pomegranate

Earlier this week, in the V&A, I took some shots of a Rape of Persephone sculpture. In a few weeks' time, I'll be taking an Alternative Photography Processes course with Christopher James - I can't tell you how much I'm looking forward to that - and I know that I want to do something with one or two of these images. And, therefore, pomegranates.

But where to find one of these autumnal fruits in mid May? Certainly not in Stop & Shop, though I'd had my thoughts fixed on scouring Gelson's, in Silver Lake. However, yesterday I was picking up a bed from an old friend (o.k., full disclosure - it was one we'd bought together in 1989), thinking that it might work in the now nearly-finished loft. I'd underestimated both the effects of storing a wooden bed in a slightly damp cellar for a long long time, and also the ghostly claw marks - the extensive ghostly claw marks - of long deceased cats. It is, of course, on inspection, an odiferous, scratched, and melancholy bed. Not a bright idea. But ... this is the kind of friend who is rather bad at throwing things out (evidently). And there, probably left over from Christmas, was a sinister, blotched, slightly decaying pomegranate, which I seized upon with huge enthusiasm. It was just what I was seeking ... and here it is, lit up by candles: citronella candles, which I was burning in an optimistic attempt to fend off the large and hungry mosquitoes who are now patrolling the New Jersey nights.