Ray Bernoff

@rmhbernoff.bsky.social

80 Followers 127 Following

Pleased to report that I continue to be a big fat disabled trans man. I make stuff. Worcester, MA raybernoff.com

A 12" square painting with many small items glued to it mosaic-style. A strip at the top of the painting is white, with all white and transparent items; the rest is blue, with areas that have a green background and show the original color of the items. The painting includes pens and pencils, resin scraps with a hexagonal tiled pattern, and a candy wrapper chain.
Change, a juried exhibition produced and juried by the Future Arts Workers. On View May 20-June 21. Public reception: Wednesday, May 20, 6-8 pm. ArtsWorcester, 44 Portland Street, Worcester MA.
Split screen. Screen 1: A bright orange potato chip and apple, and a fork. Screen 2: a close-up of a red and blue painting with beads glued to it saying "are you positive", "but", and "how can we know".
Recipe card with block printed beans and can. 2-3 Tbsp rendered bacon fat, olive oil, or butter 1 onion, finely diced or pureed (or 1/2 tsp onion powder) 1 clove garlic, minced (or 1/2 tsp garlic powder) 1 Tbsp tomato paste (optional) 1 tsp vegetable, beef, or chicken bouillon paste, such as Better Than Bouillon (optional) 1 Tbsp smoked paprika 2 tsp cumin 1/2 tsp dried basil 1/2 tsp oregano, preferably Mexican Generous pinch ancho or cayenne chili powder Pepper to taste Salt to taste 1-2 Tbsp maple syrup or brown sugar (optional) Two 15-ounce cans pinto, kidney, or black beans 1/4 cup bourbon whiskey, brandy, or beer 1 tsp lime juice Heat fat in a heavy-bottomed pot. If using fresh onion and garlic, sweat them. If using tomato paste and/or bouillon paste, cook out. Add spices and herbs and warm until fragrant, about a minute. Deglaze with alcohol. Pour beans, including bean canning liquid, into the pot. Reduce until bean liquid is thickened to close to desired consistency. Stir in lime juice just after removing from heat. The beans will thicken as they cool. You can mash the beans with a fork or potato masher if yo`u prefer a smoother texture.
A square, gridlike composition of Wahl clipper blades and mixed brands of double-sided razor blades on a background of clipper instructions and razor blade wrappers. Rustlike orange paint mars the grid.
A mixed media collage on canvas. The main colors are red and blue, exploding out from the center. Beads with letters on them spell "WHAT IF YOU'RE WRONG / BUT / MAYBE / BUT / ARE YOU POSITIVE / BUT / HOW CAN WE KNOWWEKNOWWEKNOWWEKNOW..."
A square abstract art piece, blue at the edges and turning green in the middle. It has many pieces of art waste -- pens, brushes, scraps of material and jewelry -- attached to it.
A stellated icosahedron covered in silver mirror tile
An abstract painting on canvas. The background is blue and the foreground is deep purple, dimensional swirls and speckles of red-painted art trash.
A mixed media assemblage on a square piece of plywood. The piece is mostly yellow, with a grid of multicolored foam circles. One circle is decorated to look like a happy face.
A mixed media assemblage on a rectangular canvas. The background is half purple and half multicolor paper towel. Paint tubes, paint brushes, and pens/pencils are arranged in a gridlike pattern on top.
A square assemblage. A cluster of trash bursts out at the center, while a ring of the word FUCK cut out of small pieces of wood and painted blue and green expands outward over a red background.
A rectangular assemblage with a paint-stained paper towel background and a cluster of wooden and metal clay tools and popsicle sticks in the foreground.
A square multimedia assemblage. The background is blue, with a paint-covered paper towel, paint-dipped tongue depressors, and runoff from acrylic paint pouring over top.
A square multimedia assemblage. Red and green tissue paper and rhinestones, pieces of mirror, and assorted arts trash partially cover the plywood base, on which the plywood product information is still partly visible.
A plate of cranberry sauce, cheddar, St Andre, cranberry Wensleydale, and gluten-free yeasted rolls with butter and apple butter
A Thanksgiving cactus blooming with flaming pink flowers
A tall, narrow, small abstract red and purple painting on a piece of plywood.
A 1:12 scale miniature of a patio cluttered with plants and gardening implements
A square wooden assemblage. The background is navy fading into a bright lime green center. Broken, dirty paintbrushes are arranged in a ring that extends beyond the edges of the background.
A large-scale collage on canvas featuring art trash and several smaller pieces of art such as failed prints, paintings on mini canvases and Shrinky Dinks. The color scheme is white and dark red with hints of pink and green. Kiwi cross section block prints appear across the piece.
Light and Tender Cream Biscuits YEAR: 2021 Fuck-up: mixed up baking powder and baking soda I have long been a fan of Serious Eats’ cream biscuits. When my husband KC stayed with me and my parents in 2021, I was excited to share the biscuits with him. I made a double batch. I accidentally swapped baking soda for baking powder, making several dozen beautiful, fluffy biscuits that tasted like chemicals. I have since made them for him, correctly, but I worry that their poor first impression still haunts them.
Dream Cake YEAR: 2017 Fuck-up: Forgot an ingredient when writing down recipe I had a dream about this cake. It was being handed out in slices as samples in my local Stop and Shop. The cake had a thick layer of almond-flavored frosting on the top with pistachios pressed into the surface. I’d never seen anything like it. When I woke up, I knew I needed to replicate it. I Frankensteined several cake recipes I found online together into a new recipe for the cake. It was great. Every time I or my friend Kayden made it after that, it turned out dense and goopy. It took at least two years for me to realize that I had neglected to include flour when writing out the Franken-recipe.
Chocolate Chip Cookies YEAR: 2012 Fuck-up: Used salt instead of sugar There weren’t enough snacks at Homeschooling Teen Night at my friend Edward’s house, so I baked chocolate chip cookies. I was deathly afraid of salmonella, so I did not taste the raw dough. This meant that I didn’t notice until the cookies were baked and cooled that the large, unlabeled container of white powder in Edward’s parents’ pantry was full of table salt, not white sugar. My worst offense came later, when I neglected to throw the cookies away before going home. Edward’s younger brother and his friends arrived, saw the cookies on the counter, and thought “Sweet, they left a treat for us!” I got some angry texts that night.
Lemon Curd Bars YEAR: 2011 Fuck-up: Used decorative sugar instead of white sugar I was in the habit of making sweet baked goods for my writing group. I was also in the habit of starting a recipe without first checking if all the ingredients were available. Partway through a batch of lemon curd bars, I used up the last of the white sugar and still needed more. Instead of giving up, I used decorative sanding sugar. The sugar was colored. My journal at the time describes the off-tasting, technically edible finished bars as “frightening horrible neon radioactive slime mold vomit orange”. My mother was angry that I had used up all the sugar and butter in the house. I don’t think she noticed I had also used up all the lemons.
Sweet Potato Gnocchi YEAR: ca. 2004 Fuck-up: Didn’t boil sweet potatoes My mom asked my dad, who is not known for his cooking skill or experience, to make dinner one night because she was going to be busy. I helped. We scrutinized the steps of the recipe closely, but we missed one important detail: the ingredient list called for boiled sweet potatoes. We went through the entire recipe using raw sweet potatoes. At the end, we were surprised to be left with gobs of dough full of crunchy potato chunks instead of pillowy gnocchi.
A vertical rectangular wall assemblage of paint and jewelry on canvas. The jewelry and some of the paint are silver, and the rest is splotches of dark green.
A vertical rectangular wall assemblage made of arts-related trash. The top half of the assemblage is vertical rainbow stripes and the bottom half is painted solid white.
A close-up of a blue and green multimedia assemblage with cardboard, pens, and bits of plastic
A rectangular art assemblage made of art trash, mostly discarded beads and pieces of jewelry. Most of the piece is bright yellow, but a triangular strip passes through the middle where the background is purple and the trash is unpainted.
Pomegranate arils, apple slices, wildflower honey in a plastic bear, and homemade gf challah on a plastic cutting board
KC and Ray, a transmasculine couple, posing in front of a giant fake brick on a city street
A mauve and apricot sunset from a mountain road, with a car pulled off on the shoulder and pine trees to either side
A 24" by 36" multimedia painting. The background is green with red and blue spilled over it. The bottom half is full of paint-splotched art trash -- empty paint tubes, paper towels, gloves, bits of foam, and so forth, which spill upwards through the composition.
A square wooden assemblage covered in art-based trash, including jewelry scraps, pens and pencils, and 3d printing offcuts. The edges of the assemblage are painted black. The background fades into orange at the center, leaving the trash itself exposed there.
A rectangular art assemblage made of art trash, mostly discarded beads and pieces of jewelry. Most of the piece is bright yellow, but a triangular strip passes through the middle where the background is purple and the trash is unpainted.
A small rectangular purple art assemblage made from art-related trash. Multiple heart-shaped objects and a big piece of yellow foam poke out of the purple paint.
Tiny arugula plants sprouting from a black 10x20" plant flat
A wooden tray abstractly painted with thick layers of blue, green, pink, and yellow paint. The background layer of paint is matte and the thick globs of paint over top of that are glossy.
A large assemblage on a rectangular piece of wood. Empty paint tubes are arranged in a regular horizontal/vertical pattern, with different colored rectangles behind each tube.
A 6" square wall panel covered in trash. Some of the trash is inherently pink (markers, paint tubes) and some of it is painted pink.
A 3 x 5" blue, white, and yellow assemblage on an clayboard panel. Scraps of material are glued to it, including wire, a transparent resin outlet plate, and a dangling chain with a silver bead on the end.