Why Demeter

People sometimes ask about the name, and I've never had a short answer for it. So here's the long(ish) one.

Demeter was the Greek goddess of harvest, grain, and the seasons. But it's the middle of her story, where her daughter, Persephone is taken to the underworld, and the months Demeter spent searching, refusing to let the earth grow while her daughter was gone. When Persephone returned - for part of the year, at least - the world came back with her. The seasons exist, in this myth, because of that leaving and that return, repeated forever.

It's a myth about loss that doesn't resolve neatly. Persephone doesn't come back for good. Demeter doesn't get to stop grieving each winter. But the return still matters. The seasons still turn. Something is still held onto, even in the middle of not being able to keep it forever.

That felt closer to what this work actually is than anything else I could find. The people who come to Demeter aren't usually marking a simple, uncomplicated joy. They're holding onto a season of feeding a child who's growing out of it. A parent who's gone. A version of themselves, or someone else, that won't come back in the same form. The jewellery doesn't undo any of that. It just gives it somewhere to sit.

I didn't want a name that promised comfort, exactly. I wanted one that was honest about what holding onto something actually involves - the searching, the return, the bit that doesn't fully resolve. Demeter felt like the only name that could carry that.

The Persephone necklace, with breastmilk and garnet birthstone fragments.

Persephone, for what it's worth, is the one this pendant is named after. And Demeter is the inspiration for this ring in our collection. 

That's the studio. Built here in Bath, named after a mother who wouldn't stop looking.