The Art of Culinary — Dehydrated Exhibition

The Art of Culinary was the third installment in Nicolet College’s “Art of…” exhibition series, highlighting the intersection of occupational programs and the creative arts.

Shelley Novotny’s featured collection, Dehydrated, explored preservation as transformation. Through wearable art constructed with dehydrated fruits, foraged elements, eco-dyed textiles, and layered organic materials, the installation examined how drying reshapes life into texture, memory, and form.

The exhibit included a dress form, kimono, crown, shoes, mounted photographic works printed on eco-dyed fabric, and a dehydrated fruit garland installation.

Viewers were invited into a sensory experience — engaging sight, touch, and smell — to encounter dehydration not as decay, but as resilience.

Later, the photographic works from this series evolved into visual illustrations within Shelley’s book Worn by the Wild, extending the life of the exhibit into published form.

This collection merged culinary themes, natural process, and feminine embodiment — revealing preservation as an act of alchemy.