Have your art and eat it too: Japanese artist's lockdown breakfast ritual goes global

A Japanese artist has won tens of thousands of admirers from across the globe with her new-found hobby of creating toast art - something she has been doing every day since April when she started working from home due to the pandemic lockdown.

Japanese artist Manami Sasaki has big overseas fans for her Instragram which features images of her 'Toast Arts'. Source: Manami Sasaki

Tokyo-based artist Manami Sasaki has been creating art on toasts since April this year when Japan went into a soft lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic.  As Ms Sasaki started working from home, the toast art started as a way to avoid slacking off during the time she saved on her daily commute.

She says she wanted to create an exciting morning routine, and she decided to turn bread into her canvas and create toast art for breakfast.

She only uses edible materials for her art creations - it's her breakfast after all, and the toast must not only be pretty but delicious as well. 

"Finishing the toast as breakfast is a very important part of my art. If you make breakfast which is not delicious, you can't start the day feeling good," Ms Sasaki tells SBS Japanese.

Japanese artist Manami Sasaki is making her Toast Art. Source: Manami Sasaki

Usually, the entire process of creating one toast artwork takes three hours, but she has spent up to six hours on some of her more intricate artistic breakfast projects.

Like any other work of art, toast art involves different steps, including planning, drawing and sourcing the right materials.

Karesansui - aka Zen Toast by Japanese artist Manami Sasaki Source: Manami Sasaki

Ms Sasaki says she normally plans the design the previous evening and then sources the required ingredients from her local supermarket to keep everything ready to create her breakfast the next morning. 

And she has created some rules for herself that she sticks to. 

"To draw a picture, it would be easier if you make the ingredients into a paste, like paints.  But I won't do that.  I have this commitment to using the ingredients as they are as much as possible.  The shape, the colour, the texture; I try to keep them all."

But it doesn't just end there. Once a toast artwork is finished, she bakes it. 

"I upload both photos of the toast before and after toasting.  I'd like to show the changes brought by toasting.  If you use cheese, the drawing becomes softer.  Some ingredients change their shape because of the heat.  It's all of these special elements that a simple piece of toast can bring," she says.

She often creates artworks involving the Japanese culture as a way of showcasing it to her over 40 thousand followers across the world.

Through the toast art, she displays some aspects of her native culture and has paid tribute to several Japanese artists and poets but also to Pablo Picasso and Dutch painter Pieter Mondrian.

Ms Sasaki is now planning to publish a photo book of her artworks and hold an art exhibition where guests will be able to eat the toast art on display.

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