Treasure Map Cake

Escape to PHASEscape at Crane Arts

With magical treasure maps, Stonehenge-like plinths and allusions to complex nonverbal systems, Crane Arts' PHASEscape, a spare show of mostly abstract works, suggests a place out of time.

The sculpture, video, prints and paintings—few in number but several with large impact—occupy the gallery's Grey Area, cavelike space with smoky gray walls, shade-covered windows and a bare minimum of light aimed at the works. But it's OK: Most of the works on view by five Tyler MFA candidates are primal in nature and even shamanistic, so they inhabit the hyper-dramatic room with ease.

In the middle of the room, like the brightest star in the galaxy, is Samantha Jones' installation of tall and hairy white plinths arranged together in a close circle. Skinny as camel legs and topped with what appear to be perhaps tiny towns for even tinier people, the grouping is Stonehenge-weird. It casts deep shadows, and as if to magnify its mystery and power, it has hanging above it a shiny reflective orb that hovers like the mothership in Close Encounters. Whatever this is about, the piece is captivating, from the shadows to the hovering orb to the white surfaces that look like curdled cake icing (probably plaster or resin).

Nearby and seemingly in conversation with Jones' piece, are three mixed-media paintings by Craig Rempfer that are full of beauty and ornate graphic moves. Like wild style graffiti as if practiced by the Mayans, Rempfer draws shapes and objects that are biomorphic and lines and shapes that repeat in an obsessive and almost ritualistic way. One black, white and gray work in which lines radiate out from a central knot and an “X” seems to mark the spot that could be a treasure map—or a warning map. Rempfer’s smaller turquoise, gray and black painting also uses an "X" motif but evokes the mapping of cell division in a petri dish rather than geographical mapping. These works have aboriginal energy and authority.

Erica Prince's diptych painting involves two cartoonlike kidney shaped windows on boxes. One kidney is white like an egg and the other looks transparent and shows a large number of the same boxes and same kidney shapes inside. Is the white kidney an egg, something innocent and pure, and the transparent kidney the mature, noninnocent and noisy and cluttered version? Whatever the meaning, the piece seems wrong for this show, as if a Tom and Jerry cartoon had invaded it.

On the other hand, Johnny Plastini's large intaglio print, which looks a little like a barn on its side with its roof sliced off, is a mystery that goes well. Titled "Gothic Cab Drivers," the piece, with three dark, hard-edged shapes separated by lots of white space, has little that's Gothic and even less that's taxilike. But there is great tension between the shapes and even greater mystery in some repeated white embossed dots that cut like bullet holes into each shape. The piece feels off-balance in an interesting way, and while it hardly seems playful, the work is a pre-verbal puzzle that is worth pondering.

Toute Sweet: Purse & Treasure Map Cakes

Welcome to "Toute Sweet", home of all things sweet in Switzerland! My name is Nikki and I am bringing a bit of homemade decorated treats to the land of milk and cheese. I specialize in decorated sugar cookies, but also offer decorated cake-pops, cupcakes and celebration cakes. Every order is a custom order. I can help you choose the perfect shapes, colors, designs and flavors to coordinate perfectly with YOUR special occasion. I ran into the biggest challenge with the handle of the purse. I had made a couple handles out of gumpaste but they had both broken the day before the cake was due! I even made them well ahead of time. Luckily, I tried making another handle out of fondant but there was a lot of rain and humidity so it didn't harden and dry as much as I need and I had to improvise with a bit of floral wire. Despite this, I love how the cake turned out. I think the soft pink and white really made for a sweet purse cake. And even though those darn pink sugar pearls were painstakingly put on one-by-one with tweezers late at night, they made the cake! Alex had his party at the bowling alley where he dressed as a pirate. So this treasure map cake that I created, was just for him. The cake is an 8" round which serves about 16 and was made with yellow cake and had a vanilla buttercream frosting. The "map" and red X were made with marshmallow fondant. I used black royal icing for the trail and brown royal icing for the writing on the map. Gold chocolate coins accented the cake.

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