Yield, 2011-2020

An interest in the language of the kitchen led me to undertake a cookbook erasure project in the spring of 2011. My goal was to siphon through the recipes of outdated cookbooks and find moments of sensitive or suggestive text. By blacking out surrounding information, the reader is suddenly forced to focus on an unexpected storyline. Other aspects of this project involved stitching and sewing into the paper as a means to integrate my own text into the cookbook script.

The cookbook pages themselves turned into an installation project, Yield, that was installed in numerous locations between 2011 and 2020. Yield combines these pages, tense from having text selectively removed, with the intentional addition of screen printed pieces denoting the word “yield” in commanding red letters. These works, printed on burlap and sacks for grain and flour, connote a multiplicity of meanings. "Yield" is simultaneously an output, a result, an agricultural quantity, a serving size found in recipes, a compliance, and a submission.