The Press and Journal (Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire)
Artist opens deli but food is not for real
Public art: Products made from felt
A British artist has opened an upmarket delicatessen in New York’s Sixth Avenue – stocked with 30,000 products made from felt.
Each piece in Lucy Sparrow’s store – Delicatessen On 6th – is the same size and weight as it would be in real life, from steaks to bottles of beer and tiny chocolate truffles.
The food emporium features fish, shellfish, sushi, cheese and meat counters as well as a bakery, a patisserie and a stand stocked with more than a dozen varieties of tiny chocolates.
There are bunches of asparagus, spring onions and carrots, Brussels sprouts, potatoes, sweetcorn, onions, peppers, kale and lettuce leaves, and avocado halves.
Strawberries, grapefruit halves, lemons, limes, apples and oranges, watermelons, tomatoes and cucumbers fill the produce section.
Reese’s Puffs cereal, Welch’s Concord Grape Jelly and Oscar Mayer salami are some of the branded products available, along with bottles of Brooklyn lager, Budweiser and Saint Agur cheese.
Shoppers are able to walk through the doors of the store, pick up a basket and select items as they would in any other New York deli as every product is for sale.
Every item is adorned with tiny eyes and a smile
“A plethora of colour and little faces all looking at you”
– except for crying onions – to encourage visitors to consider consumerism and their relationship with the food they buy.
Sparrow, 33, has spent a year creating the thousands of hand-sewn and handpainted products for the shop, signing each one that goes on the shelves.
“When you come through the door of this felt deli, you can see an absolute plethora of colour and little faces looking at you,” the artist, from Bath, Somerset, said.
“The fish counter has everything from lobster tails to octopus tentacles and salmon fillets.
“We have macaroons, a chocolate counter, an entire meat counter with loads of sausages and steaks, so there really is something for everyone.
“Everything has its own personality. This is the most alive deli in New York.
“Putting faces on everyday items that people buy helps them to consider their relationships with them,” she said.
Sparrow said she had received the “best feedback” from visitors to the store – with items such as a $200 (£163) lobster selling out before the shop opened.
The installation, at the Rockefeller Centre, is part of the Art In Focus public art programme.
In 2014, Sparrow opened a fully-stocked felt Cornershop in London, as well as a supermarket named Sparrow Mart in Los Angeles in 2018.