Thank you very much for visiting this collection of work, titled
"LETTUCE PAINT".
It consists of a recipe for a Vegan Bacon Caesar Salad with Roasted Pickle Chickpeas,
as well as 30 paintings which were created using pieces of romaine lettuce.
This series actually came about because Andrea and I have been eating
a lot salad lately, particularly Caesar. It was one of those things that went off
the menu when reducing intake of animal products, so it was exciting
to find Gotham Greens dressing. But because we've been eating entrée salads,
I've been cutting the base of the romaine instead of pulling it off
like i normally would for sandwiches or whatever.
The photo above shows the particular head of lettuce
that caught my attention after I cut it.
I decided to try to use it as a stamp, so that night I tried it quickly.
(The original test prints are at the very end of this page.)
After that proof of concept worked, I started mentally mapping out
what i would need as far as an artistic space, a bowl of water for rinsing,
paper towel for dabbing, and maybe some cardboard for paint mixing.
If the setup was going to be that complex, I felt like I should do a lot of them.
But then I realized I was going to need a fresh lettuce.
I envisioned myself cutting it to use for painting, and then I realized
I would need to address the imaginary lettuce as well.
That was easy. Eat a salad. But then I realized,
both the art and the salad were going to be produced
with the same head of lettuce.
Maybe this series is about creating tiny pockets of time to be creative.
It's true, you can do a lot of painting in an hour.
Maybe this series is about the pattern of lettuce growth?
Maybe it's about the beauty produced by nature.
Anyway, after I did the whole thing, I had to photograph the paintings.
Once I had the photographs, I needed to square them up for Instagram.
But then I started cropping, and playing with the light levels.
So it's a digitally sweetened painting series.
It's worth noting that I recorded the first video ("i never do intros")
at 5:55pm on June 25th, and exported the last digital file at 1:53am on June 26th.
All the original content was created in 7 hours and 48 minutes,
including eating the salad, which is delicious, I really recommend it.
It's also worth noting that this is the remainder of the 20 pack of paint which
I used previously for ICE : Inherent Creative Energy. Because all of the
main colors had been depleted, this series uses color palettes which
are outside of my typical selections. I am glad for the experiment.
Thank you for visiting and reading this statement.
In gratitude,
Justin C.M. Brown
6/29/2023
"Lettuce Paint"
a painting experiment by Justin C.M. Brown
30 Paintings and a Salad
Bacon Caesar Salad with Roasted Dill Chickpeas
(VEGAN & GLUTEN FREE)
-Romaine Lettuce
-Gotham Greens Vegan Caesar Dressing
-Canned Chickpeas (a.k.a. Garbanzo Beans)
-Avocado Oil Spray (good for high smoke point)
(If you don't like dill, any flavor of seasoning salt will be great.)
Preheat the oven to 350.
Drain and rinse chickpeas.
Coat a pan with avocado oil, add chickpeas, coat with pickle salt.
Put on center rack of oven, set timer for 33:33.
Chop lettuce twice (2" diagonally, 1/2" perpendicular)
Paint.
When timer goes off, let chickpeas cool for 20 minutes.
Mix lots of everything in a bowl.
Enjoy.