Give a bunch of super-crafty DIY types the theme of "indulgence," allow time for their creativity to fester, and what do you get?

You get Sugarcraft, more than a month of sugar chandeliers, felted ice cream cones, watermelon earrings, and any other food-cum-craft project that you could dream up. The designers range from Heidi Kenney of My Paper Crane fame, who crochets food items complete with googly eyes and facial expressions, to the UK's Alison Tennant, who makes confections out of polymer clay - at a 1:12 scale.

Any way you slice it, these artists have some great ideas about indulgence and how it is represented in various mediums (sand art, sugar, paint, needlepoint...the list goes on and on). Go ahead: indulge yourself in a few photos from this year's Sugarcraft. And if you want to see them in person, get over to Chicago - it's going on through August 9.

There are some cooks who will tell you that pork fat is the most flavorful fat for cooking and frying. Others will swear that duck or goose fat will produce the best results. Chilean artist Marco Evaristti has a different idea about what sort of fat will prodce great tasting results. Evaristti underwent a liposuction procedure and used his own fat to prepare a meal, a meal that merged shock art and haute cuisine.

The artist made 48 meatballs and fried them with the fat and served them to guests - a combination of friends and patrons of the arts - along with a serving of agnolotti pasta at a dinner at the Animal Gallery in Santiago. If any of the guests had second thoughts about digging into their plates, Evaristti reassured them by saying "You are not a cannibal if you eat art."

The remaining meatballs, since not all of them were served at the dinner, were canned in groups of 10 and will be sold for $4,000 per can.

The first North American exhibition of the work of eccentric Brazilian artist Artur Barrio is on display at the Levy Gallery at the Moore College of Art and Design in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The exhibit, entitled Actions after Actions, features lots and lots of coffee. Over 1400 pounds of roasted and ground espresso fill the almost cave-like gallery space, with grounds covering the floor and what was once liquid splashed upon the walls. The smell of coffee not only permeates the 1,800 square foot gallery, but has spread through much of the school's campus. Some students enjoy the smell, not minding when the craving for a fresh espresso suddenly hits them after inhaling a large breath of air. Others experience headaches and irritation brought on by an inability to rid themselves of the aroma of the grounds after a gallery visit.

The exhibit also includes 250 bottles of wine and 200 loaves of bread, as well as 100 pounds of shellac, an insect secretion that was imported from France. The wine is available for guests to drink, but no drinkable coffee is available at the exhibit. Admission is free and the gallery is open Tuesday through Friday from 10am to 5pm and weekends from 12 noon to 4pm, if you are in the neighborhood. For directions, see the map or simply follow your nose. The exhibit runs though March 19, 2006.

[Photo by Levy Gallery]

I recently became acquainted with the paintings of Will Cotton. I'll be up-front here and tell you that I don't really have the visual art background to say anything too insightful about Cotton's work. I could probably venture as far as saying that it reminds me of a combination of Maxfield Parrish and Willie Wonka. Cotton paints sticky-sweet landscapes of candy and chocolate, often inhabited by alluring female figures in various states of repose. A recent New York Times article followed Cotton to Paris as he sought inspiration from a famous macaroon maker. "I'm interested in depicting an imagined utopia, a place that's only about pleasure," Cotton told the Times. Props to anyone to can work Zebra Cakes into that vision.