SNACK to the FUTURE A SERIES OF SNACK FACES BY eRIQ
As a child my mother used to tell me not to play with my food. Let’s face it, most of your mothers told you the same thing. This book is dedicated to my mother, whom I haven’t listened to since 2004.
That’s the face of me as a baby about to have my “first snack”!
BYTES AND BITES... As the art-director of a national Outdoors magazine my brain is constantly in need of energy. My snack of choice is a combination of three snack variations that are available from your local supermarket. They are mixed together for one period of snacking that will normally last a full week. During these snack-attacks a handful of nuts etc. gets grabbed and consumed. Some elements (not going to name them, but it’s the peas) might roll away onto the floor while others may fall randomly onto the desk. It was on the last day of May 2019 that by chance the first snack face fell into place. A quick photo was snapped and sent to several friends as a joke. From that day onwards, whenever a handful of snacks was reached for a little face was created, photographed and eaten. A little art project was born: The Snack Face project.
eRiQ
SNACK HISTORY
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“A snack is a small service of food and generally eaten between meals. Snacks come in a variety of forms including packaged snack foods and other processed foods, as well as items made from fresh ingredients at home.� - Wikipedia
FACES FROM THE PAST... Years ago, my snack of choice were these yummy Jelly sweets from The Natural Confectionery Co. The Party Mix! Every day some were added to a container that I took to the office and snacked on throughout the busy working day. In between busy times, I would often get the camera out and use things around me as props. The handy snacks soon became unwilling stars in my photography shoots and one of the first Snack Faces was captured for eternity back in 2012.
“He’s a sweet talkin’ sugar coated candy man (oh yeah)” - Christina Aguilera
“Good God, it’s a snack attack It’s a snack attack It’s a snack attack It’s a snack attack”
My snack habits have evolved from sweets into the nut variety. One that is based on a delicate formula. One bag from Mother Earth of Deluxe Mix: ROASTED (for my vitality and well being!) plus one bag of Majans BHUJA snacks Original Mix (Ablaze with taste and goodness) mixed in with a THIRD from the homebrand Rice Snacks. Creating the special Q-blend of snack perfection - Snackfection™
Sometimes when one shop has run out of any of the three elements of Snackfection™, special trips to other shops are made to maintain the ever important balance the SNACKQUILIBRIUM. Over time, the bags have changed and some brands have created their own blends of nuts and rice snacks, but this carefully established threesome has helped me through many snack related dramas.
the ne of s to o d e l n i I ema ace creatio t it n e h F W gh Snack ey all thou ... t s r i f n h very riends, t anie o e b f y some e, with m was m
“Oh Mickey, you’re so fine You’re so fine you blow my mind, hey Mickey.”
I gues to take s they were t the Mi ckey o rying I really u don’t s t of me... ee it!
The first Snack Faces were just quick snapshots of a few bits from a handful of snacks grabbed from the bag. Placing them in different variations on the actual surface of my desk. The same desk as the first sweet snack face from 2012. Since then the poor desk has shifted more than FIVE times!
“If a cluttered desk is the sign of a cluttered mind, what is the sign of a desk full of snacks?�
I come from a bag of mixed snacks and have multiple personalities.
You sure are a tough nut to crack.
“Crazy people don’t sit around wondering if they’re nuts. - Jake Gyllenhaal”
Soon I started using some different backgrounds for my Snack Faces, using anything I found in my office. A towel, pieces of carton, backs of books, you name it. Anything could now become part of the nutty Snack Face phenomenon.
“A towel is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have.�
“Frosty the snowman Is a fairy tale they say He was made of snow But the children know How he came to life one day”
Do you want to build a snack face? Come on, let’s go and create! I never see you anymore Come out OF the bag It’s like you’ve gone away
During some of the textured background versions, it became clear that the background itself could become part of the actual shape of the face - thus a whole new line of snack faces was born. The great snacksperiment had some new challenges to face!
“I think I need glasses, everywhere I look people are two-faced�
Whether it is a cleaning cloth for your glasses, a case for your glasses or a silvery bag you find after cleaning your glasses, a Snack Face can come in many disguises and whatever the case might be I am up to face the challenge! My 2020 vision to create a book!
SNACK COVERS The next most logical step in the Snack Face movement would be books. There are quite a few of them around in my office. So every once and a while a handful of nuts made it onto the cover. It really only works with small books, otherwise it just doesn’t work. It also needs to be an empty cover, most often the back cover or ones with information that can be covered by the snacks.
You Can’t Judge a Book by the Cover -Bo Diddley
“There is no friend as loyal as a book.” ― Ernest Hemingway
Note-books, photo-books, sketch books... no book was safe from my snack attacks. I have collected TOO many books over time and and even though I have moved house more than 30 times and ‘eliminated’ many of them, there are still quite a few left around the house. Not that many small books though, with nothing on the back.
Sometimes a snack calls for just a bit more than usual. Enter the good old slice of cheese. Born in Holland, the yellow substance kinda flows through my veins. Or should that be blue cheese? A lot of dutch people will be known as cheese heads; “KAAS KOP” It goes well with everything really, including Snack Faces!
Some of you might think these snack faces are a bit cheesy...
“Age is something that doesn’t matter, unless you are a cheese.” - Luis Bunuel
At the end of the day whether you might think all these Snack Faces are cheesy or just nuts, it doesn’t really matter. To me it was a way to express myself, using the snacks as my models. Making a remote my Mona Lisa. Adding a face to a CD, facing the music... making the whole Snack Face experiment rock!
All from my desk or sometimes even sitting on the couch using my mobile phone. Showing people it’s easy to create art even if you don’t have paints and brushes or even pen and ink. It’s all about having fun and using your imagination!
ALL YOU NEED IS A DESK, SOME SNACKS AND WHATEVER YOU CAN FIND... OH, YEAH AND IMAGINATION!!!
Some people might consider my snack face phase part of an art movement. Like Q-bism or Snackism... I guess you could say that like Picasso’s Blue Period, I am in my Snack Face Period. There are artists that use food as their medium. Jason Mecier, a mosaic food artist, creates portraits from everyday items. Alison Anselot creates food shots, digitally matched to Pantone colours. Back in history there was the Renaissance painter Giuseppe Arcimboldo, who painted portraits using fruit and vegies. Was he the great grandfather of the Snack Face movement?
“You use a glass mirror to see your face; you use works of art to see your soul.” - George Bernard Shaw
Art for me is a form of meditation. When I discovered the app MIRRORLAB it opened up a whole new world of creating. Especially the kaleidoscope filter, I can sit and play around with my photos of eyes, body parts etc and come up with mandala like patterns. One day I decided to manipulate some of my own snack images
“If we know the divine art of concentration, if we know the divine art of meditation, if we know the divine art of contemplation, easily and consciously we can unite the inner world and the outer world.� - Sri Chinmoy
MIRRORLAB is so easy to use and has powerful photo-editing capabilities that can creatively enhance any pictures (or artwork). Great for mirroring photos in many different variations,but its ability to create the most hypnotic kaleidoscope images has been a major winner in my book. It’s like creating the art of the future.
SNACK MASK I believe we all hide behind masks, nobody really is themselves ALL of the time. At work we might wear one mask, with friends we might wear another. Masks have always intrigued me, especially the ones in horror movies (Halloween, Friday the 13th and Scream). The snack face on the right makes me think of some Japanese killer warrior that has come to life from the bag of Bhuja snackmix.
SNACK TRANSFORMER Through the filters of Mirrorlab my snacks transformed into a robotic creature from the future. Sent into the past to destroy all snack and chips packaging as they have destroyed the eco-system in the distant future. “I will be SNACK�
SNACK BIRD This looks like a bird to me. No elaborate story here. it’s just cool. Art!
OM Erm... sometimes things are too busy and we need some meditation away from the busy world time to reflect peace ...
Sometimes you find a little nugget in a bag that just by itself is like a mask. A lonely nut that faces the world by itself, silently standing away from a crowded world of mixed snacks. Silence is golden. I have said enough... :)
THE END All snacks were eaten in the making of this book. Special thanks to my awesome wife, Debra, who keeps my snack levels up and helped with editing this volume. Thanks to all the makers of these snacks and YOU the reader, you now deserve a snack of your own! Nothing more to see, time to go the clean-up crew has arrived.
“Love all snacks, trust a few, do wrong to none.” - William Snackspeare (All’s Well That Eats Well)
eRiQ has been enjoying snacks for over 50 years. He lives in Taranaki with his wife Debra, who is a loud snacker. This book is full of Snack Faces, photographed with a Samsung Note 9. It’s not a coffee table book, but more a snack bowl one. Take a bite and enjoy!