I couldn't be more honored to be commissioned to paint this memorial to an artist and a food memory of him.

Aaron Huffman was the co-founder and basseplayer for the alt-rock band Harvey Danger. He co-wrote one of my favorite ear-worms, the infectious upbeat song, "flagpole Sitter. He was also the art director for the Seattle Newspaper The Stranger. One day Aaron walked past Cakespy, a shop that later inspired me to paint a new (cheese) series of paintings for a show there, had my "Challah" print in the window. Later I learned "One day in 2010, Aaron Huffman sent me an email that just said, "what if we had a painting of challah bread on the cover? Something about this is kind of funny".

The paper reached out and paid me for the use of the image but never explained why. When I received a copy of it, I was still mystified, so I shrugged and moved on. Six years later, the paper asked if once again they could use the image. IT was for a memrial post about Aaron who had just passed away. Chris Frizzelle's contribution choked me up when he told the story about his friendship and the memory of the challah cover image.

This past week, Mindy Huffman, Aaron's wife, found that post of mine on instagram from 2016 and hoped to get the Challah Painting. All I could offer her was a print since the painting was sold years ago. After looking up his instagram account in curiosity, I noticed his profile photo. I agreed to send a print to Mindy and said "one day perhaps I'll have to paint an angel food cake like his IG photo". She hadn't considered that and immediately commissioned it so her and her son would have it by his birthday on June 23rd.

Mindy told me the significance of Angel Food Cake: "it was his favorite cake and he had it for every birthday, and it was our wedding cake (in miniature, cupcake size), too. But he loved it so much that he made one almost every month just because. He would cut himself a slice this size and didnt use utensils. He would just pick it up and eat it from his hand. It's funny the memories that you hold onto the strongest, and I can still picture him eating that cake and it always makes me smile."

R.I.P. Aaron Huffman

Origin: USA, Seattle

Availability: sold