Sara Clugage’s is an artist, writer and editor. Her art practice focuses on economic and political issues in craft and food. She has most recently been core faculty for the MA in Critical Craft Studies program at Warren Wilson College and her most recent publication is the 2021 monograph from the Haystack Mountain School of Crafts, titled New Recipes: Cooking, Craft, and Performance. Sara is Editor-in-Chief of Dilettante Army, an online magazine for visual culture and critical theory.
Image 1: Gilded Age New York: A Wealth Inequality Dinner, January 20, 2019. Photo: Liz Lignon
This dinner investigated the role of art in wealth inequality. Six courses, prepared from archival recipes, were paired with short lectures on the socioeconomic conditions that made that food possible, drawing attention to how those same factors influenced art production in the period. Topics included Indian chef "Prince" Ranji Smile, the Metropolitan Museum’s Founding Purchase of 1871, the Great Railroad Strike of 1877, the Hudson River School, and Jell-O.
Image 2: Gradient Cocktail, in collaboration with the Sprechgesang Institute for Courses, 2019; drinking glasses, flavored ice cubes, champagne, score for cello; dimensions variable. Photo: Argenis Apolinario.
Part of the Sprechgesang Institute collective's July 2019 dinner performance "Courses," consisted of an ice cube rainbow arranged into glasses, topped with champagne and accompanied by a score on cello. An accompanying text considers the welcoming potential of gradients against the hierarchy of the senses developed by Enlightenment philosopher Étienne Bonnot de Condillac.
Image 3: Still from New Recipes: Cooking, Craft, and Performance, 2022, videos and text. Photo: Tate Yoder.
This 2022 Haystack Monograph consists of an essay, four recipes, and three videos. This project considers how food shapes the ideology and culture of craft schools by examining archival evidence of a 1968 “special culinary session” held at Haystack Mountain School of Crafts. In this video, I make Welsh rarebit in an antique chafing dish and discuss performance art and tableside service.
Image 4: Still from Dessert Democracy, 2020, video, 19:15 duration.
This "cooking show," made for the John Michael Kohler Arts Center as part of the exhibition "Between You and Me" in 2020, demonstrates the making of a Jell-O ribbon mold. Each layer of Jell-O is accompanied by a spoken text about the history of Jell-O and its entanglement with wealth inequality. When the Jell-O mold is revealed, it forms a color chart of current levels of wealth inequality in the United States. Vimeo link: https://vimeo.com/434144120
