The achievements of the Jellymongers of England

Turnstyle News interviewed Sam Bompas and Harry Parr, two English artists who work in the medium of Jell-O.

They are single-handedly changing the way we think of Jell-O. In the U.K., they call it "jelly," so the name of the business started by these gourmet foodies, as fitting as it sounds, is The Jellymongers. And, they're doing just that, mongering around the UK throwing parties with their creations. The public can't seem to get enough. From Buckingham Palace to continental United States, there isn't a shape that doesn't look better when chilled with Jell-O.

Slideshow: English Blokes Make Royalty Out of Jell-O [Turnstyle]

• [wasii]

  Haystacks seem like a good guess for NE and IA. Funny, I suppose that didn’t occur to me because I don’t think I’ve ever seen a haystack. I actually grew up in the American Midwest – part of that in Nebraska. Mechanized balers were introduced generations ago, and in the fields the cut hay is mogrified into the brick or jumbo toilet-paper roll shapes. (I’m sure that wouldn’t occur to most non-farm-state Americans, either, and I certainly am not faulting the creators here.)

  Kansas: Wizard of Oz makes sense. Also, did not mean to exclude the women-farmers of that state with my cross-dressing remark. Regardless, pumps are not really part of the work uniform in agriculture.

  I do like that it depicts the topography of the Rocky Mtns, Sierra Nevadas, and Cascades. And that the Grand Canyon has been etched into Arizona.

• [Gulliver]

  This piece is your piece, that piece is my piece
  From Orangefornia to the Cherry Island
  From the Lemon Desert to the Sugared waters
  This land was baked for you and me.

• [rewhu]

  Tiny, tiny Rhode Island. Did it even get its own custom mold or is it just a trimming from New Mexico?

• [wasii]

  Granted, it’s dessert-art, and the creators are novelty Jello-men from another land – but still, some of the regionally-symbolic-Monopoly-piece-like additions to the map are just too obscure for me to figure out.

  There are some easy ones. Texas: cowboy hat. Ok. Florida: space shuttle. Check. (etc…)

  But then we have:
  Nebraska & Iowa: Thimbles? Daleks? Corn ingots? The Maginot Line? Jello molds? (that seems too meta)
  Kansas: High-heeled shoe? Is KS known for cross-dressing farmers in Britain? (Wait – I’m guessing T-storm & tornado)
  Have Cleveland’s rulers erected a pyramid lately? What’s dangling from Connecticut? Whatever it is, I notice that Los Angeles is much better endowed in that category. And Georgia?

  I’m not trying to mock. (How could you mock Jello America?) But I’d bet molding/sculpting those things took as much time as the map itself so presumably they’re symbolic of something. And I guess I’m curious as to what mental associations two young English guys have with various US states.

  • [Cefeida]

    When Europeans hear Kansas, they think Dorothy and ruby slippers. Don’t know about the rest.

  • [Gemma]

    As Cefeida says, Kansas has to be to do with the Wizard of Oz. I was about to say it was a shoe from the Wicked Witch of the West, but Dorothy makes even more sense.

    Nebraska & Iowa: haystacks?

    Georgia: peach?

    No decent suggestions for the others.

• [Anonymous]

  Haystacks in NE and IA? I couldn’t figure it out either, but nothing says farms like haystacks. I guess.

• [knoxblox]

  Mmmm…gelatin desserts!

  BTW, those who are at least my age should recognize the significance of my handle.

• [Rich Keller]

  There’s some aspic about this that just doesn’t gel with me. But it looks like they left some wiggle room for interpretation.

• [EH]

  “…crafted by artisans who work exCLUsively in ze medium off Gummi.”

• [jungletek]

  Did Long Island crash into CT?

• [sukaton]

  Awesome work! Looks like they’re really having fun & taking their medium to the extremes.

  A long, long time ago (2002?), in a galaxy not so far away (Hamburg, Germany), I worked as assistant for visual artist Michael Dörner, who made plenty of jelly-art back then. Have a look at the older works on http://michaeldoerner.de/installation.html