The Fried Dough Ho

Nuts about Donuts!

Originally uploaded by 2composers

Selling some dessert-themed jewelry at The Fillmore Jazz Festival, a guy stopped by and told me the name Jay Mercado, artist.

A San Francisco-based artist, Jay is another artist exploring the world of doughnuts and — it seems — he also teaches classes on doughnut painting. He has blogged about his doughnut paintings, but oddly does not include them on his professional website. Perhaps because he doesn’t consider doughnuts serious art. If you ever see this, Jay, I’ll refer you Emily Eveleth who has made a career in painting hyper-realistic doughnuts.

I particularly enjoy the photo which I found online, with the gallery opening reception providing an ample doughnut reception with the array of artwork on display in the back. I can’t tell exactly when the photograph was taken (all I can see is August 9, but who knows what year!), but at some point I will be tracking down the work of Jay Mercado, perhaps to acquire my own doughnut art.

No special reviews, no flavor comparisons or analysis, and no historical references. Just a darn pretty looking Stars and Stripes offering to commemorate our nation’s birth.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

You know I get pretty excited when I find a new fried dough adventure. Usually it is something I actually eat, but more and more often it is an artistic expression of my favored food which makes me giddy. And it was a link to Pennsylvania artist Susan Biebuyck which brought a big smile to my face.

Apparently mostly known mostly for painting pears and some Plein Air, Biebuyck’s entire oeuvre of sweetened goodies which, in their Wayne Thiebaud-style, drew me in. She has a playful way of expressing the culinary delight and I invite you to take a look at her individual doughnut portraits – it seems you can buy individual doughnuts for $125 each or cluster a dozen on a wall for $1,000. I wish I had wall space.

Hunt’s Quality Doughnuts

Originally uploaded by the nicole harvey

Compliments of the delightful Miss Nicole, I offer this little ditty today. Apparently there was some construction — or, I should say, deconstruction — in the Mission District of San Francisco which revealed this old sign. It is hard to date it, based on fonts. My artistic temperament implies something earlier than the 1950s. The thin lines of the fonts and the odd Chinese lanterns interjected between the painted doughnuts reek of the late 1920s or mid 1930s.

And the doughnuts are thin. By the 1950s, doughnuts were thicker. I know this from movies that I have watched. There seem to be a lot of Depression-era movies with doughnut scenes and in the 1930s, the doughnuts were thinner.

Regardless, I thank Nicole for sending this to me so that I could share it with you. I’m tickled pink!

At least, filmmaker Jaxon Defa believes the world can be saved through doughnuts. I stumbled upon this “mockumentary” within YouTube and I have repeatedly reached out to the gentleman whom I believe made the film to talk to him about it, but I have yet to hear back from him. If anyone knows him, have him drop me a line; I’d love to interview him. But until then, I will share a pretty hilarious 8 1/2 minutes with you. It includes everything from sexual obsession to poetry to philosophy. And as a piece of film making, it isn’t bad either. Congratulations, Jaxon, wherever you are.