Gift of light

I was at Spitalfields market recently, and fell in love with the work of alefs in wonderland. It's a mix of treaty stuff: calligraphy, papercuts, little fecky magnetic things that you can play with... but it was the mix of pomegranates and candles that especially appealed.

I have a thing for pomegranates: taste, texture, but especially their symbolism. With their myriad crimson glossy seeds and blood-esque juice, they inspired myths and allegories in Greek, Persian, Syrian and Armenian civilisations (actually, pretty much everyone adopts them, sooner or later), and they endure through Jewish, Islamic and Christian art, unfurling in margins of manuscripts, woven into tapestries. I imagined having one of Alef's stylised pomegranate trees, all silvery by day and shimmery by night...



Little did I know, one had already been ordered as a birthday present (thanks, Sara!) :-) And so it stands, evocative of fertility, and dark tales, and so much more.