Bobby Baker trained as a painter but soon found it hard to express her ideas in paint alone and turned instead to sugar and cake as more expressive media, presenting edible works of art to the public through performance. She has danced with meringue ladies, recreated the history of modern painting in sugar and made a life-size cake family in a sugar-decorated prefab entitled "An Edible Family in a Mobile Home". ln the 1979 Hayward Annual she served the audience with a meticulously prepared "Packed Lunch". ln 1980 she had the first of her two children and did no live performance work until 1988 when she first presented "Drawing on a Mother's Experience", a piece which told the story of those years and marked her come-back to live art. Since then she has received many commissions, including "Cook Dems" from the Third Eye Centre, Glasgow and "Kitchen Show" from LIFT '91. "Kitchen Show" premiered from Bobby's own London kitchen, receiving unprecedented critical acclaim and media attention. The piece has since toured to 'guest' kitchens in Britain, Europe, Australie and Canada. That same year Bobby won the Time Out/Dance Umbrella Performance Award.
Another LIFT commission followed in 1993 with "How To Shop". Taking the form of a lecture on the art of supermarket shopping, it demonstrated the possibilities we all have in our daily lives to transform the ordinary into the sublime.
"Drawing on a Mother's Experience" is a performance piece that remains a strong favourite for many of us familier with Bobby's work. To listen to her personal story unravel within the action painting in front of you is one of those rare and delightful experiences you will always remember.