Fun_People Archive
20 Feb
NW Kultur Kalendur - Spam Art: Creations from a Can

Date: Tue, 20 Feb 96 13:51:11 -0800
From: Peter Langston <psl>
To: Fun_People
Subject: NW Kultur Kalendur - Spam Art: Creations from a Can

Forwarded-by: bostic@bsdi.com (Keith Bostic)
Forwarded-by: DNWU64A@prodigy.com ( KEITH E SULLIVAN)
From: _The Seattle Times_, Friday, February 16, 1996.

SPAM ART: CREATIONS FROM A CAN
by Jean Godden -- Times Staff Columnist

Brace yourself.  The seventh annual Spam Carving Contest, a spectacle that
draws scores of bystanders and attracts its share of national press, comes
to Pioneer Square's Occidental Mall from 2 to 4 p.m.  tomorrow.

Contestants who pay $5 -- proceeds go to Northwest AIDS Foundation -- have
15 minutes to fashion two cans of Spam into an _objet d'art_.  Plastic
gloves and knives are supplied, but contestants can -- and often do -- bring
their own arsenals:  Swiss Army knives, graters, slicers, garlic presses
and antique dentistry tools.

Past creations have been winsome and witty.  Among the winning titles:
"Spammy Wynette singing 'Spam by Your Man,'" "Three Spams of the I-90
Bridge," and "Going to Hell in a Spam Basket."

This year, judges include novelist Tom Robbins, designer David Staskowski,
cable TV personality Brian Brock and Gary Trott of Subculture Joe, the art
group responsible for shackling the "Hammering Man" statue.  There's and
outside chance that Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder may help pick the winners.

Not long ago, someone asked "Dr. Science" of Ducksbreath Theatre about Spam.
His reply:  "The Spam is a living animal, cloned from hot-dog tissue and is
the only mammal with no hair, teeth or bones, which is why people so seldom
choose to photograph it.  It's only relative is a synthetic jelly fish, the
Velveeta."

© 1996 Peter Langston