During my first residency in Chicago, sugar became an important material for me. In week 2, I was thinking about sugar a lot. I thought about going to birthday parties as a child and not being able to eat the birthday cake. I thought about the countless times people have said to me, “You can’t have sugar, right?” I thought about my struggles with my weight, especially in high school. The nice thing about being in grad school is that I was surrounded by other artists who I could discuss my thoughts with.

Like I said in my last post, a colleague suggested that I actually use sugar as a material in my artwork. The thought fascinated me and I was eager to try it out. The first thing I did was research sugar skulls. I knew that sugar skulls are pretty sturdy and last a long time when made correctly so I looked for a recipe and then bought the ingredients. I wanted to make insulin vials out of sugar, but first I needed a mold. I bought moldable plastic on amazon and that worked well, but my final mini sculptures weren’t as clean as I wanted them to be and they broke easily. I didn’t make any more of them because of time limitations, but now that I’m home I plan on experimenting to find a better method/sugar mixture.

I also tried painting with sugar and I was much more satisfied with these results. I mixed sugar and water on a stove until the consistency was gel-like and then I mixed some with acrylic gel medium and sometimes acrylic paint and I left the rest plain. I applied the sugar mixtures on Yupo paper in a variety of ways:

Later on, I made more sugar mixtures and applied them onto unstretched canvas in several layers. This one also has food coloring in it.

My favorite part about this piece was watching the sugar crack and fall off, revealing this crystal texture underneath:

I also painted a long piece of black canvas with sugar. Here’s part of it:

I made a few more pieces on Yupo paper and watercolor paper and even added a few drops of blood to the sugar. Get it? Bloodsugar?

I plan on continuing to experiment with sugar in my work because whether the results are good or not, I really enjoy the process. In my next post, I’ll talk about another non-traditional material that I worked with. Thanks for reading!