13 Easy Creative sculptures to do with kids while at home
Food art works possess their own characteristics that differentiates them from how food is traditionally perceived to be used.[3]
They have their own features in terms of how they appear to the
onlooker, the experience they offer to the public and their meaning.
Visual
The Ripe Fruit of Freedom. Liberty Bell made of fruit. Interior of Agricultural Building. From Columbian Gallery: A Portfolio of Photographs of the World's Fair by The Werner Company. 1893.
Postcard
of John K. Daniels’s butter sculpture of a boy, cow, and calf, Iowa
State Fair, 1904. Sponsored by Beatrice Creamery Co.
Foodstuffs can be made into visual objects which can be considered as
works of art, since they are not necessarily intended to be eaten.[4]
Sculpture made from butter, sugar, corn and other agricultural
products was a common feature at fairs in the later 19th and early 20th
century[5]
Whereas, in the latter half of the 20th century and the 21st
century saw the use of digital photography increase and be used as a new
means to reach their audiences through modern art. Typically used in
the commercial setting, food photography
captures the still life representation of food used for advertisements,
packaging, magazines and menus. Social media platforms like Instagram and TikTok
have allowed artists and amateur users to share their creations easily
online and start trends like #foodporn and #instafood as a result.[6]
Performance
Traditional
food art creations are portrayed in two-dimensional still life form,
but some contemporary food artists have experimented using performance
as a form of expression to transform our understanding of troubling
issues.
Red Hong Yi
(also known as 'Red'), a Malaysian artist and architect, recreated
plate-sized portraiture entirely out of food. So far, Red has created
works depicting Ai Weiwei's face from sunflower seeds, Jay Chou out of coffee stains and other contemporary Chinese icons out of various objects.[7]
As well as humour, artistic works challenge current global and
political issues with her most recent project involves a series of
portraits of Asian individuals out of foodstuff such as cake sprinkles
and matcha leaves titled "I am not a virus." This series attempted to
address anti-Asian racism and violence around the world, especially
following the Coronavirus pandemic.[1]
In 2021, Red created a performance piece called Climate is Everything
to illustrate the pressing matters of climate change. A video uploaded
onto her instagram page showed a world map where green matchsticks had
been placed at different heights to represent trees. The piece was then
set fire to, demonstrating the urgency of climate change and that "it
takes a long time to build something up, but it can be destroyed really
quickly too."[8]
Viewer Participation
Food
art can question, surprise and engage the visitor by prioritising
social interactions and participation in the event to form discussion of
the subject matter. In 1962, Alison Knowles, a founder of Fluxus, visual and performance artist debuted her artwork, Make a Salad (also referred to as Proposition #1: Make a Salad), at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London. It has since been recreated at various different venues, such as the Tate Modern in 2008, the High Line in 2012, the Walker Art Center and most recently Art Basel in 2016.[9]Make a Salad
involved Knowles and the participants preparing and tossing vast
quantities of vegetables in dressing and then serving it to the
spectators. At the time of its original showing, impresario, John Cage,
coined the work to be "New Music".[10]
Furthermore, in 1992, Thai artist Rirkrit Tiravanija staged an event in New York's 303 Gallery with the intention of "bringing people together".[11] While there, Tiravanija's work called Untitled (free)
consisted of him serving free bowls of pad thai curry and rice to
gallery goers to encourage a social environment where participants came
together to take part in the activity.[12]
Meaning
The
meaning of food in the traditional sense is to be used functionally and
to provide nourishment by being eaten. Artistic works that use food as a
medium can be representational and express emotions metaphorically, as
according to art critic Carolyn Korsmeyer, it can provide a perspective on what it symbolises.[13] However, it can also be unclear generally due to its transient form.[14][3] Their interpretation would be reliant on the timing of which the visitor explores the artwork.
9 Tried and Tested Ways to easily Put a Baby to Sleep
Here are some tips:
If your baby tosses and turns all night, reworking their sleep routine
might solve the issue. "There's no such thing as a bad sleeper, just
bad sleep habits, and they're usually reversible," says Ingrid Prueher, a
pediatric sleep consultant in Fairfield, Connecticut, and host of the Baby Sleep 911 video series. Avoid these common sleep saboteurs, and you may actually snooze through the night.
1. Start a Routine
"One of the ways a baby learns it's time to go to
sleep is from cues in the environment," notes Deborah Givan, M.D.,
director of the Sleep Disorders Center at Riley Hospital for Children,
in Indianapolis. About 30 minutes before bedtime, turn the noise down
and dim the lights. "The right lighting is essential because it helps
set a baby's internal clock," she explains. "Our brain associates light
and dark with being awake or asleep. Turning the lights low at night—and
exposing your baby to bright light in the a.m.—will help this process
along."
Once you minimize the stimuli, you can introduce
other calming rituals, like a warm bath, lullabies, or softly spoken
stories. Dr. Givan recommends having the nighttime ritual
in place as soon as possible, and ideally by about 6 to 8 weeks. Be
consistent—do the activities in the same order every night—so your baby
learns what to expect.
2. Don't Rely on Soothing Methods
"If you put your baby in the crib when they're
already asleep and they wake up in the night, which all humans do, they
won't recognize their surroundings and will need your help getting back
to sleep," notes Dr. Givan. "Try to put your baby down drowsy but
awake." This will help them learn to self-soothe and fall asleep—and, more importantly, fall back to sleep—on their own, which is the main goal of sleep training.
Adrienne Porzio of Centerport, New York, can attest
to this. She began driving her newborn around at night to get her to
fall asleep—and she was still relying on that crutch when her daughter
was 5 months old.
"The issue we get the most calls about is parents automatically
repeating soothing habits to the point that the baby is hooked," says
Los Angeles sleep consultant Heather Turgeon, coauthor of The Happy Sleeper.
Newborns benefit from rocking, bouncing, and soothing to sleep, but
babies develop quickly and don't need those things forever.
"By about 5 months, most babies have the capability
to fall asleep on their own, and if we're still doing it for them,
we're getting in their way," says Turgeon. "Start practicing in the
early months to put Baby down awake, at least once a day—usually the
first nap is the most successful." Keep your cuddle time, but gradually
stop the patting and shushing and rocking to sleep.
3. Don't Feed Baby to Sleep
"Newborns fall asleep all the time while eating,
and I don't want anyone to stress about that," notes Turgeon. But if
your baby often dozes off during a feeding, they'll think they need to eat in order to get back to sleep.
To combat this issue, gradually move the feeding
earlier until your little one can get through it, then finish the
routine with a calming book and song, and tuck them in drowsy but awake.
You may still need to get up for a nighttime feeding, but then it will
be about hunger, not soothing.
4. Stick to an Early Bedtime
When considering how to put a baby to sleep, timing
is just as important as a routine. "At around 8 weeks, babies have a
rise in melatonin, a drowsy-making hormone
the body releases when it's time for sleep, which means they're ready
for an early bedtime consistent with the sun setting," says Turgeon. "If
you keep them up late instead, they become overstimulated and harder to
put down." Melatonin levels rise somewhere around sundown, but given
that sundown can be anytime from 4:30 in winter to 8:30 in summer, stick
to the clock and put your baby down around 6:30 or 7 p.m. for the most
success. If the sun is still up, close the shades.
"A good sign of drowsiness is when the baby becomes
calm—they're less active, have a bored look, or just stare off," says
Turgeon. Don't mistake this behavior as happiness for being awake. Seize
the moment and start your bedtime routine. "The baby's internal clock
is telling them when to be awake and when to be asleep, and you want to
reinforce that," she notes.
5. Eliminate Snacking
"Sleep and nutrition go hand-in-hand," notes
Prueher. For the first 8 weeks, a baby should be feeding on demand every
2 to 2.5 hours. "If they want to eat every hour or so, they may not be consuming enough at each session,"
says Prueher. Keep a 24-hour log of how many ounces a bottle-fed baby
takes and at what time. For a breastfed baby, write down how many
minutes they're nursing each session. "If they eat for 20 minutes during
the nighttime feeding but only five or ten minutes during the day,
they're just snacking," says Prueher. "And they're not filling their
belly enough to sleep through the night."
On the flip side, if Baby is eating well during the
day, they should be able to sleep for a 4- to 6-hour stretch at night
by around 2.5 to 3 months. To help your baby eat more efficiently, work
toward spacing out their meals (distract them with a pacifier
or some entertainment) so they're actually hungry each time. Also,
don't neglect burping. "Sometimes we mistake coming off the breast or
bottle as being finished, when really the baby needs to be burped,"
notes Prueher. Bright lights or noise can also be distracting. Try
feeding Baby in a darker, quiet room, especially when they become more
interested in their surroundings.
6. Take Naps Seriously
A well-rested child will sleep better than an
overtired one. It seems counterintuitive, but skipping a nap (or keeping
a baby up late) in hopes that they'll sleep longer at night simply
doesn't work. "When infants get overtired, their stress hormones rise,"
says Turgeon. "Then, once they finally fall asleep, there's a good
chance it won't be for long, because those stress hormones wake them
when they're in a lighter sleep stage."
This is why regular naps are so essential
for getting a baby to sleep. "At the age of 2 months, a baby's optimal
span of awake time is only about 90 minutes between sleeps, which goes
by really quickly," says Turgeon. "They don't have the tolerance to be
awake more than that until 4 to 5 months." Keep an eye on the clock,
because picking up on your baby's tired gaze isn't easy.
7. Set Napping Guidelines
It may be tempting to let your sweetie snooze in their car seat
or on your chest, but you should try for at least one nap a day in the
crib. That way, they'll get the quality rest they need. "The first nap
is mentally restorative for an infant and will dictate how the entire
day goes, so ideally you want them to have that one in their crib at
home," notes Prueher. "The second is physically restorative, so once
your baby's old enough to be moving around a lot, they really need it to
be quality too."
By 3 to 4 months of age, your little one will have longer awake periods, and you can work toward a nap schedule:
one in the morning, one in the early afternoon, and a short
late-afternoon nap if needed. Naps are a great time for you to practice
putting Baby down drowsy, adds Prueher. It's not the middle of the
night, so you can think more clearly, pick up on cues, and follow
through.
8. Let Baby Work It Out
If you rush in immediately at night to help your
munchkin fall back to sleep, you're creating a cycle that will be hard
to break. "As long as you know that they can't be hungry, you can pause
before rushing in," says Turgeon, who recommends starting a "soothing
ladder" from as early as day one. When you hear your baby fuss,
pause for a minute and see if they can work it out themself. "If they
can't, go in and do the least intrusive thing—pat or shush but don't
pick them up," says Turgeon. If that doesn’t work, you gradually climb
the soothing ladder until you get them back to sleep.
"The point of the soothing ladder isn't to make a
baby learn to self-soothe overnight, but to give them enough space to
allow their self-soothing skills to unfold naturally, over time," says
Turgeon. Plus, it will help you avoid a traumatic cry-it-out situation down the road, when you’re still learning how to get a baby to sleep.
9. Stop Overthinking the Situation
Resist the urge to research “how to put a baby to
sleep” every single night. "Information overload causes parents to try a
million different things, which doesn't build any consistency or
trust," says Prueher. "Children thrive on knowing what to expect." She
recommends giving your baby a little space to show their capabilities.
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