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As usual Stoaty, you have managed to broaden my horizons. 😉 However, If that image were “painted” on my banquet table, I might lose my appetite. A wee bit dreary, IMHO.

Fascinating – I didn’t know about table deckers. That pic is particularly lovely. I love stuff that was intended to be ephemera, like Victorian postcards complete with quaint old messages to and by persons now long dead, that has survived, . It’s interesting to me that movies were actually once thought to be ephemera – not only the old silents, but way into the 30s. Hollywood thought they were to be made, shown, then tossed away. Couldn’t imagine that decades later people would pay to see ’em. That, plus the volatile nature of the old film stock, makes it a wonder that as much survives as does.

I read somewhere? (a long time ago) that the reason Japanese art tended to be of an ephemeral nature (paper scrolls and the like) was the nature of Japan itself – the fact that, periodically, half of everything would be taken out in a monsoon or something, so no point in producing stuff “for the ages.” Make it for the here and now, and enjoy it while you got it.

Have you seen this?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vOhf3OvRXKg

So amazing.

I’ve been trying to persuade Her Stoatliness to watch that for ages Mrs C.

I think she prefers the Annoying Orange.

Can’t imagine why 😉

I once had a Zen painting set. You would dip the brush in water and draw on a special surface that would only retain the image for about 30 seconds. Then it would fade to blank again. The idea is that you not become attached to details of your work, and to draw spontaneously.

I left it somewhere, I think. I haven’t seen it in awhile. I guess I don’t particularly care.

Pastry cooks. The elaboration of complicated desserts with cookies and crackers and frosting – all to vanish down someone’s gullet.

Ice sculptors – they know it isn’t going to last. But even ephemera has been bitten by the stupid bug that has infested art. The most famous practicioner is that moron that string colored bedsheets across landscapes and buildings and has convinced eberybody that it’s great art rather than a poor imitation of laundry day.

Very interesting! I had no idea about table deckers.

Rich, you are quite correct, but I had never really thought of it before. The life of one who loves edible art is one centered on ephemera – though pictures can be taken, they are never quite the same as the real thing and part of the true art is the taste. 🙂

Πάντα ῥεῖ is all I have to say about that.

Puts the whole sad Nick Park obsessive-compulsive Wallace&Gromit still animation in perspective: it runs into Britisher genetics.