Around about this time last year I started to experiment with wafer paper. I loved the way I could make abstract collage effects on cakes and while away the hours making edible paper flowers. I love bright vibrant prints and found myself trawling the internet for cool images that I could use when designing my cakes. Many of the images that attracted me had watermarks across them and of course quite rightly so were subject to copyright! Then I had a lightbulb moment! The images I wanted to reproduce on my cakes were right in front of me on my walls!!
My good friend and Sheffield artist Wendy Carlton's work adorned many of the walls in my house. These images inspired me to create cakes with vibrant colour and they would be perfect on my style of cakes. I approached Wendy with some trepidation to ask if she would like to collaborate with me. What would she say? Would she want her artwork on a cake?! Well the story has a happy ending. Wendy said she'd love to join forces and our collaboration Cake Meets Canvas was born!
Fast forward 12 months and our collaboration was ready to be launched. What better place to showcase it than the iconic Abbeydale Picture House. I chose to use The Fly Tower which is the room behind the screen. This an extremely tall, raw urban space. I thought I needed some help with styling this awesome venue and managed to recruit an army of creative colleagues who loved the space as much as I did.
Zoey O'brien was first up. Zoey is an amazing stylist from Manchester who owns Bespoke Events and Styling and is also half of The Urban Wedding Company . She had a vision of how the room should look and she totally delivered and turned this vision into a reality.
Next to join the team was Marni Vidal of the fabulous Marni V Photography. I had admired her portfolio and was thrilled when she said she'd love to be part of the exhibition. We needed flowers and foliage in this raw environment so next up was the gorgeous Emma from Orchis Floral Design based at Hagglers Corner in Sheffield. Below you can see her dressing a cool macrame arch, the macrame was made by the extremely talented Lucy from Little White Attic. Cake signs and Meet the Artist signs were next on the list so a fellow Geordie was recruited, Cath from Raspberry Toast made some beautiful signs and hand guilded them with copper leaf for that urban edge.
Zoey used velvet and copper accessories to style the bar area. Nadia from Refresh Restyle sent us some bespoke handmade tealight holders and macrame plant holders with copper pipe to use within the decor.
Finally we couldn't resist a photograph or two of the gorgeous original seating in the old cinema and who better than Ed Robinson of Clear Space Photography a talented Sheffield based architectural and interiors photographer to take these.
So as you can see it took a big team of collaborators to get the show on the road, that's not to mention all of our family and friends who helped to move, carry, pack, empty and lug everything from pillar to post. Also a special mention to Nick from Abbeydale Picture House who was a superstar on the night.
So if you'd like to see more pictures and hear more about the exhibition then watch this space. Part 2 will coming very soon.
Lisa x
All Photos by Marni Vidal @ Marni V Photography except for 'green chairs' which was captured by Ed Robinson @ Clear Space Photography