Lost Childhood Object

Hailey's Plate No. 2-- edible sculpture (pancakes, frosting, vintage metallic platter)

    In remembering a special plate she treasured as a child, Hailey told me the story of how her neighbors lovingly sculpted and painted this ceramic plate complete with pink hearts and her name written in cursive in the center. The dinner-sized plate was reserved for her birthday breakfast each year, which would be a lemon Dutch Baby or a fresh stack of chocolate-chip banana pancakes. She used this plate from when it was first gifted to her around age 6 until she was 17, when her sister accidentally broke it. When she described the details of the object, I could tell how special this plate was especially because of the difficult time it was given to her. I therefore wanted to recreate it with as much care as possible in order to heal the tragedy of it breaking and bring it to life in a new way. Fittingly, I cooked a stack of chocolate-chip pancakes to create the base of the plate and delicately frosted it with white icing to mimic the ceramic quality, as well as piping light pink hearts and sparkly red lettering in the center. Although her original ceramic plate lasted longer than this edible recreation, it seemed appropriate that both were temporal objects that passed away with time yet impacted Hailey immensely. It was an honor to create this for her, and I hope that it could bring back fond memories of past birthdays and the taste of homemade chocolate-chip pancakes.