Toast ArtToast art gallery |  | Bread and butter - Lennie Payne creates his toast art | |
When you think of toast you tend to picture it with jam, maybe some marmalade or perhaps an egg on top. You certainly don't expect the sale of it to fetch thousands of pounds - unless you're artist Lennie Payne.
A blowtorch, a loaf of bread and a knife is all Lennie needs to create his toast art. In the past three years he's sold six pieces to different collectors at £2,000 a piece.
"I love it, it just gives me a buzz. It's creative, a new medium," says Payne. Bread and butter work
Inside Out meets art critic of 30 years, David Lee, who oversees Payne's creative process and critiques his final creations when he presents them at his first viewing at a West End gallery. The event was all about raising Lennie's profile as an artist, showing a variety of his early to present pieces.
Toast art is still catching on and so Lennie works as a painter and decorator for a living. "You've got to earn your bread and butter somehow," says Lennie. Lennie hopes, however, that eventually he'll be able to work as an artist full time.
There have however, been problems in using an edible canvas.
When Lennie sent a portrait of Ian Dury away to be framed for an exhibition, he received a panicky phone call from the framer saying mice had nibbled three pieces of the toast. Tasty cuts
Mice aren't the only ones that find Lennie's work tasty! Art collector Nick Green dished out £1,800 for one of Payne's creations. He liked the piece as soon as he saw it and it now hangs proudly in his living room above the family couch.
Lennie Payne's original use of bread shows how art can come in many different shapes and sizes. Credits All art work copyright of Lennie Payne. Links relating to this story:The BBC is not responsible for the content of external websites | 
Coming Up : Inside Out - London: Monday October 16, 2006
