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Health & Fitness

Fruits & Vegetables as Unique, Gorgeous Art & Jewelry

We at Vegan American Princess love to continually learn more about being vegan by looking at it through a prism and watching all the different rainbows of color shoot out! We see the vegan world from so many different angles and perspectives that anything that inspires us provides a fascinating topic to explore. We love to be surprised and delighted when we come across the unusual—who doesn’t? When I saw an article in American Lifestyle magazine, about an artist that actually makes gorgeous and unusual artwork from fruits and vegetables, I knew this was an angle I had never seen and that I needed to know more. 

Utilizing fruits and vegetables to create three-dimensional pieces to be admired or worn as an object of beauty is truly putting the foods we eat on a pedestal.  Margaret Dorfman creates unique bowls and jewelry from over 40 different varieties of fresh fruits and vegetables. The process involves curing, drying, pressing and aging the fruits and vegetables in a 10-14 day time period. She calls the result of her process “vegetable parchment,” in which the magnificent colors and elegant structures that are characteristic of each fruit or vegetable are preserved. The process began when she was “slicing vegetables for dinner one night and saw the light come though a thin piece of zucchini…[She] immediately started thinking of ways to hold and preserve this beauty.” 

We typically see fruits, vegetables and plants as the source of our sustenance—after all, as vegans especially, this is what we consume to nourish our bodies and stay healthy and alive.  But Margaret Dorfman takes a much closer look at these beautiful gems of nature, never taking the rich glowing colors or the complex structures for granted, as we commonly do.

Not only does she create bowls that are surprisingly sturdy and can hold small items and edibles, she uses the same drying process to form her jewelry.  For the necklaces and cuffs, she looks “at how the colors and patterns of the different fruits and vegetables work together to make a visually compelling composition.” The jewelry, which is water resistant, is glazed with a sturdy protective coating and annealed to copper. 

You must see photographs of her work to fully appreciate it's uniqueness and beauty.....See more  at:http://veganamericanprincess.com/fruits-vegetables-as-unique-gorgeous-art/#sthash.P8zIOqcO.dpuf 

Ellen Francis

Vegan American Princess

Voted #2 in Skinny Scoop's Top 25 Vegan Blogs of 2013

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