Scintillating The Senses

It's not easy to explain a "Sensory Iconoclasts" exhibit until you've seen one.

And even then, says Eve Smith, the conversation isn't over.

"This ongoing narrative has been created. That was something I didn't expect to happen," says Smith, visual arts coordinator at the Arts Center of the Ozarks. "It was all about pairing up the artists and the chefs and showing the community we all kind of live under the same umbrella.

"But when we pair these chefs and artisans together, it creates an ongoing narrative that continues year after year. The community is still talking."

This year, 10 pairs of chefs and artists -- working in many different mediums -- have created artwork as diverse as the partnerships. The exhibition, which includes two- and three-dimensional art and film, will open with a reception from 6 to 8 p.m. Thursday.

Musician Chris Cash, one of the members of indie folk band Edison, can't stop talking about how much fun he had creating a film with chef Jason Paul from Heirloom in Rogers.

"We sat down and came up with this idea," Cash says. "We're all living in a world surrounded by unnatural things, but we can do natural things on top of that. We put those two things together. He decided to try to make a film about creating very natural meals in unnatural places -- on the sidewalk, on a tree stump -- and I made the music soundtrack for that.

"It was such a unique idea, it made me reach to the depths of my artistry. It makes you use all your senses, both literally and figuratively -- and it's been a lot of fun because it's challenging."

Cash says next year he hopes to get the whole band -- which has grown to include Maxwell Hughes, formerly of the Lumineers -- to collaborate to make art. But the foursome will be together to make music at Folk & Food, another piece of the Iconoclasts event set for Sept. 20.

On Thursday, however, the film will represent Cash and Paul while HGTV "Design Star" veteran Dan Faires, a designer in New York, will send a cutting board to embody his collaboration with chef Jerrmy Gawthrop of Greenhouse Grille.

"The main topic is diversity," Faires says, "so I started piecing together all the different types of wood I had in my shop to make a cutting board Jerrmy can use to create his artwork. I wanted to collaborate not only hypothetically but make him something he can use in the process. The diversity comes in with the different types of materials, so I'll incorporate some Carrara marble and some brass to add that unexpected element."

Faires says he tries to "stay as active" as he can in Springdale, where he grew up in "an old farmhouse on 40th Street. It's so great to be able to do something I love for a living -- and I learned 90 percent of what I know renovating that old farmhouse with my dad."

Of course, Smith has rekindled her partnership with Case Dighero, culinary director for Eleven at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art.

"The first year, my work came before his work," she recalls. "He met me in the studio -- he had never been in a figure drawing studio -- and we had fun, and the next day, he went and created his piece.

"But this year, we kind of swapped. He created the culinary piece, and then I created the physical art piece. He was really inspired by the Indian culinary side, so he created something with cardamom, curry, quail, peaches -- this meshing of the Southern traditions with Indian traditions. My piece is going to be about this 10-point trophy wife: It's all about Southern women and how we're portrayed -- with all the gold leaf and blues and greens and pinks and patterns of Indian artwork behind it."

Proving once again, "Sensory Iconoclasts" holds true to its definition:

Sensory: of or relating to sensation or the physical senses; transmitted or perceived by the senses.

Iconoclasts: a breaker or destroyer of tradition.

NAN What's Up on 09/04/2015