Edible Art
The food artist behind high concept sweets has a sophisticated understanding of both art and cookies. Amelia Coulter is an art school alumna who decided on the medium of an unusually flavorful variation on the classic sugar cookie. Using top quality ingredients, the recipe is the official state cookie of Coulter’s native New Mexico. As for the decorations, many are stunning in the intricacy of their designs, while others are just as impactful in the simplicity of the concept or the surprising ways she renders it. The Dill, for example, combines a spare frosting outline of the spindly herb with a bush-shaped base.
Many of her designs refer to Coulter’s love of all things regionally specific, whether in the iron grates of Greenpoint, Brooklyn or the heart and skull iconography of Southwestern art. No stranger to the more finicky arts, Coulter was trained as a sculptor, drawn to processes like “welding steel” and “intricately paper cuttings.” But throughout her fine arts training her interested in food was a theme. Not just in preparing and eating it (though cooking was a hobbie), but also as a subject. “In many cases, food is more accessible than fine art,” she said. “It can be shared, and you get something out of it,” by consuming it, and also for the very reason that “it goes away.” Today she thinks of it as her cookie company as “very much the same practice as my art practice.” And though customers often resist eating her thoughtful works, Coulter explains, “I happen to like that you eat it, and you share it, and you like it” in a way that can literally be felt. “It’s more important [in art] to have the idea communicated.“ And while they could reasonably be described as art objects, she says, “the experience of art always matters more to me than the object. And I also realize there are a lot of objects in this world already. I personally couldn’t see myself making more of them.” Yet another great reason to eat Sugarbuilt up come Valentines Day.