Artist in Residence Mike Durkin reached the culmination of his five-week stay at UCA with an “Art Pop Up and Recipe Slam” Nov. 10.
Durkin described the event as “a space that people can come together, eat, talk and witness art.”
The event featured over 70 table setting art pieces that mimicked foods important to the artist. The event also had a spread of recipes. Many were cornbread recipes taped to boxes of Jiffy cornbread mix sat in a section of the Metro Square building in downtown Conway. The recipe portion was compiled by anthropology students with “three different themes of recipes — personal, Ozarks and a local holiday dish,” the event catalog said.
Durkin has collected recipes from members of the community, both on and off campus, to get a view into the food culture of central Arkansas. He has done this project in other areas of the country and said seeing the specifics of central Arkansas has been exciting.
Durkin said that it was interesting to see how cornbread recipes he’s seen in central Arkansas do not contain sugar, while recipes he saw in Asheville, North Carolina, did.
“We have a variety of students’ artwork that’s been on display. That’s been about five weeks of work,” Durkin said.
One artist, Olivia McCallister, chose to create a cake and plates with spoons and a stack of red Solo cups.
“Upon reading the project guidelines, I knew I wanted to replicate the vinegar cake,” McCallister said in her artist statement. McCallister described the tradition of her grandmother’s vinegar cake and how the process of creating the other pieces of the display made her think more in-depth about what a birthday party is.
Durkin was in six classes during his residence at UCA, primarily in studio art and design classes. The anthropology class that Durkin was a part of centers around food and culture.
Artist Abigail Hess created a loaf of challah that she said in her statement was “intertwined through fellowship.” The loaf is painted with the Star of David, a Bible, instruments, a person dancing, and more.
Durkin was the first Artist in Residence to be sponsored by Engage Management. Morgan Lefler, director of engagement at Engage Management, said they will sponsor one artist a year for the next five years.
“I look at the next five years and I’m like, ‘What are those gonna be like? Those are gonna be even bigger and better than this,” Lefler said.
Lefler attended some of Durkin’s other events and classroom visits during his residency and enjoyed seeing how he connected with students and other individuals.
“Food is more than food in my opinion. Food is about the people and the memories,” Lefler said. “Mike [Durkin] brings that out in people.”
The event catalog can be found online at issuu.com/lesliemacklin/docs/durkin_tablescape_catalog. The event catalog contains artist statements and recipes for cornbreads in the Ozark region, some personal recipes, Central Arkansas local dishes and more.
More information about the Artist in Residence program can be found at uca.edu/cahss/artists-in-residence.
