Memory Seed Bombs — Lineage

Documentation of the four Memory Seed Bombs dedicated to my own family by Kasey Smith.

The inspiration for the Memory Seed Bomb project was of course my own family. I have lost six relatives to memory disorders, four of them direct relations. These are their Memory Seed Bombs, both before and after they’ve sprouted. As with all the Memory Seed Bombs, these are paper mache filled with forget-me-not seeds and painted with a combination of water color paint and ink. Each is painted to-scale, to better recreate the memory/object they are associated with.

Decorative Seashell Soaps — These are for my grandmother, who died in the 2000’s of vascular dementia. Her house in Orinda had a gorgeously outdated powder room done up in immaculate pinks and golds. Using it always felt like trespassing. As if I wasn’t guest-enough to qualify for being there. And when I did use it, washing my hands would give me anxiety as the only soap was a dish of perfectly formed decorative seashell soaps. Was no one in my family washing their hands? Because those soaps were perfect my entire childhood. Gross.

Snickers Wrapper — I’m convinced that most elementary school teachers come up with a gimmick and stick with it their entire careers. At least most of the teachers at my mother’s school did. Since she commuted in from Napa, at one point they tried to make her The Wine Teacher, but she insisted on being The Chocolate Teacher instead. She had all kinds of knickknacks and t-shirts and coffee mugs and bumper stickers about chocolate decorating her classroom and she always, always sang the praises of Snickers.

Abba-Zaba Wrapper — My father loved being an iconoclast in a tediously eye-rolling way. Why would you relish making things like gift giving or picking movies to rent or deciding on a restaurant so hard? I don’t know, but he certainly did. So of course he couldn’t request “easy” candies for his Christmas stocking. He had to pick a random one like Abba-Zaba which was only intermittently available in our town. They’re not even that good!

Smuckers Grape Jelly Lid — My grandfather was the first person I ever lost to a memory disorder. He died in the 1980’s when I was quite young, so unfortunately most of my memories of him involve a nursing home that smelled like pee and bleach. But I will always cherish the memory of his breakfast crepes packed with grape jelly and dusty with powdered sugar. I should really learn to make them one of these days. In his honor.

Of course, sprouts are only the beginning of the story. I am continuing to nurture these four seed bombs as they further dissolve and the forget-me-not seedlings mature. My goal is to eventually produce 100% of the seeds for the larger Memory Seed Bomb project from these four seed bombs. From my family to yours feels like the perfect symmetry for this project

Lineages — Six Months On

After six months, I repotted the forget-me-not plants and collected the seed bombs from the vitrines. Of the four, three had grown into plants, with the Snickers vitrines dying off at the sprout stage. This is what they looked like at the six month mark.