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Dream Job #101

“I felt like I was in Willy Wonka land,” explains Montana artist Amber Jean. “The chocolate totem pole was 14 feet high. I had to use a forklift to get up there.” For the last two years, Nestle’ has commissioned Amber-a wood sculptor – to carve spookily huge objects out of their cocoa-flavored stuff for Burlington, Wisconsin’s, annual mid-May Chocolate Festival. Her 1999 contribution was the totem pole to the left. This year, Amber created a larger-than-life chocolate bed, topped with a 500-pound quilt made of candy-crammed Ziploc bags. These things remind me of the giant chocolate sculptures that avant-garde artist Janine Antoni created by chewing them into shape. Even using a chisel, choco-carving is not easy work-Amber hustled through 20-hour days to get her pieces done in time. “I’m not even sick of chocolate yet,” swears Amber, who munched Raisinets from a five-gallon bucket while she worked. “It’s strange- the more you eat, the more you crave.”