For the last two years I have lived both on the west and east coasts and travelled by car, in between. In just about every place we stopped for food, gas or a night's lodging there were cupcakes. Cupcakes at truck stops. Cupcakes at breakfast joints in not so great neighborhoods. Entire stores devoted just to cupcakes. They’re certainly not my mother's cupcakes. They’re big, bold and always lavishly iced to almost impossible heights, packaged up in sweet little boxes, like gifts. Some cost more than lunch. It seems to me today’s cupcake craze goes beyond nostalgia.
This work speaks to excess and longing. Past the time when we were galvanized to "beat the recession", past the time when we were divided by "Occupy", stuck in the sameness of strife and waiting, don't we all just want a little indulgence? But there are always cupcakes, rising in defiance of continually failing personal economies as if, for each of us, there is always going to be more.
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From Echoing Visual Voices, Women's Caucus for Art |