‘Seeds and All’ (2018) is a conceptual art piece which includes both ceramic sculpture and glassware.
The concept derives from a tragic tale of a mother and daughter’s relationship which suddenly becomes forever broken from a twisted turning fate. Demeter was the Ancient Greek Goddess of Harvest who farmed a lot of bountiful food for the Ancient Greek people. She birthed a beautiful and kind daughter called Persephone. Amongst a fruitful summer, Persephone took a stroll in an open meadow gathering flowers for her loving mother. Suddenly the earth opened up in front of her and Hades appeared. Taken her against her will, she was abducted, raped and forced to become his wife in the depths of the Underworld.
This caused great pain for Demeter, as she could no longer see her daughter which reflected on how fruit, crops and all nature could no longer grow back on Earth. Demeter confided in Zeus; King of all Gods to speak with Hades to ask for Persephone’s freedom. Zeus could see how this tragedy was affecting mother earth and her harvest, so he decided to help.
Hades taunted Persephone and presented her with delicious food whilst bound in captivity, including succulent fruit such as a pomegranate. When Zeus arrived and tried to barter with Hades, he only offered Persephone’s departure if Persephone doesn’t eat any of the food he has given her, but it was too late. Persephone had already eaten six pomegranate seeds. So it was agreed upon, that Persephone would only have six months each year to return to earth for every seed she ate, and six months devoted to her cruel husband in the land of the dead.
When Persephone finally returned to visit her mother in those six months on Earth, crops, fruit and plants would start to grow and flourish throughout the land. The six months where she was banished to the Underworld however, the plants would stop to grow entirely.