The symbolism of the womb is hard to avoid when one is dealing with a pomegranate. The shape, size, color, and the fact that the entire fruit is basically a vessel filled with the seeds of new life seemed to scream "uterus!" to me. As the mother of four children, now well on their way to being grown, the womb has long been an object of mystery and awe for me.

I placed the womb on top of a form representing a head. As children grow, what one gives them as a parent has more to do with sharing one’s thoughts and wisdom than simply providing breast milk and a warm place to sleep. What grows out of one's head then becomes what grows out of the heads of one's chidren...mutated, of course, by the fact that they are who they are from the get-go, as any mother can tell you!

The thoughts, feelings and wisdom communicated between parents and are represented by the five slightly different but definitely related shades of hair growing out of the piece. The berries are also a womb reference - (who among us Catholics can think of a womb without hearing the phrase " fruit of thy womb" echoing in our heads!  ) A nod to the pomegranate that inspired it all, and an acknowledgement of those utterly sweet, rare, perfect moments in parenting  - the ones that contain the seeds of our children’s' futures.  They represent the best we as parents have to give.