将蛋糕做成行为艺术

Last month in her Beverly Hills, Calif., workshop, Elin Katz sculpted a sleek-lined black car and painted portraits of her customer and his fiancee.

上个月在加州比佛利山的工作室里，埃琳·卡茨(Elin Katz)雕出了一台线条流畅的黑色汽车，并画出了客户及其未婚妻的肖像。

'This is a great medium to work with for likenesses,' she mused as she defined an eyelid crease with a palette knife. 'I don't know why other people don't use it more.' The medium in question: Buttercream frosting. Ms. Katz, co-owner of Rosebud Cakes, sculpts in cake, paints with buttercream, etches in fondant, airbrushes with food coloring and molds in chocolate.

她一边用调色刀勾勒眼皮一边沉思，这对于画肖像来说是一种很不错的介质，不知道为什么其他人不更多地用它。她所说的介质是奶油霜。卡茨是“玫瑰蕾蛋糕(Rosebud Cakes)的老板之一，她用蛋糕雕刻，用奶油绘画，用方旦糖蚀刻，用食用色素喷绘，还用巧克力造型。

This once-esoteric field has recently gained popularity through cake-decorating TV shows. Ms. Katz, who has been in the business for over 30 years, has maintained her position as a top innovator by integrating lights, stage-like backdrops, lifelike representations of cars, faces and human bodies, and other elements that help her achieve her goal of making cakes into 'performance art.'

这个曾经只有圈内少数人知道的领域最近借由表演蛋糕装饰艺术的电视节目走红。卡茨在这一行做了30多年，她通过融合灯光、像舞台样的背景幕布、逼真的汽车模型、面孔与人体等元素，保持着顶级创新人物的地位。这些元素帮助她实现了将做蛋糕变成“行为艺术的目标。

Ms. Katz has made everything from a six-tiered, goth-style, unicorn-themed cake to a multitude of designer handbag and shoe confections. 'It's a Beverly Hills thing,' Ms. Katz explained. Her cakes cost from $300 to more than $4,000 for large, complex creations.

卡茨做过各式各样的东西，比如一只六层哥特式、以独角兽为主题的蛋糕，又如做成设计师手袋和鞋子的各式甜点。卡茨解释说，这是比佛利山特有的。她的蛋糕售价从300美元起步，大型、复杂的作品卖到4,000美元以上。

Last year, she made realistic representations of the naked bodies of artist Marina Abramovic and singer Deborah Harry for a Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art gala. Servers cut into the flesh-colored icing to reveal bloody-hued red velvet cake.

去年她为洛杉矶当代艺术博物馆(Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art)的一次活动创作了艺术家玛丽娜·阿布拉莫维奇(Marina Abramovic)和歌手德博拉·哈利(Deborah Harry)的现实主义裸体雕塑。服务员切开肉色糖衣，露出血色的红丝绒蛋糕。

'At first, I thought they were supposed to be dead. I thought, 'Oh, cool, I can go study dead bodies at the morgue,'' said Ms. Katz. Instead, to get a lifelike look, she traced her daughter's body and made molds of her hands and feet in order to create accurate white-chocolate extremities.

卡茨说：“起初我以为应该是死去的形象。我想，太妙了，可以去太平间研究死人了。相反，为了构造出栩栩如生的形象，她描摹了女儿的身体，并给她的手脚制模，以便用白巧克力创造出极为精细的四肢。

After Ms. Katz, 57, left art school and moved to California from Illinois in 1978, she wondered how to make a living. A part-time job in a bakery got her thinking about cake design. Then she attended an exhibit by the artist Red Grooms and was struck by the possibilities of his whimsical dioramas.

卡茨现年57岁。1978年离开美术学院从伊利诺伊州搬到加州之后，她琢磨靠什么谋生。在一家面包店做兼职时，她想到了蛋糕设计。后来她参加艺术家瑞德·格鲁姆斯(Red Grooms)的一次展览，惊叹于他天马行空的立体绘画呈现出的各种可能性。

'I thought, 'I could make cakes like that,'' and she started her business.

“我想，我可以做那样的蛋糕。于是她开始创业。

Ms. Katz always attacks a project with a three-dimensional, theatrical vision. Last month, comedian Jeff Dunham ordered a Batman-themed groom's cake for his coming marriage. After downloading pictures of the Batcave online, Ms. Katz asked her head decorator, Cory Pohlman, to build a Batcave cake platform with a plywood base and curved Styrofoam walls, which Ms. Pohlman painted with pewter, blue and white frosting. They rigged the ceiling of the cave with tiny LED lights, covered by painted paper cones to look like stalactites.

卡茨一直是带着一种戏剧性的三维视觉想象来做项目。上个月，喜剧演员杰夫·邓纳姆(Jeff Dunham)为他即将举行的婚礼订购了一款以蝙蝠侠为主题的新郎蛋糕。在从网上下载蝙蝠洞照片之后，卡茨让其首席装点师科里·波尔曼(Cory Pohlman)用胶合板底座和泡沫塑料做成的弯曲 面搭成了一个蝙蝠洞蛋糕平台。波里曼在 上涂了青灰色、蓝色和白色的糖霜。她们给蝙蝠洞的天花板上安装了小小的LED灯，盖上纸做的圆锥体，做成钟乳石的样子。

'I always think of the background, foreground and the action,' Ms. Katz said. Though her husband, Alan, who handles operations, had sketched a picture early on in the process, Ms. Katz's mental image had changed by the time work began. She didn't create a new sketch. 'Once I get the image in my mind, I don't need to look at much for reference,' she said.

卡茨说，我总是想到背景、前景和情节。虽然负责运营的丈夫艾伦(Alan)一开始就画了一张草图，但到创作开始的时候，卡茨心目中的那幅画已经变了。她并不是构造了一张新的草图。她说：“在我脑海中有那张图的时候，我不必经常以它为参照。

To learn about new tools, lights, paints and techniques, Ms. Katz moonlights about 30 days a year at Flix FX, a prop-and-effects-design outfit for film and television. She loves fixing things and 'figuring out how stuff works,' she said. She makes her own Halloween costumes -- usually something gory, such as last year's frozen corpse of a 19th-century Arctic explorer. She always learns something applicable to cakes from these projects, she said.

为学习新的工具、灯光、颜料和技术，卡茨每年在影视道具及特效设计公司Flix FX兼职30天左右。她说，她喜欢鼓捣东西，想象其中的原理。她给自己制作万圣节戏装，通常是某种惨不忍睹的东西，比如去年就是一位19世纪北极探险者的冰冻尸身。她说，从这些项目中，她总会学到某种可用于做蛋糕的东西。

Work on Mr. Dunham's Batman confection began on a Saturday, when she sculpted the cake. As she worked, she glanced occasionally at a toy Batmobile Mr. Dunham had provided. She confidently whacked at the cake, pushing and mushing pieces of it in a flurry of movement. About 30 minutes later, she covered what was unmistakably a 2 1/2-by-4-foot version of the car with a base coat of frosting.

邓纳姆的蝙蝠侠甜品的制作在一个星期六开始，她对蛋糕进行雕刻。工作期间，她不时瞄一眼邓纳姆给的一个玩具蝙蝠车。她胸有成竹地锤打蛋糕，并一团团地飞快揉捏。大约半个小时后，她做出了一台长2.5英寸、宽4英寸的蝙蝠车，给它涂上了打底的糖霜。

On Monday, she covered it with a layer of fondant, a sheet of sugar-based dough, and used a skewer and scalpel to etch details into the surface. On Tuesday afternoon, Ms. Katz finished portrait figurines of Mr. Dunham and his bride. She painted the Batmobile with vegetable oil, giving it a sheen, and used an airbrush to apply gold and pearl-colored powder. She pronounced the car, which looked astonishingly metallic and poised to drive off the platform, the best she'd ever made.

周一，她在蝙蝠车身上抹了一层方旦糖（用糖做的面团），并用扦子和手术刀在表面刻画细节。周二下午，卡茨做成了邓纳姆及其新娘的雕像。她用植物油涂抹蝙蝠车，让它有了光泽，然后用喷枪酒上金色和珍珠色的粉末。车子给人一种惊人的金属感，好像要从平台上开出去一样。卡茨宣布，这是她一生最完美的作品。

A colleague pointed out that a Catwoman figurine lacked kitty-like ears. Ms. Katz looked flummoxed.

一位同事指出，模仿猫女的雕像缺少小猫一样的耳朵。卡茨显得惶惑起来。

'But she's not supposed to be wearing a mask, and Catwoman's ears are on the mask,' Ms. Katz said.

她说，不应该让她戴面具的，猫女的耳朵就在面具上。

'Come on, Elin. It's a cake,' Ms. Pohlman reminded her.

“算了吧，埃琳，它不过是个蛋糕而已。波尔曼提醒她。

'Oh, right,' said Ms. Katz. She grabbed a small pastry bag and piped onto Catwoman a pointy pair of ears.

“哦，对了。卡茨说。她抓起一个小小的挤花袋，给猫女挤出了一对尖尖的耳朵。