Original artwork description:

This sparkle print is on handmade paper that I make myself in my studio. Each one is slightly unique, so expect some variation. You can add a mat for easy framing!

About this piece:

As a child I would break open a pomegranate and eat it with my grandmother. It was a tradition for us. My grandmother taught me about the Armenians, her people, who thought of the pomegranate as a symbol of survival. There were stories of Armenians, starved during the Armenian Genocide, who survived on a single pomegranate seed a day for a year. This leads into the story of the pomegranate and Persephone and how there is thought to be 365 seeds in one fruit (this isn’t true, but part of the myth). The pomegranate means life, vitality, and birth for a lot of cultures. But it also inspired the grenade— which acquired the name from the French word for pomegranate (grenade). A grenade is similar in form and anatomy to the pomegranate, with death shards instead of seeds inside of it. I have contemplated this merging of life and death for many years. How the same thing can mean survival and also be the cause of death.

Materials used:

Handmade paper, pigment ink

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