Sugar flowers and cotton pods ; gold rings and sugar ; handmade bagasse paper ; sterling silver rings, cotton, hair and cast sugar ; money and sugar. Oh my goodness, these sugar pieces by American artist Sonya Clark are beautiful and, oh, so brilliant. Here are some of Sonya’s words about this work:

“In 1870 my African great grandmother married my Scottish great grandfather and began a family in Jamaica at a time when sugarcane was more valuable than the people who cultivated the cash crop. As my forebears negotiated race and commodity in this hemisphere, across the ocean European gentry flaunted sugar-rotted teeth as the status symbol their slave trade wealth. Generations later in my family that ranges in every skin shade and hair texture, an aunt defined race this way: “You cannot tell if someone is black by skin color but by hair texture.”  Her tangled race construction was explained to me as she was braiding the legacy of sugarcane production onto my head.  She, like most Jamaicans, referred to my hairdo, as canerows not cornrows.  …  Some objects presented here are subtle … others are more overt: gold and silver rings set with sugar “diamonds”, cotton, and human hair or an unraveled Confederate battle flag that somehow remains intact despite being deconstructed. Some are visceral: edible cotton flowers made from sugar, images of brown sugar that call the tongue and reflect the viewer, and Lincoln encrusted in rock candy five-dollar bill.”

Love! Sonya’s site is filled with all sorts of amazingness, so pop over and have a closer look.