"Seeds We Plant" About the Art (Part Three)
- Emma Martin
- May 26
- 2 min read
"Sowing Seeds"
My GG inspired "Sowing Seeds" because she always pointed out the flowers on our car rides. She especially loved the wisteria flowers. She’d say, “Emma, look there! Do you know what those purple flowers are? Those are wisteria flowers. Aren’t they beautiful?” She would then sing Psalm 118:24: “This is the day the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it.” She taught me a lot about life, faith, and relationships. I wanted to show the beautiful seeds she planted blossoming in this composition.
As the largest piece in the "Seeds We Plant" collection, I wanted to lean into the collage-like compositional style that often grounds much of my work. In this case, it helps tell an abstract version of stories and seeds planted in me. The wisteria appears throughout the composition at different scales. This frames and softens the more orthogonal lines of the architectural forms in the middle and background. Every room my GG walked into immediately felt softer. She noticed the little things in people, just like she noticed the wisteria flowers on our way to school.
The seed packets in the composition act as building blocks, constructing a foundation for the wisteria vines to grasp onto. The architectural composition begins to clash with but also depend on and intertwine with the soft, blossoming flowers. When I would go with GG to the grocery store, she would let me buy little packets of seeds; I would then run home and get my little shovel and dig little holes in the soil of my backyard. I had such high hopes that the little plot of soil would soon be overwhelmed with pansies and sunflowers; however, they never got past the little green sprouts that pushed through that layer of topsoil. My tenacious determination was always met with a soft patience from my grandmother. Little did I know that the seeds being planted within myself would actually be the ones to blossom and grow.
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