Artist in residence Mike Durkin collected recipes and shared stories with UCA students and faculty in front of the Ronnie Williams Student Center Nov. 2.
Durkin hopes to collect meaningful recipes from central Arkansas and compile them together in an online cookbook.
“I’ve been working in a couple of different studio art classes as well as collecting stories and recipes from other folks on campus as well as off-campus, where I hold different story-sharing conversations. That’s where I meet different folks and learn about different recipes and stories around them,” Durkin said. “The idea is to find like, ‘What are the dishes of central Arkansas? What are the dishes of Conway?’”
Kendra Erickson, a housing staff member, shared her great, great-grandmother’s Scandinavian almond cake recipe with Durkin.
“For me, it’s one of the things I only ever have at holiday times. I am originally from Wisconsin, that’s where all my family is — like 900 miles away — so I only get to see them around Christmas. I’ll stay there for two or so weeks, and it’s one of the things my mother tries to make sure that we have on Christmas just because it’s one of my favorites. I do make it here a little bit and share it with my friends so they can get a taste of what I think is the holidays,” Erickson said.
Durkin is currently working with students at UCA who are a combination of art and anthropology majors.
“I primarily do a lot of teaching and art projects at different universities. The last big university I was at was Texas A&M last spring, where I was doing a sports project. That was looking at tailgates on college campuses as well as how different departments look at sports on campus. A lot of the [project] centered around the idea of traditions,” Durkin said.
Durkin has residencies with other colleges across the country lined up until 2025. Of all the campuses he’s been on, Durkin expressed appreciation for UCA.
“This is a quiet [campus], in a nice way, which means you can find deeper connections with folks. Like at A&M, there was just a lot of stuff out there, you know. I could spend years working on the project. Here, everything is more concentrated, and I can find a deeper connection. The location could be the biggest school in the world, but I could work with maybe 20 students. Here, probably over like 120 folks are participating in this work,” Durkin said.
Durkin will be holding an event Nov. 10 at 6 p.m. at the Metro Square Building in Downtown Conway where he and students who collaborated with him will share recipes, stories and free food samples from the project. There will also be a tablescape that fits 90 people that was made by Durkin and UCA students from the Department of Art and Design Foundation Program.
