Cirque des Gateaux: Finding the Inspiration

This month ACD celebrates the art of collaboration. Our cirque du soleil inspired issue features an incredible collaboration of artists. Participating in a collaboration can be an exciting and challenging endeavor; as each artist works to source inspiration and translate an over-arching theme.  Just how does one source inspiration? And how can a cake artist express their intentions through the artistic media? Zawadi Parizek, organizer of the the Cirque des Gateaux collaboration discusses the inspiration and the design process behind five of the collaboration pieces.

By Zawadi Parizek

Inspiration….

When given a theme how do you find your inspiration? Do you run to Pinterest and pour over hundreds of photos, do you sleep on it and know it will come to you in a dream? Is it divine intervention, or hours of research? When organizing Cirque des Gateaux we knew there would be an abundance of imagery, textures and even sounds to draw inspiration from but how would the artists use all of this visual information to create a cohesive cake design.

Over a year ago members of Cirque des Gateaux were asked to pick one show from any past or present Cirque du Soleil production and represent it in edible form. They could draw inspiration from set, costumes or characters to create incredible works of art.  Let us take a look into the inspiration behind some of these creations.

Georgia Suter found inspiration in the colors and forms of Kurios.  Looking through photos and the promotion poster she connected with the main character of the production. This became the focus of her design and she envisioned him brought to life.

00 final picture 1Kristi Caccippio went the research route. Learning that Alegria was the most popular touring show, she picked it to see what all the excitement was about.  While looking through the photos she kept coming back to this winged character and states, “I kept going back to the same picture…She just spoke to me”.

14053870_881715601932643_2194315958128235736_o

Theresa Taubrich chose KA because the story bears a striking resemblance to Romeo and Juliet.  She knew that it was important to design figures that tell a story and, “made the observer finish the story on their own, noting, “I wanted to capture an exact moment in time of the two figures.”

Theresa_02

Isabel Tamargo chose Kooza as her inspiration, capturing the sights, and colors of the show – particularly the show poster featuring the trickster.

Kooza01

Berna Garcia chose the Cirque du Soleil show, Varekai and created a sculpted bust cake of  one of the shows colorful characters. She recreated the expression of the character perfectly.

111599

Varekai_01

So, whether you want to combine lots of inspiration elements, or recreate an exact moment, one thing seems to be true…As creative people, we the Cake Artists, need to feel a connection with what we are designing with the outcome being a piece of art that expresses not just our chosen inspiration but also our feelings, intent and sentiments. We’ve just chosen to create art using batter, fondant, ganache and gumpaste instead of props, fabric, and sound.

Gift a Subscription!

SIGN UP FOR OUR NEWSLETTER

A handpicked selection of the best cakes, recipes and news, delivered to your inbox.

[mc4wp_checkbox]

Thank you for your submission. Please check your email.