Jack Cesareo is an artist who travels the nation with his giant cupcake, posing at famous sites, and documenting his travels on Facebook and his own blog. He also works for the American Museum of Natural HIstory but he takes great pride and joy in his cupcake chronicles.
Jack Cesareo is an artist and he's on a journey, his second across America and he's traveling with a cupcake. Not a real cupcake. Well, it's real enough alright, but there's no actual cup or cake or frosting involved.
Like the traveling Expedia Gnome and other funny efforts Cesareo has taken his roughly five foot cupcake (and associated cakes) to Mount Rushmore, Old Faithful, Devils Tower in Wyoming, or just the odd roadside attraction like a giant red wagon, or an enormous mouse with some cheese he encountered in Wisconsin.
Cesaro lives in New York where his day job with the American Museum of Natural History keeps him busy. But every year for a month he takes off for his cupcake tour.
The idea grew out of something he made for a friend's band. "They were doing a piece at The Cake Shop on the lower East Side and I made it big so I could get inside of it." At that event he got a very positive reaction when he slowly emerged from it and "I realized I had a great piece of work here."
Then it started to evolve and just the top was featured in a series of photo shows. He subsequently made a bicycle so he could move the cupcake around New York which led to more photographs. Finally Cesaraeo decided to take it on the road and record his travels on his own site and of course Facebook.
Last year he went from New York to San Francisco and this year his west coaat destination is Portland, Oregon.
Wbat reaction does he get? People are "kind of stunned and I feel like an alien. I know I'm doing something that is fun so there's a lot of positive reaction. It's not like it's a scary thing. So I feel confident. Plus I have my sponsors Sheba, Bobo and Honey Bear" which he explains are his decesased dogs and a honey jar that lives by the side of desk and "his head is full of golden goodness and he tells me things."
Before you think Cesareo has gone off the deep end he says laughing, "It's fun to play. I'm an artist. I'm 56 years old. How many more abstract paintings can I make that someone will appreciate? I'm tired of being in the studio, let's see what happens with this."
The future may see a different cupcake on tour, specificially chocolate (this one is strawberry) and he's considering having a cupcake Bake-In (in a nod to the 60's perhaps) where a wholly new cupcake would appear.
You can follow his cupcake travels on his site http://cupcakeandbicycle.wordpress.com/ or Facebook and bear witness to one man bringing a touch of sweetness to life.
