2021 Mayor's Arts Award Nominee: Morgan Roddy, Owner of Queer Chocolatier

Why are the arts important in Muncie? What do the arts do for the community?

Art provides opportunity for expression, connection, and understanding. Perceptions and interpretations within one's self when interacting with artwork can lead to conversations with others about that experience and increase our collective understanding of the human experience. Muncie is a community that needs stronger connections and the arts are a great avenue to create and strengthen such bonds.

Tell us a little bit about yourself.

I'm an artist-turned-stockbroker-turned-sociologist-turned-chocolatier! For the last decade, I've blended these experiences carefully and, in 2017, I launched Queer Chocolatier as an active and creative way to share my love of chocolate and my background in Sociology of Food and Agriculture. My goal is to guide people into having a better understanding of our food systems through using chocolate as a delicious teaching medium and to do so in a safe and affirming environment for the community.

I call myself a:

I'm a maker. Even before identifying professionally as a chocolatier, I felt as though I was always a maker. But specifically in this moment, I am a chocolatier that is embarking on becoming a chocolate maker and the difference is stark in my field but perhaps not so to the outsider looking in. A chocolate maker makes chocolate and a chocolatier makes things with chocolate. A loose analogy would be a guitar player building the guitar then making music. The two skills are often separate and distinct, but in the craft chocolate world, there are some of us who are blurring the lines intentionally for a variety of reasons. My own reasons are to ensure quality and creative control and to also be able to share the story of the chocolate more deeply as I will be more connected to the entire process of making the end product for the consumer.

Publication: Edge Media Network, Nashville, TN
Date: July 30, 2021 Article: Sober Queer Spaces Gaining Ground
Link: https://nashville.edgemedianetwork.com/story.php?ch=style&sc=food_drink&id=307499&sober_queer_spaces_gaining_ground

What is your creative practice and how did you get started?

Often it feels, and perhaps looks, chaotic but it all starts from inspiration. I learn the basic skills and practice them (ex. roasting cocoa beans, making ganache) but then I look to try something new by seeing what other makers in my field are putting out to the world or seeing what is emerging in food. But the original start was simply following a recipe I found on a bag of chocolate chips and feeling as though there was no reason I couldn't make the truffles, despite my never having had a truffle. Chocolate became a new medium to explore and, over seventeen years later, I've only grown to love working with it more.

What do you wish others knew about your practice? What is a fun fact about what you do?

There's more to chocolate than just what one finds in grocery stores. Chocolate can be incredibly nuanced and range widely in flavors and aromas and it can connect people to places as well as to memories. It is also one of the most accessible luxury items one can purchase; think of the most expensive bottle of wine or scotch, then compare it to the most expensive bar of chocolate. The chances one has of purchasing the bottle is rare but the odds are much better in being able to buy the chocolate bar.

Publication: The Chocolate Cult
Date: March 17, 2018 Article: Go Beyond Vegan with Queer Chocolatier
Link: https://thechocolatecult.blogspot.com/2018/03/go-beyond-vegan-with-queer-chocolatier.html?m=1

Where can people see your work or learn more about you?

My website is www.queerchocolatier.com and I am on social media (F: @queerchocolatier I: @queerchocolatier) and my micro-factory will be opening at 201 S. Walnut St. Muncie, IN 47305

What is your favorite part about being an artist or creative in Muncie?

I've said it countless times before and will say it again in the future: Muncie is the only place I could have ever launched Queer Chocolatier. I'm able to engage with lots of people in this community, make a name for myself, educate folks about chocolate and food and queerness, and I can make an impact both locally and globally though my work. I think if I would have tried to launch anywhere else, the magic just wouldn't have been there.