Sculptor Alan Parkinson talks about bread

I got to know Alan Parkinson through his bread. He brought some to a pot-luck lunch we were both attending. It was a splendid fat oval braid (see photo below), still warm from the oven. I noticed during the meal that the mostly French guests kept breaking off just one more little piece of this incomparably fresh loaf that somehow managed to pair lightness with deep heart-and-soul warming substance and satisfying taste. The bread was soon gone.

It was only some time later, when I visited one of Alan’s incredible Luminaria sculptures in Gex, France (where Parkinson lives with wife Isabella, an executive with a multinational in Geneva, and their children) that I discovered his artistry extends well beyond bread-making.

Take a look at his website www.architects-of-air.com to get a better feel for Alan’s PVC creations. Anyone tempted to think ‘bouncy castle’ has another think coming. Sheer size and technical wizardry aside (see photo above), the awe they inspire is similar to what you feel when you enter a Gothic cathedral although padding about in stocking feet is more akin to wandering around an Asian temple.

The global references and sophistication of Luminaria forms are marvels for the mind, but the luminosity of the colors and cocoon-y feel , this ‘walking on air’, are a stimulus to senses and spirit. They bring out both playfulness and a tranquility that has many visitors sitting on the floor leaning against a wall in a state of sheer mindless contentment - rather the way you feel eating Alan’s bread.

I know light plays a major role in your art, but how about lightness, airiness, which is at once an ethereal almost abstract quality that you make tangible and very real to the senses - would you say that your work and your baking share something there?

Lightness is certainly a motivation in my work - several of my structures are named ‘Levity’ - but I wouldn’t say lightness or airiness are an appeal in the bread making.

What they do have in common is that they entail hospitality, sharing, and a bit of showing off.

When I was lining up this interview you told me others had also seen parallels between your sculpture and the bread you bake: can you give me examples of some of the comparisons they make?

I think the principal point of similarity for them was the notion of inflation.

What parallels do you yourself see?

There’s a sculptural element to both - the plaited breads share an undulating modular structure with my more recent ‘Luminaria’. And I do like the rounded forms.

Then there’s the process of creating something which then undergoes a process (inflation/ baking) which modifies the form. There are often surprises in both ‘media’ and I like the accidental aspect.

There’s also an ‘event’ element to both - the creation of a celebratory loaf  as big as my oven can manage has a parallel with a ‘Luminarium’.

When and why did you start baking, what was the appeal, and why do you continue?

I started in the early 70’s - it was kind of the done thing - Whole Earth Catalogue, Crosby Stills and Nash, Tassajara Bread Book. I think the bread recipes I tried were maybe too ‘wholemealy/ worthy’  (there’s a type of healthy / saintly / worthy / low fat / cooking that abhors salt, sugar etc. which insists on whole grain and is invariably brown - and which is not a pleasure to eat. In fact, I’ve had some nice wholefood-style meals and I’m being very foodist - but the bad meals I’ve had justify the prejudice.)

A decade later I came across a simple recipe for a Puglia variety of bread - using plain white flour. At that time ciabatta was a new thing in the UK - I liked it and hoped this Pugliese recipe would be like that which it wasn’t. However, the recipe didn’t fail and so I kept on.

Another decade on and I was travelling with the structures and lifestyle was too unsettled to bake. But 2002 saw the birth of my daughter Zoé and it seemed natural to bake a ‘welcome home’ loaf and to start enjoying again the feeling of settling down as symbolized by the domesticity of baking.

I still enjoy being at home and bread is part of that enjoyment. I don’t have a fixed routine but I usually make up a quantity of dough at least once a week - generally putting some in the fridge for pizza later and using the rest to make a normal loaf and a fruited loaf.

If there are a few children around we might also do some experimental little loaves with stuffings of their choice. I keep doing it because my family like it - I’m always surprised and gratified when Zoé goes for a huge chunk fresh out of the oven.

The type of sculpture you make isn’t tactile in the creation phase, would say that the tactility of baking is part of your attraction to it?

Yes, it is. I like the physical aspect of the kneading and the forming. Bread making can be a form of creation without the pressure of self-consciousness that comes with making other objects.

I’m a kind of thought artist - i.e. I like creating things in my mind but can’t bear the hard-work of making things in reality. Bread-making spares me the stress of making choices - it can be very routine and unreflective so I don’t put up any resistance.

Is there a comparable feeling of ‘flow’ when you’re making drawings for a new sculpture and when you bake? Talk me through the similarities and differences of process.

I’ve heard about this ‘flow’ - if it happens it’s rare enough for me to have forgotten about it. Maybe when I’m immersed in a design, maybe one or two days a year…

Presumably when you see visitors wandering through your ‘Luminaria’ absolutely enchanted, and observe the delight of the considerably smaller group privileged enough to eat the bread you bake, you feel a kind of satisfaction that you have nurtured people albeit in very different ways?

That’s an interesting parallel to draw and I guess I’d go along with nurturing notion - and yes, it can be satisfying.

Alan shares his bread recipe with us below.

Visuals courtesy of the artist.

The sculpture is ‘Arcazaar’, photographed on the beach at Ijmuiden, Netherlands (aerial view by Patrick de Koning).

Bread Recipe
- based on an Italian Pugliese recipe
- I use this recipe at least once a week. It makes 2 large loaves but usually I make one
loaf with half the dough and keep the rest in the fridge for making pizza for the kids
- It’s also good for making ornamental loaves for special occasions and seems to adapt
well to different ovens.

Here coming out of a wood-fired oven in Southern Spain:
1kg flour (I use plain white baking flour – not a specific bread flour)
2 teaspoons salt (2 x 5ml)
2 tablespoons (2 x 15ml) dried yeast (I use the type that can added directly to flour)
4 tablespoons olive oil (4 x 15ml)
550 ml tepid water
+ flour for handling
+ corn meal for sprinkling on baking tray to stop the dough sticking
Mix dry ingredients. Add wet ingredients and knead until homogenous. Leave to stand in
mixing bowl covered by a wet cloth for 1 hour minimum.
Make into loaves (not a lot of kneading) and put on a baking tray that has been sprinkled
with corn meal or flour to stop the bread sticking. Cover with wet cloth and leave to rise for
30 minutes. Turn on oven 200°C
After second rising (if appropriate make deep incisions in the top of the loaf and sprinkle
flour) put in middle of oven for 25 - 35 minutes depending on shape of loaf.