This past fall ARTS&FOOD® conducted an interview with Michael McClellan, Professor Butter Beard, a baker extraordinaire, art historian, and theater producer.
Interview by Jack Atkinson.
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Jack –
Hello, Michael McClellan, I’m Jack Atkinson editor of ARTS&FOOD®.
From your phone number, I am assuming you are in New Jersey?
Michael –
I live just outside of Asbury Park, New Jersey.
Jack –
Anyway, I know of you from your postings on Instagram. Tell me a little bit about how you got all wrapped up in teaching art history, blogging, and baking daily?
Michael –
I come from four generations of educators, so it has been ingrained in me, that I should appreciate literature and the arts. Everybody expected me to go right into teaching and I started off at Kent State University, ready to study “the history of architecture” with the intent to teach. That was my initial plan, then I started running out of money, so I began baking cheesecakes in the college dorms. I could bake a cheesecake for around $6 in costs. and I could sell them to restaurants for double or triple my costs. It was an amazing revelation and I enjoyed the baking process much more than studying.
Jack –
Does this lead to a career in baking?
Michael –
Yes, it does. Next I left school and started bartending at TGI Fridays, working my way up the ladder to where they gave me what was called a passport, which meant I could travel the country, walk into any Fridays and say I wanted to work the bar on Friday night, Saturday night, and maybe for Sunday brunch, and they would put me on their schedule for those shifts. This is in the early eighties when Fridays was in their heyday. For the rest of each week, I would ask, in whatever city or town I was in, who was the best pastry chef in the area.
I would look that person up, walk in and say, I’m in town and I would love to work with you for two or three weeks, if possible. I just want to apprentice with you, you don’t have to pay me. I did that all over the country for a year and a half. Then I came back home, gave up bartending, deciding that baking was the way I wanted to go! Originally I was working with three restaurants in Western Massachusetts, and visiting New York City. I was a pastry chef for almost 18 years.
Jack –
Were you a pastry chef mostly in Manhattan?
Michael –
I would split my time, half of the time I was in Western, Massachusetts, and the other half I was in New York. Finally, I made the decision to move to the New York area and worked at Frontier on Prince Street with Ted Frontier and Andrew Nathan. I had an amazing time in New York.
In New York, I was working primarily at Frontier and another restaurant with the same owner who opened up “Joe’s” in the West Village. Eventually, I just got to a point where I was working six days a week and ten to twelve-hour days.
After 18 years of loving pastry, I started to question it.
I went on vacation with my partner at the time to Wales and as we sat talking—a wave came over me, instantly I knew I wanted to go back and finish college and see where that would take me. So I came back to New York and enrolled in school, finishing my degree in art history–this time at Pace University.
Upon completion of that program, I extended my art history education with a master’s program through Christie’s. I moved to London for almost two years, completing my master’s degree in Early European Arts through Christie’s and the University of Glasgow. I was traveling between Scotland and London having the time of my life. My degree was in Art History with a specialization in Early European Arts, and I wrote my thesis on the PICTS, which is a part of Scottish medieval history.
Jack –
I don’t know anything about PICTS, tell me more.
Michael –
To keep it simple, it’s a tribe. A very, very large tribe with a Celtic background. I became completely enamored. I have Scottish history in my blood, and I really became infatuated with Scotland. At the completion of my degree, I came back to the states and have spent the last eight to ten years teaching art history in various colleges and have gotten back into baking again.
I was looking for a way to combine both passions, for baking and for art history–looking for an avenue to move ahead and start investigating a doctorate degree. One of the requirements for a doctorate degree is that you are published. I was speaking to various recruiters at various programs and interestingly enough, a blog is now considered to be a published work.
Jack –
I agree, a blog is publishing, digital publishing.
Michael –
Exactly!
I was teaching at the time I started the blog and I gave my students a challenge to come up with the blog’s name, or my pen name. And the winner was Professor Butter Beard. So I started my blog a year ago and I publish a new post every Monday. I look at a work of art that has come into mind that week and investigate it further, I reacquaint myself with it. While I’m doing that, there’s always something that comes out of the story which I can turn into a baking project. That’s where “Professor Butter Beard” comes in. Through this blog, I am able to use my ability to write, my desire to tell a story, and my desire to create baked goods such as a soufflé or a cookie, but put a twist in it. That twist somehow relates to the story–it’s something that came to me while I was looking at that work of art.
Jack –
What do you do with all these baked goods?
Michael –
I get that question so many times. I basically give it all away. I have very receptive neighbors and coworkers and I’m the artistic director of a theater company. So the actors and my friends are always well fed. I make sure I taste everything, but I really enjoy giving it away. It’s how I communicate with people—sometimes even more than I can on a spoken level. I feel like I can possibly enhance what’s going on with their lives, in some way, by giving them these treats. I just want to share it all.
Jack –
Well, you might be doing a weekly blog, but from your Instagram posts, it looks like you are baking daily.
Michael –
Well, you know, it is part of my being. I started my life in my grandmother’s kitchen. I always was accused of making biscuits for about 40 people. I don’t know how to make small batches, I haven’t figured that out yet.
Jack –
I want to know… when you say Early European Art History, are you talking about ancient histories, like Roman and Greek culture?
Michael –
I like everything from cave painting, through antiquity, right up through the Renaissance, and through impressionist works–my interest is quite expansive. When I walk into the Metropolitan Museum of Art I find myself spending the entire day there. I can even go back the next day because I’m so interested in all of the areas—I really had to narrow it down, to find my specialty.
Jack –
That’s always the problem, narrowing anything down. If you go on for your doctorate, what will your specialty be in that program?
Michael –
I will continue in Scottish Medieval Arts. I really am drawn to Scotland. In fact, I would love to retire there. My great grandparents came over from Scotland. I have a feeling when I’m in Scotland, it’s like no place else, it’s like home for me. So with a doctorate, I want to go deeper into Scottish Medieval Arts.
Jack –
And would you be studying in Glasgow again?
Michael –
Since I did my master’s through Glasgow, I would probably want to continue to work with them or take their recommendation. It’s such a specialized subject, there aren’t a million Scottish Medieval Art specialists. You really need to actually tune into someone’s specific knowledge and work directly with them. I’m kind of waiting to see where that journey goes.
Jack –
Were you always interested in art?
Michael –
My favorite classes growing up, from elementary school through high school, were always my history courses and my art courses. I was, one of those kids saying “van GoG-h” instead of “van Go” for the painter van Gogh. I think my love of art comes from a father who was an educator. In fact, I had my father as a history teacher for two years in high school. He told me “the golden rule in education” is history can be taught through stories. In order to maintain a student’s attention, tell them a story, and I took that lesson to heart. When I look at a piece of art or try to explain or teach about a work of art, it’s really diving into the story behind that artwork!
Jack –
I certainly agree with your father, there are so many great stories in the history of art. Now, where did your interest in the theater come from?
Michael –
I have to give that to my father as well. I grew up with his love of Broadway. I think the first album I actually purchased was “A Little Night Music” by Sondheim. He really brought that passion out in me. I was in plays from the time that I could stand on a theater stage, and it just moved forward. I acted all through high school and college,
I let the theater work go when I was doing pastry, but it came around again when we moved into Manhattan and then eventually to New Jersey. I found community theater here in New Jersey was so vibrant and alive. We ended up starting our own company, the Stone Church Players. We work out of a historic stone church in Navesink, New Jersey and we’re in our 13th season of doing productions. I like directing musicals, but we recently did “Little Women”. Now my real passion, for the last four or five years, has been Shakespeare. We do a production every year. Last year it was outside on the church grounds for “Much Ado About Nothing”, just brilliant performances. As much as I love doing plays like “Little Women”, I’m so excited to be working on a production of “Hamlet” for next June.
Jack –
Do you teach general art history or do you teach your specialty?
Michael –
I have taught a survey course that goes from antiquity through the Renaissance and it was interesting to me. I also helped develop an online version of that course as we were going into COVID lockdown. This semester I am teaching the history and appreciation of photography.
Jack –
Oh, really?
Michael –
Yeah, I find the subject fascinating, because the students use photography every day. They pick up their phones and take pictures without much thought. Online it’s… take a picture and instantly post it to thousands of viewers on Instagram or Facebook. Basically, 106 years ago, people were making Daguerreotypes, where the subjects had to sit for an hour and a half to create a one-of-a-kind copy. It’s interesting to see the students understand where photography originated and how it has changed through time to be where it is today. That is a great journey!
Jack –
I’ve seen the things you post on Instagram. It’s unbelievable how many different types of connections you can come up with between baking and art? Like those “Cleopatra’s Eyes”, I thought they were fantastic. Tell me what one thing you really enjoy baking.
Michael –
I just adore making cookies, because I love to see people’s faces when they bite into them. I put my own little twist on each. Like a shortbread, but when they bite into it, something that tastes like Chinese Five Spice is there! Yeah. I would say cookies… and a good flan.
Jack –
What keeps you baking, every day?
Michael –
My baking really plays into my Buddhist background and I use baking as a form of meditation. I like to have classical music going on in the background and I meditate. My favorite time to bake is always sunrise. My philosophy is… to meditate through baking and also to bake with seasonal ingredients. I am very proud of the relationship that I’ve built with the farmers in my area. I go to the farmer’s market every Sunday morning. They challenged me with their different ingredients. Baking seasonally and also baking as a form of meditation are two things I’d really like to pass forward.
Jack –
Michael, I so appreciate you taking the time to talk, you have lived a very interesting life and the conversation was enjoyable.
Michael –
Thank you for this opportunity.
Jack –
Why don’t you tell your contact information?
Michael –
Sure. <www.ProfessorButterBeard.com> is my blog site, where I post every Monday. Professor_Butter_Beard is my handle on Instagram and Professor Butter Beard on Facebook–I use those notifications with the intent of leading people to my blog.
Jack –
That’s really great stuff. Let’s continue to follow each other and make this world “Beautiful and Delicious”, that’s ARTSandFOOD’s slogan.
Michael –
That’s perfect.
Jack –
Thank you, Michael.
