Edible Art Saturday, December 4, 2004 AAWAA Gallery/Alternative Space, Brooklyn, NY Written by Eve Hyman

Well this was a first! By the time my friends and I got to the art show, some of the pieces were missing. We had allocated two hours to attend this one day event, thinking that would be enough time to see everything. But it seems that the art was too tempting.

"Oh you missed that one," the curator exclaimed. "It was really lovely, but it was dipped in dark chocolate so everyone started eating it immediately." We had known that the theme of the show was “art you can eat”, but it was still surprising to learn that not only was it possible to eat the art, we were encouraged to buy it and eat it.

There were gingerbread cookie candelabras mounted on the wall with stained-glass made out of colored sugar. I bit one. There was a curtain of seaweed origami. I ate a dragon. A bikini made out of teabags hung on wooden hangers next to a sexy mannequin sculpted from vanilla icing and chocolate kisses. My friend ate a chocolate nipple. My favorite was an enormous kimono made from bright pink and yellow Easter candy "peeps." It was too expensive to purchase, so we ate the chocolate chili henna tattoos instead - licking them off of wax paper. Spicy!

It was certainly fun to see art patrons eating art - a veritable visit to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory for adults. The event was created and sponsored by The Asian American Women Artists Alliance of Brooklyn. The Asian American Women Artists Alliance (AAWAA) was established in 1998 and has enabled emerging women artists, especially those of Asian descent, to create art and present their works to communities around New York City.