SUGAR SUGAR
I intend Sugar Sugar as a play between language and formal elements — cake titles and color and geometry. I dismantle discarded wooden toys, wood scraps, random home décor, and kitchen tools, putting pieces together to make a new object, a sweet dessert, a cake. I color the structure, using paint like icing to unify and empower the new form. The re-purposed domestic bric-a-brac and the dessert title allow for a new read, a mnemonic intention for a sweet that may honor a significant event, religious rite, or cultural celebration. The rhythm of colors and geometry are somehow satisfying, a whimsical, poetic idea intended to appeal to the senses. The process itself, of deconstructing abandoned objects to assemble something new, is a metaphor for many aspects of the human condition. I have returned obsessively to this project — since 2008, I have made more than 100 cake sculptures. Approximately fifty were included in a single exhibition in 2009, Director’s Choice: Obsession, at Center Galleries in Detroit, Michigan, documented by artist Gilda Snowden.