Sugar
Essay by Jim Coudal
It seems fitting somehow that the hulls of ships carrying raw sugar from the tropics, north through the Atlantic to the Jarvis Quay in Toronto, should be bright and cheerful. That, like those products that will be produced from their cargo, they should be the color of jawbreakers and soda cans, candy wrappers, and the sprinkles that dress the top of cupcakes. It’s also appropriate that they show signs of decay.
Marshall Sokoloff has captured a series of beautiful geometric photographs full of these colors and the rusty textures created by the sea bashing into steel. Interrupted by numerals indicating how high or low the ships ride in the water, or by fraying ropes, the shapes of the gently curving hulls extend beyond the rectangle of the frame on all four sides, compacting their three-dimensionality into powerfully concentrated two-dimensional compositions.
Sweet.
Jim Coudal runs a small creative studio in Chicago. Coudal Partners work for companies and they build companies, like Jewelboxing, The Deck and The Show, and
their studio site is a real productivity sucker. CP has been accused of doing nothing but following their whims to their logical or illogical conclusions. And they’re OK with that. For more on the company check this heartwarming story of courage and design,
“Copy Goes Here.”
» More by Jim Coudal
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TMN TALKS
Star Black is a poet, photographer, and collage artist living and working in New York City. She’s released five books of poems, has taught...
