Toleware Sugar Bowl c. 1940

Curator: Ah, here's Sara Garfinkel's "Toleware Sugar Bowl," created around 1940, rendered with coloured pencils. Quite a charming little piece. Editor: It’s surprisingly... vibrant. The rusty red hue combined with those almost sun-like yellow flourishes? It gives off this weird, folksy-apocalyptic vibe. Like a precious relic found after everything went wrong. Curator: Fascinating! Consider that Toleware, this decorated tinware, often appears in domestic settings. Sugar bowls especially represent sweetness, abundance. Juxtapose that against Garfinkel’s medium - coloured pencil evokes childhood memories. So we might ask what memories and cultural ideas around sweetness and nostalgia are held, or even being interrogated. Editor: Right! Plus the form, almost tomb-like, suggests that sugar is going away somewhere. Or the sugar *inside* is preserved in this weird sarcophagus. And the lines! There’s this subtle fragility. It feels more like a ghost of a sugar bowl than a photograph. Like a kid drawing a precious object they saw and *then* all went to pieces. Curator: A very good observation. One also considers the colors Garfinkel selected and how this interplay has appeared through different cultural memories: red evokes vitality and good fortune in some, while it means bloodshed in others. Yellow too, a range between divinity, sunshine, envy or warning. The symbolic dialogue opens endless doors. Editor: All this just for a simple drawing! Okay, you've successfully scared my sweet tooth away. Curator: It is the power of symbolism. What seems humble in appearance holds within it many narratives waiting to be discovered. Editor: And with that in mind, I suppose the moral of our little dive is this—never underestimate the weight of a simple shape, tone, or color. Right? Curator: Indeed! It always takes us to places and meanings unanticipated.