Slum Pudding

Anna Rosen, Irina Arnaut, Katie Aliprando, Kenneth Tam, Patrick Price, Phil Davis, Sean Cassidy

Organized by Becky Kolsrud.

The label read ‘Land’s End’… Five to sew,

but tomorrow would bring more shirts. Pale and wan

from stitching through long hours, bent down low to

work at the machine, Kim pulled a face like Fu

Man Chu, making her friend, Min, smile. “Please comb

my hair for me tonight. I feel my ‘do

should sing, in an arpeggio from do

re mi (a rising fringe) and past fa so

la ti, (a widow’s peak)…” A stitcher-cum-

hair artiste, Kim always left at least one

night a week for creative grooming. “Phew!”

she panted, glancing at the calendar. Tue

April 10th. Like snow peas in mange tout

her days kept perfect order. What could she do?

Her father had died at the battle of Dien Bien Phu.

A Frenchman, he’d learned one Chinese character, そ.

Baptized Alphonse, his friends had called him Yuan.

A double agent, his division was trapped in a combe

And surrounded. His bones, planted deep as a corm,

had sprouted a lowly headstone. The inscription: ‘Tu

eras el mejor.’ His name above, spelled ‘Juan’.

That evening, alone, Kim took a length of dough

from the oven, hoping for bread. Well, if you sow

a seed, she reasoned, you might get a tree. But fu-

fu flour was not, it seemed, self-raising. “T’es fou!”

cried the ghost of her father. “Nom de Dieu, c’est comme

une crêpe de mèrde!” “Père, où vit-tu?” “A Sceaux.

Ils ont des peintures là. Les bons. Connait-tu

Fautrier? Ou Bernard Buffet? Si doux

de vivre avec les objets d’art. "Saint Ouen

a pensé…” Had he turned into Park Ji-Won,

the great Korean philosopher? Sipping pho

from a plastic bowl, he read her thoughts. “Oh, duh,

of course I’m not Ji-Won. Go to Fox.com

and read about the clouded leopard panther Ming Too.

I was born in our national park, in the Year of the Sow…”

So many questions, and yet so little won

by waiting for answers, of which there were far too few.

What is to come, mon père? Wo weilest du?

-Patrick Price

Their materials are shopped for, found, repurposed and reanimated by cooking, baking, mixing, crafting, sewing, gluing, melting, arranging. Jetsam at Vons. "All the Deals" at CVS. A pudding begins...A mixture where ingredients go in, distinct units never to be extracted après-the-finishing-touch. Food comes to mind frequently. Home laboratories are tacit. From my closet to your wall. From your oven to my floor.