Pho­tog­ra­pher Amy Stevens cel­e­brated her 30^th birth­day by buy­ing her­self a cake dec­o­rat­ing kit, ful­fill­ing her long­time fas­ci­na­tion with the artistry and pre­ci­sion of beau­ti­fully made cakes. She dreamed of cre­at­ing the per­fect cake.

After many failed attempts, she real­ized that cake mak­ing, like any art form, requires prac­tice and great patience. Though dis­ap­pointed, she didn’t stop bak­ing. Instead, she decided to bake cakes that were uniquely her own. The cakes are visual expe­ri­ences meant to be pho­tographed, not eaten.

The cakes are inten­tion­ally humor­ous, posed in front of col­or­ful pat­terned fab­rics (from reprode­pot). The lay­ers are often off-center, some­times crum­bled, with icing that has been applied hur­riedly and obsessively.

In her own words, from Eye Buy Art:

“The Con­fec­tions Series started as a response to turn­ing 30. It was a cel­e­bra­tion of birth­days, cake, color, pat­tern and obses­sive absur­dity. My orig­i­nal intent was to bake 30 birth­day cakes for myself and pho­to­graph them. I didn’t quite make it to 30 cakes in time for my first show. I ordered a cake dec­o­rat­ing kit from MarthaStewart.com and watched the instruc­tional video that came with the pack­age. I quickly dis­cov­ered my cakes were never going to look like the ones in the video and the pam­phlet, and I was free to make them as grotesque and amaz­ing as possible–my lit­tle rebellion.”