Brooklyn Cheese Artist Makes Bed of Ham
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Published: June 4, 2004

Filed at 8:32 a.m. ET

NEW YORK (AP) -- An artist best known for decorative cheese has broadened
his palette, or palate, to ham. Cosimo Cavallaro, who once repainted a New
York hotel room in melted mozzarella, has covered a bed in processed ham.
``I feel like I am back in my mother's deli,'' the artist said Thursday.

His installation in a street-level gallery space of the Roger Smith Hotel in
midtown Manhattan involved slicing 312 pounds of ham and tossing the meat on
top of a four-poster bed. The installation, which took 3 1/2 hours, will be
kept in the air-conditioned room for two days.

According to the artist, no concern about cockroaches has been raised.
``They are welcome,'' he said. ``Imagine what this looks like from the point
of view of an insect.''

He added that his cheese exhibits had never attracted a mouse. ``Too much
cheese,'' he said. ``It would have overwhelmed them.''

At noon, Cavallaro, a burly man with long unkempt hair and a beard, was busy
working a chrome meat slicer, similar to one he had used as a youth, working
summers in his mother's delicatessen. ``I was a good slicer back then,'' he
said looking straight ahead as he flipped a handful of sliced ham behind him
onto a growing mound rising from the white sheets.

Outside, pedestrians stopped to peer in through the glass. Some called the
project a waste of food. But nearby delis were said to be picking up
business because the mounds of meat seemed to trigger appetites.

Cavallaro, 41, the son of immigrants from southern Italy, grew up in
Montreal and now lives in Brooklyn.

He asked his mother, who still lives in Montreal, not to attend the
installation. ``She would want to get in on the act,'' he said. But his
father, a metal worker who died two years ago, was less amused by his work.

``His father never let him play,'' said longtime girlfriend Sarah Jacobs.
``That's why he started with the cheese.''

Sliced ham, Cavallaro said, is ``a pure form of America: all kinds of parts,
boiled and pressed together.''

Despite his training in an Italian art school, he said he had rejected
Prosciutto -- ``It would have been pompous.'' He also shelved an idea to do
ham and eggs as ``too pretentious, too thought out.''

But he thinks he will always come back to food as a medium. ``The smells
bring you back to unexpected places,'' he said. ``It's very special.''

Gallery director Matthew Semler said he booked the exhibit for the fun of
it. ``This isn't work, it's play. That's what Cos does,'' he said, referring
to the artist.

Cavallaro says his cheese period ended two years ago, after he had sprayed
five tons of pepper jack over a vacant house in Powell, Wyo.

``I was cloaking myself in cheese. I had started getting comfortable,'' he
explained. ``I always need new boundaries.''

Tonight when we left the pink I hitched a ride with stickboy who was parked just a few yards away. When we got into the car we were cornered off by multiple police. The fuzz were hassling a guy sitting on the steps of what looked like an apartment building. This was going on right across from my passenger side window as I gazed at the spectacle I realized that the passed out guy they were hassling was chief, the same guy I met today while doing my plant watering rounds. The cops were actually fairly kind to him and just made him get up and walk on. While this was happening Keith walked by with the hippie folk he was writing of. It's a small world.

When I was on my plant watering rounds I came across a young chap who introduced himself as chief and he walked with me spouting crazy talk for 7 blocks or so. He invited me to someplace to play Go Fish with him. Crazy but nice.
After the watering I went over to a small garden around bidwell and elmwood. I pulled up a shit load of weeds so y'all should go over and walk through that tiny ass garden and try to appreciate the slightly weeded walkway that goes through it.

It's early. I woke up at one and I've been in front of this machine on and off ever since.
My first day of working went fine. I get to push this big green water barrel around (the water buffalo) and hook up extensions and water the hanging baskets. The first watering stop on my route is right outside paul's, matthew's, and terry's place.
I'll go water my plants around 9. I'm going to go early so I can put in a job application at this taco place I went past the yesterday day. Robin , Plant Waterer, Taco Maker, and Visual Artist. That sounds about right.
Other than that I'm thinking I'll be heading to the pink this evening.

Well, I'm off to Forever Elmwood soon. Working 9 till 1 what a way to make a living! Keep you eyes out for me when you drove down the strip. Soon I will be one of the few and proud who peddle down the street with a watering canister on wheels helping the pretty flowers grow.

I was just reading more of this story and I'm at the part where our hero or anti hero is talking with a prostitute he just fucked after making a drunken ass of himself in front of his old schoolmates.
It seems like a great idea that after living such a solitary, lonely, and miserable existence you can just pick a person up and make them listen to you. It made me long for a prostitute of my own but then I realized how out of the question that is so I started thinking about my trip to Toronto with Jesse all of those weeks ago.
We were walking back to the car after shopping for a ridiculous number of hours when we happened to pass a teenage bum sitting on the cold asphalt outside of a building. I said to Jesse "That's so sad, if I had lots of money I's help her" Jesse was cold and made the point that even if a person is young a bum is a bum and its the same thing and at least a young person has health on their side and things like that. I got his point at the time but looking back. If I had a job or some extra money and I was not burdened with the presence of my then friend. It would have been nice to take the young homeless girl to dinner, have a conversation with her, give myself the moral authority to question and advise her about her life.

I can't sleep.
I want food.
I need Coca~Cola
I want the purple flavored popsicle.
I want something dead and cooked with a reddish orange sauce.
I feel bored.
I feel the pressure on my lower back.
I feel lonely.
I see the same old shit.
I smell stale cigarette smoke.
I wonder what the hell I'm doing up at this hour.
I wish I had 2 million dollars or just 200.
I want a fucking car right now!
I will drive to the end of the earth and fall off.
I think this is all bull shit.
I am wasting my precious time.
I want to eat my time.

I can't sleep. This is from my old fashioned journal. I've realized that I usually only keep a journal when I'm upset. This online journal is somewhat more optimistic than my usual self pity. Here's a little taste of my old offline journal. It's about Matthew Proctor and Me. I wrote it in 2001.

Matthew, today you made me sick. The day started out pretty good. We woke up made love and went back to sleep until 2:00. When we woke up you started to complain about how messy it was. I was annoyed because I'd just woke up and I'd been tired and sick feeling all week, especially on Friday.
So then you started moving the computer and I went downstairs to get a sandwich and you were still moving the computer when I came back. I asked "Why are you in such a bad mood?" and you said "Why do you care?" I think this made me especially angry because we'd just made love a few hours before and then you act as if I care no more for you than some bum in the street trying to get money for his next crack rock.
It hurt my feeling so rather than sitting there upset I decided to leave and be upset by myself. So I grabbed my car keys and smokes and started to leave. I stumbled on some shoes on the way out and you said bye-bye. I can't remember if I said bye back.
First I went to Walmart and then to the thrift store and then to Woodstock. When I got there Barbara told me you called looking for me. I said "good let him suffer" but later when you called I talked to you and told you I wanted to wait for Kelly and Tina to get there. You said "I want to talk to you in person" and I said "I was just there" You said you were washing my laundry.
After that I hung up and went upstairs and smoked a bowl with Eric. Then Kelly and Tina came home. I left Woodstock around 7:00.
When I got home no one was there. I was worried you'd done something stupid but when I walked through the house no one was there. So I got my tuna sandwich out of the refrigerator (I was happy that you had saved it) and sat down to eat.
Then the phone rang. It was hard to hear at first but soon Kristin told me that you had taken to many wellbutrion and she'd taken you to piedmont hospital. I went there almost at once. As soon as I grabbed my stuff. I was crying the whole time.
I want you to know Matthew that if you ever kill yourself, I will hate you forever! That is one thing I could never forgive.
Tonight when I walked into the emergency room your mouth was covered in charcoal. So was your face where you had vomited it up. Also your chest. You had an IV in your arm and monitors stuck all over you. You were very disoriented. You had trouble forming words and got worse as the night went on.
Kristen left around 11 and then It was just you and me. By this point I has cleared most or the charcoal off of your face and teeth. Then you had a seizure and vomited up all of this black shit. That made me cry again. Later after that they decided that you needed a stomach pump. I left the room while they put it in.
I went outside to smoke and a the police officer told me to put it out and I screamed at him "Where is the closest way to get OFF PROPERTY" I was crying again by this point. This is when my headache started.
I went back and I heard you gagging and moaning. I sat in the hall outside your room and cried some more. They had to restrain your hands because you kept trying to pull your tube out. I went back in and you were out of it getting more and more unruly toward the nurse.
They took you to ICU after that and I had to wait in the waiting room for over an hour. From 1:00 to 2:25. In that time my headache got worse and I started vomiting. Finally a nurse came to get me and I went to see you. My water works were still going on. I was not very composed. You were sedated by this point with tubes all over you. The nurse said you couldn't see or move but you could hear.
So she left the room g
iv
ing me a cloth for my scary face. Then I told you that your parents would be there in the morning and I love you but have to go because I was feeling really bad but I'd be back in the morning.


5 Days later and you are still sedated, Matthew. Your parents got here on Sunday morning and your mom's been here the whole time. You dad left a day and drove back. Today I went to see you around 2:00. You were semi conscious when me and Kristin got there.
Your Mom said "Look Matthew, Robin's here" and you started looking around but your eyes couldn't really focus. I grabbed your hand and said "Hey, Matthew" You squeezed my hand and a tear slid out of your eye and that's when I broke and cried again.
I can't take this. I hate this. Why did you do this? What is wrong with you? You hurt me a lot more than I deserve. During the day when I'm walking down the street and I think of you hooked up to all those machines it hurts.
Crying is a strange thing. sometimes I think that I have cried so much I have to be dull to the emotion that causes it but then something triggers it and it starts again.
Your parents confuse me. Kristen wants you to go home for a little while. You really scared her. Today when we were at dinner with your parents Kristin told your Mom that she found one of her friends who committed suicide when she was 14. I haven't asked Kristen anymore about that but I can imagine the bad memories you have dragged up for her. Kristin does not want to be responsible for you and take care of you and neither do I really.
You should be able to take care of yourself. Until this week I didn't realize that I'm supposed to be your fucking caretaker. I just thought that I was your girlfriend and that you were damn lucky to have me. My family is so worried about me.
I called my parents crying on Saturday afternoon. I hadn't talked to anyone since the hospital and getting sick. My dad got worried because I was crying and drove down here with my Mom. They wanted me to come spend a few days at home but I said no I had work to do. Kristin came home when my parents were there. She said she'd driven halfway to South Carolina.
As each day passed I wasn't sure what to do. I've missed you since I left on Saturday and went to the thrift store. You have fucked things up! Why didn't you tell me you were sad? There is a difference between being sad and mad. I was mad when I left on Saturday and quite content when I came back. That is until I went in our apartment and Kristen called. You took 8 wellbutrion apparently a few minutes after I left. Fuck you Matthew. What if I took Wellbutrion right now? The pill bottles are right over there on the shelf. You're not here. Kristen is asleep.