Gingerbread hell

Sunday 21st May ‘06

My god, I have just been looking at some photos of myself in my underwear taken yesterday for this project. I had no idea it was that bad. Admittedly, they were taken sans make-up and involve me staring blankly at the camera, (Never a good look for me) but still…. In comparison to photos of me taken years ago when I was a size eight, the transformation is horrific. I seem to have developed recently into a magnificent chinless wonder. Or should I say the magnificent multi-chinned wonder? Because that is the current situation. I have also noticed that my face is really very asymmetrical – something I had never noticed before in the mirror. Taking into account the vital importance of symmetry in assessment of beauty, I probably should do something about that.

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The day before yesterday I completed four weeks of hell, otherwise known as my contribution to the end of year show. For this I was submitting a huge fake gingerbread house, big enough for people to stand up in. Now this creation had been a nightmare from day one. The original idea was to create a real giant gingerbread house that people could actually eat on the private view. This turned out to be completely unfeasible due to the necessity of an industrial oven, huge freezer and an obscene amount of money. After revising all the options, I settled on foam as a gingerbread substitute, unwisely neglecting to check the price. (A mistake I won’t be making again in a hurry). I went ahead and built a huge wooden frame for the house, made even bigger in the course of the build. This all went smoothly and I left for the Easter holidays confident in the ease of the next phase.

When I returned from Easter bright, breezy and brimming with optimism I decided to pop down to the market and buy the foam I needed for the house. Upon arrival I discovered that at the very least it would cost me about £120 if I wanted to use foam. After running through many possibilities I then settled upon salt dough instead; it was cheap and looked just like bread. I threw myself into manufacturing huge panels of salt dough, which I planned to nail onto the frame. In order to do this in time, and for it to fit onto the frame, I had to make the panels huge. They would not fit into any oven, not even the kiln, but I was assured by a so-called expert on the internet that they would dry naturally anyway. Now, making huge panels of salt dough is difficult. Really, really difficult. It used up huge quantities of salt and flour, necessitating hundreds of trips to Tescos. It was hot, exhausting work, they were nearly impossible to roll into the right shape, and I was rapidly running out of places to put them. After the first few days, I attempted to turn the panels over to dry them, nearly destroying them in the process. Eventually, as I had run out of time and space, I was forced to admit defeat.

My next plan was to use two layers of fabric stuffed with newspaper to simulate the gingerbread. I purchased 30m of brown fabric for £30 at the market, and about £15 worth of sweets to decorate it with. Everything set and ready to go, I was then faced with the problem of getting the stuff down there. Unable to get transportation to the gallery, I ended up carting it all down in a shopping trolley, as it was far too heavy for me to carry. Once at the gallery I started assembling the frame in the foyer, where I had been given permission to exhibit it. Only once it was all assembled management then informed me that in fact, I couldn’t place it there for reasons only known to them. It had to be partly taken apart and moved into the gallery. Two frantic days, multiple glue gun burns and hundreds of trips back and forth into town later it was all ready. I had spent the whole weekend baking tons of fairy cakes to put in it and had put them in plastic bags to take to the gallery. I was then told that in fact, I couldn’t do this for health and safety reasons in case I poisoned someone. Much negotiation later I obtained permission to use them so long as I put a note by them warning people they were home made. Relieved, I went to get out the cakes, only to find that as a result of being made from packet mix (For cost and convenience) and being kept in plastic bags, they had virtually disintegrated.

That evening, I was informed that there was no-where to store the shopping trolley for the week; I would have to take it back to uni. Everyone else had left the building, leaving me to get the lift down with the trolley. I tried all the lifts but none of them were working. Security was no-where to be found, and I couldn’t ring anyone else to help me, as I couldn’t get back into the locked gallery to buzz them in. In a moment of panic, scared I would get everyone into trouble for leaving the trolley lying around, I wrestled with it down about eight flights of steep stairs. Upon eventually reaching the bottom, bruised and exhausted, I found the place deserted and all of the doors shut. I eventually located one that wasn’t locked, and managed to set off an ear splitting alarm. Bolting out of the door like a startled rabbit, I scurried up the long hill back to uni, shopping trolley clanking and swerving in front of me.

In the end I substituted the cakes for wrapped sweets and these went down well. With everything ready for the private view, I arrived early to turn it all on, only to find that my cd player, which was to provide the house with spooky music, was refusing to work. Despite this, it all seemed to go fairly well at the private view, and the time soon came to take it all down. This was easier said than done, as I had put it up so securely, I had to almost totally destroy it to bring it down. I was also faced with the problem of how to get it back to uni. If I wanted to put it in for assessment, I would have to re-buy all the fabric and sweets and hire a van to get the wood back, as I couldn’t get it all back up the hill again. Not prepared to pay more money just for the sake of assessment, most of it had to be thrown away. I am not too worried though as it was only ever meant to be a transitory work anyway. As a result I am left with little to do this week. Unable to really start anything large in uni, I am reduced to painting here alone, eating biscuits and watching the rain. (Upon checking, weeks later, the salt dough never dried. It stayed as soggy as ever, the only development being a film of greenish black mould).