Well, after a few long weeks of working I finished my first large scale piece while here at Cranbrook. The piece is quite large; it is 9.5 feet long and about 19 inches high. I recieved a fairly good critique from my classmates about it. There are several issues that I am still thinking through, but overall I feel quite satisfied by this piece.

To see a larger version of this image follow this link.
There are many details that are quite important to this piece.
The typeface is Knox from Hoefler & Frere-Jones.

Read my statement about the piece.
Read the review of my piece by Cleon Peterson.

If you are still curious about this piece, especially if you are wondering “what does ORTOLAN mean?”, here is the background story which inspired it.

Please view the piece prior to reading this

“If guilt is a flavour, and it definitely is, then l’ortolan is one of the world’s greatest dishes. The lemon-colored songbirds, called buntings in English, originally appeared in French chansons as symbols of innocence and of the love of Jesus. Then a tribe near Boureaux began trapping them as they migrated south to Africa, pulling them out of the sky with little wooden traps called matoles hidden high in the treetops. The birds must be taken alive; once captured they are either blinded or kept in a lightless box for a month to gorge on millet, grapes, and figs, a technique apparently taken from the decadent cooks of Imperial Rome who called the birds beccafico, or ‘fig-pecker’. When they’ve reached four times their normal size, they’re drowned in a snifter of Armagnac. This sadistic mise en scene has transformed the bird from a symbol of innocence to an act of gluttony symbolic of the fall from grace. In Collette’s novel Gigi, for instance, the tomboyish main character prepares for her entry into polite society with lessons in the correct way to eat lobsters and boiled eggs. When she begins training to be a courtesan, however, she is said to be ‘learning how to eat the ortolan.” Not that it was only courtesans who indulged. The tradition of covering one’s head while eating the bird was supposedly started by a soft-bellied priest trying to hide his sadistic gluttony from God.

Cooking l’ortolan is simplicity itself. Simply pop them in a high oven for six to eight minutes and serve. The secret is entirely in the eating. First you cover your head with a traditional embroidered cloth. Then place the entire four-ounce bird into your mouth. Only its head should dangle out from between your lips. Bite off the head and discard. L’ortolan should be served immediately; it is meant to be so hot that you must rest it on your tongue while inhaling rapidly through your mouth. This cools the bird, but its real purpose is to force you to allow its ambrosial fat to cascade freely down your throat. When cool, begin to chew. It should take about 15 minutes to work your way through the breast and wings, the delicately crackling bones, and on to the inner organs. Devotees claim they can taste the bird’s entire life as they chew in the darkness: the wheat of Morocco, the salt air of the Mediterranean, the lavender of Provence. The pea-sized lungs and heart, saturated with Armagnac from its drowning, are said to burst in a liqueur-scented flower on the diner’s tongue. Enjoy with a good Bordeaux.

What could be more delicious? Nothing, according to initiates, who compare the banning of the ortolan to the death of French culture and continue to eat them at the risk of being fined thousands of pounds.”

This is an excerpt from Stewart Lee Allen’s “In The Devil’s Garden”

More pertinent discussions of Ortolan
Wikipedia on Ortolan

1:52 pm | November 17, 2005  |  filed in: CRANBROOK