Reclining Rice Krispie Treat Nude: A Self-Portrait
Liz Slagus
2024
Medium: Butter, Marshmallows, Rice Krispies
This is my first stab at regularly posting about living in my larger, sexual body, which seeks pleasure and deals with discrimination. Enter: the Reclining Rice Krispie Treat Nude: A Self-Portrait!
I am not a sculptor and I certainly haven’t worked in this ‘medium’ before. The process was fun, funny, sticky, delightful, enlightening, and I recommend it to EVERYone!
I started by gathering my three ingredients: Rice Krispies, butter, and marshmallows.
The next step was studying my naked body in the mirror and drawing myself. It didn’t hurt. I didn’t feel bad. I didn’t feel fat. I drew the contors of my body and I didn’t hate what I saw.
I then melted the butter to a nutty brown, stirred in the marshmallows, and watched as the fluffy white blobs transformed into a luscious golden glue. Then I got to do that part that my mom would let me do as a child. I poured in the Rice Krispies into the sweet buttery concotion and listened to Snap, Krackle, and Pop do their thing. It was a sweet lullaby and memory in one.
I worked fast to gather mounds of the rice cereal treat into a body that resembled my own. I worked off of my drawing quickly but tenderly to smooth rough edges and create truthful curves. After a few minutes I had a mini version of me, and I liked her. I wasn’t confronted by an ugly truth. I sculpted my truth and I was proud of what I accomplished with cereal, butter, and marshmallows. I made a sweet likeness of me without judgement or anyone else dictating how I should feel about me and my body.
I wish I could feel this pride and self-confidence time I look in the mirror and judge myself based on a lifetime of judgements handed to me in the name of care or slung in hate. I wish I could feel beautiful because I say I am and not rely on opinions or compliments from others.
The act of making this piece reminded me of my first art world crush, the Venus of Willendorf. I worshipped her for the very gorgeous curves I could not accept on my own body. Why can I not always see in myself what I admire in others? I wish for myself and any person who has ever felt too big, too much, too curvy, and/or too fat–to find the same comfort, delight, beauty, and power in own bodies and curves that we do in others.
I crafted an afternoon to examine myself with a delicious medium that I absolutely ate when I finished. In fact, Paul and I had a great time picking my body apart once I finished…and not in the way my body is most often picked apart by myself and others! This time it was pure pleasure, all on my terms!
