Cakeland

I’m still working on my exploration of Oakland on foot. Right now I’m in north Oakland, a rough neighborhood that, like every other part of town, does have some nice surprises.

One that I discovered recently is a storefront on Shattuck Avenue that I at first took to be a bakery—from across the street, I could see that it had a sign saying “Cakeland,” and there was what appeared to be an enormous cake in the window.

Closer inspection showed Cakeland to be an art installation by a local artist named Scott Hove, who specializes in large-scale pieces. The gallery is open by appointment only, so I didn’t go in. The part I could see through the window looked like what would happen if Louis IV and the Marquis de Sade had opened a patisserie together. There’s a lot of pink, a lot of rococo accents, and lots of little sets of fangs poking out of blobs of frosting.

I’ve said before that I like to give my thought process a little something to gnaw on when I’m walking, and I got it that day.