Passion and Pomegranates

Last night I read a paragraph that struck a chord with me:

“But how do we find our passions?... Most of the time it’s pure coincidence – a book we encounter in the library, a teacher who leaves an impression, a film we can’t forget…”

Elif Shafak – There are Rivers in the Sky

In a week where yet again I feel pulled in so many different directions at once, as always trying to fit in too many things, it has made me question what really are my passions. I’m not talking about time with family and friends and the various commitments we all sign ourselves up to, because that’s a whole other essay more aptly titled ‘I’m just a girl who can’t say no’. Probably best I don’t think about that one too much.

On reflection over the past week when I have had two different committee meetings for which I have taken minutes, an entire weekend on the sales desk at our local art society exhibition in my role as treasurer, a hospital appointment where I was required to drive, an afternoon helping out with a village social club, a rehearsal for an upcoming am dram production (let’s not mention trying to learn lines), another morning sorting out at Mum’s flat (still not finished) and a couple of hours in the company of my youngest grandchild (a high point in my week I have to say) it’s a wonder I have any time left for passions. But this week there has also been some sewing, crochet, baking, a long overdue return to painting and now some writing because I love doing them all. Fortunately the weather has been so awful I have not felt the urge to spend an afternoon on the allotment too. But I often wonder wouldn’t it be easier if there were just one or two things I was passionate about pursuing and how do we find that one thing that drives us or lights our fire?

Answers on a postcard please because I certainly don’t know. Whilst I think it would be easier and less exhausting to have a single focus or hobby, the one thing on which I could devote my attentions, I’m not sure I could do that because my problem is I want to do all the things, which means some weeks I can only do some of the things to the point of abandoning certain activities for months on end (painting… I’m thinking of you.) That said however, this week I have once again squeezed out my oil paints and have started a new portrait. I’m not happy with it yet and it needs some serious tweaking but it’s a start. And while it dries I can allow myself to drift off down other avenues of discovery, with maybe some sewing thrown in for good measure.

My Moorcroft Pot

At our village social club this week we held an ‘antiques roadshow’ themed afternoon where individuals brought along valued items with a history. I brought a piece of Moorcroft pottery that had belonged to my Mum. I know nothing of its history or where Mum acquired it, so it meant some research was required and I discovered the Pomegranate design on the jar was first used by William Moorcroft when he opened his own pottery in Stoke on Trent in 1913 and it remained in production until the late 1930s. Which of course means that my little jar is close to 100 years old, something I found a little scary as I gingerly replaced it back onto its shelf at the end of the afternoon. Whilst this was vaguely interesting I realised I don’t have much interest in pottery, and it felt good to know that there are limits to my passions and I don’t actually need to know all the things.

However, it did remind me of a previous obsession I once had with Pomegranates. At a time when I was doing a lot of research and drawing as a background to my textile art (definitely another passion at the time, although one that has since waned) I spent some time drawing and painting pomegranates and their exquisitely bejewelled interiors, looking at the colours of their skin and the structure in their seeds to see how I could replicate this in various textiles.

Much sampling and research was done and eventually I made a bodice constructed entirely from fruit nets and machine embroidery. This was part of a series of five bodices I made which were the basis of a talk I used to give about the stories behind the five women, both real and fictional, that inspired them. My pomegranate inspired bodice became a ‘Bodice for Persephone’ and I always loved telling her story when I gave my talks.

The very beautiful Persephone was the daughter of Demeter, the Greek goddess of the harvest and Zeus, the king of the gods on Mount Olympus. The fact that Demeter and Zeus are sister and brother, as well as being siblings of Hades who also features in the story, is often overlooked. But maybe the ancient Greeks weren’t so bothered about incest as we are.

As I write I am slighted alarmed as I have realised that two more of the women for whom I also created bodices are also linked with stories of incest. Anne Boleyn was accused of adultery and incest with her brother George, which although never proved, led to her execution. And there is also Cleopatra, the charismatic and seductive queen who ruled Egypt with her brother Ptolemy whom she married. Maybe I should tell their stories too.

A Bodice for Persephone, constructed from plastic fruit nets

But let’s return to the fair Persephone who is frolicking in a meadow in springtime with the daughters of Oceanos, entranced by the beautiful crocus, violets and narcissus when suddenly the ground opens up beneath her. From the depths of the earth, emerges Hades king of the underworld, in a horse driven chariot and before anyone knows what is happening he snatches young Persephone and drags her back to his underground lair. Make no mistake that this is not just a story of abduction but also of rape and coercive control, shockingly contemporary in so many ways. He forces Persephone to marry him, and he keeps her captive against her will, all I might add, with the backing of Zeus who seems to have no problem with his brother kidnapping and raping his daughter.

But Hades and Zeus had not reckoned with the mighty force of Demeter, who was so distraught and desperate at her daughter going missing that as she wandered the earth in her search for Persephone she abandoned the harvest for which she was responsible, which meant for a full year the crops failed and all the mortals were starving to death. Eventually, via Helios the sun god who sees everything, Demeter discovers that Zeus is essentially responsible for the abduction of Persephone by allowing it to happen, so Demeter goes to Zeus to demand the release of her daughter. Now Zeus is not really in the least bit concerned about the death of the entire human race due to harvest failure any more than he is about his daughter’s abduction but he’s not so keen on the idea of no longer receiving gifts and sacrifices from the mortals who worship him should they all die of starvation, and so he reluctantly agrees to order Hades to release Persephone from her underground prison. He sends Hermes, winged messenger to the gods to let Hades know he must release her.

But Hades tricks his young wife into eating the seeds of a pomegranate and because anyone who eats whilst in the underworld is tied there forever, Persephone can never be completely free. They come to a compromise where Persephone is released each spring, during which time Demeter is happy and the crops grow and flourish feeding the mortals, but after six months she has to return to Hades in his underworld and once more Demeter also retreats causing the crops to die back and lie dormant during the winter months. And this is how the ancient Greeks explained the cycle of the changing seasons.

The Rape of Proserpina, Bernini, 1621-22, Galleria Borghese Rome

It is a story that has inspired artists and poets throughout the centuries. Whilst in renaissance Italy, Bernini chose the abduction and rape of Proserpina (the Roman name for Persephone) as the subject of his magnificent marble sculpture, extraordinarily lifelike and brutal, depicting her attacker as strong and muscular whilst she is in obvious distress, struggling to break free of his grasp. Two hundred years later the pre Raphaelite artist Rossetti chooses to show Proserpina after her capture at the fateful moment where she eats the pomegranate.

Proserpina, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, 1874, Tate Britain

“She is represented in a gloomy corridor of her palace, with the fateful fruit in her hand”

Dante Gabriel Rossetti

The act of writing all this has reminded me that what I really love are stories. Researching and discovering the story behind something by reading or visiting galleries and museums is something I can lose myself in for hours and all my different creative pursuits are linked by this desire to discover more. Maybe research and stories are my passion which is unleashed through all my different creative endeavours.

Or maybe I’m thinking too much, and I just like making stuff! What is your passion… do tell!