A candy apple is almost impossible to separate from the experience surrounding it.
County fairs, carnivals, autumn festivals, Halloween celebrations, local events, and family outings all gave the candy apple its place in American childhood. The hard red shell made the ordinary apple seem transformed into something special.
American Material Memory often begins with that transformation. An everyday object becomes meaningful because of where we encountered it and who was there when we did. The candy apple isn’t simply something we ate. It can represent an afternoon at the fair, the sound of carnival rides, cool autumn air, and the feeling that something ordinary had temporarily become extraordinary.
From the Artist:
As a kid, growing up in Algonac, Michigan, a small town set alongside the St. Clair River, our entire family would pile into the back of my Dad's 1975, silver-blue Plymouth station wagon and head over to Yates Cider Mill for donuts, caramel and candy apples, and the best apple cider anywhere.
Okay, that was a run-on sentence, but that little fall trip was always amazing when I was a kid.
This drawing is from those memories, and yes, I preferred candy apples to caramel ones, even though I always thought I’d have a filling ripped out because the candy coating was so sticky.
A candy apple is almost impossible to separate from the experience surrounding it.
County fairs, carnivals, autumn festivals, Halloween celebrations, local events, and family outings all gave the candy apple its place in American childhood. The hard red shell made the ordinary apple seem transformed into something special.
American Material Memory often begins with that transformation. An everyday object becomes meaningful because of where we encountered it and who was there when we did. The candy apple isn’t simply something we ate. It can represent an afternoon at the fair, the sound of carnival rides, cool autumn air, and the feeling that something ordinary had temporarily become extraordinary.
From the Artist:
As a kid, growing up in Algonac, Michigan, a small town set alongside the St. Clair River, our entire family would pile into the back of my Dad's 1975, silver-blue Plymouth station wagon and head over to Yates Cider Mill for donuts, caramel and candy apples, and the best apple cider anywhere.
Okay, that was a run-on sentence, but that little fall trip was always amazing when I was a kid.
This drawing is from those memories, and yes, I preferred candy apples to caramel ones, even though I always thought I’d have a filling ripped out because the candy coating was so sticky.
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