these larger paintings to add support as an experimental extra in their recipe.