Fetuses and Sprouts

I have two main themes in my work right now ... sprouts/beans and fetuses. The fetuses were around last semester, too, sometimes in the form of eggs or baby birds, but still fetal.

Today in my supervision time I asked if we could do scribble drawings and mine turned into a fetus that was growing a sprout. As the fetus is fed, it gives out energy that turns into life. An undeveloped being creates another undeveloped being. The sprout and the fetus are touching foreheads, connecting on an emotional as well as physical level.

I remember when I was 7 years old in the 4H club, we went to a farm and dissected lima beans.


(Click the photo to go to the original site)

The dissected lima bean embryo looked like a fetus to me, and after that I didn't eat beans for a while. How would I know what a fetus looked like at 7? Because my grandfather had given me a pop-up book about evolution (which I still have) and had pictures of babies in the womb at different stages. Also, in that class we tried to hatch baby chickens and some of the eggs did not hatch so we cracked them open and saw the baby birds at various stages of development (we organized the eggs in order of development). So I have seen fetuses/embryos of beans, chickens, and pictures of humans.

Anyway, now I associate beans with fetuses in artwork and have been making a lot of bean sprouts and bean/fetuses.

I'm not really sure what it means but that's what happens. We talked about it a lot and I think I am going to try to grow some plants. We have a basil plant right now at home and hopefully it won't die. My supervisor gave me a clipping of one of her plants in her office (which is a clipping from a plant in her grandmother's garden) so tonight I am going to try to plant it.

Anyway, it's interesting. There will be more pictures of bean/fetus artwork coming soon, too.