Sweeeeet: Exhibit shows the sweet and not-so-sweet side of sugar

Artist Tracy Linder thinks there’s more to a field of sugar beets than just the dirt. She thinks of the survival of individual beets.

“Some of the beets get run over by tractor tires, and that inhibits their growth,” the artist said. “They’re working with the environment, invasion by humans, other plants coming in, weeds and animals, both wild and domestic.”

Linder’s translucent, life-size sugar beet sculptures hang from the ceiling at eye level, with up to seven feet of sinewy roots reaching the ground throughout the “Sugar, Sugar” program at the InterDisciplinary Experimental Art (or I.D.E.A.) Space.

Jessica Hunter Larsen, I.D.E.A. Space curator, put the show together because she thought of sugar as a perfect subject for an interdisciplinary program.

Along with an exhibit of sugar-related art, “Sugar, Sugar” will include five salons, or discussions, featuring chemistry experiments, music and poetry related to sugar.

Linder, who grew up on a beet farm in Montana, was an obvious choice because of her intimate knowledge of the industry.

In the salon planned for Dec. 8, Colorado College professor Dave Mason will read his poem “Dulce,” which tracks the history of the word “sugar.” The poem “picks up the idea that sugar comes from ancient Persia in the Middle East,” Mason said.

He then follows this “exotic lore” to Trinidad, Colo., where his grandfather, George Mason, started Mason Candy Co.

On childhood visits to the factory, Mason saw “the guys with Latino names up there as cooks making the candy, cooling it, cutting it, the women downstairs bagging it in plastic bags, then the salesman going out and selling it … it was a struggling small business in a small town.”

In curating the show, Larsen wanted to reveal sugar’s menacing role in history, too.

“There’s a serious negative in the production of sugar,” she said. “Without sugar, the slave trade wouldn’t have existed.”

The process of grinding the sugar in particular climates, harvesting on-site in a short amount of time, and boiling the sugar was dangerous.

Artist Christina Marsh, who often uses food as a medium, made a series of ship-shaped lollipops, which she titled “The Good Ship Lollipop.” The ships refer to the slave trade but the artist borrowed the name from a Shirley Temple movie.

“Making those ships out of sugar plays with the idea of how when things are aesthetically beautiful, we want to connect with them. And sometimes, we gloss over what their meaning is and the depth behind them,” said Marsh.

Larsen also called on artists who use sugar as a medium for aesthetic purposes.

“It’s the condition of our lives is that everything has this sort of yin yang,” Larsen said. “Everything that is positive has a negative, everything you think of that might be purely pleasure has some element of pain.  And I think it’s interesting to use sugar as a lens to think about those issues.”

Sugar, Sugar

Nov. 24 to Jan. 21

The I.D.E.A. Space

Edith Kinney Gaylord Cornerstone Arts Center

825 N. Cascade Ave.

Sugar Salon 1: Performing Sugar

Tuesday, Nov. 24, 4:30, I.D.E.A. Space,

6 p.m., music performance of “Rare Sugar,” Edith Kinney Gaylord South Theater

Sugar Salon 2: Producing Sugar

Tuesday, Dec. 1, 4:30 p.m., I.D.E.A. Space

Tracy Linder will lead a discussion of the local and international economic, social and political impact of producing sugar.

Sugar Salon 3: Sugar Inspirations

Tuesday, Dec. 8, 4:30 p.m., I.D.E.A. Space

Demonstration of sugar-lifting prints and poetry readings by Jane Hilberry, Jessy Randall, and Dave Mason

Sugar Salon 4: Sugar Rush

Thursday, Jan. 21, 4:30 p.m., I.D.E.A. Space

Sugar sculptures and a demonstration of sculpting techniques by James Gallo, pastry chef at the Brown Palace Hotel in Denver, commentary on chemistry by CC chemistry faculty