Persephone

Gouache, watercolor, pencil, gesso and collage on paper

This unpublished picture book is currently in progress.

2024

Persephone’s world turns sideways when she falls through a hole in the earth and crashes into the underworld. At first fearful of the shadowy realm and its quiet ruler, Hades, the young goddess slowly discovers a taste for the solitude she finds there. Meanwhile, her mother’s desperate search for Persephone brings winter to the world for the first time. A picture book told in parallel narratives with hand-painted and collaged illustrations, Persephone illuminates a mother and daughter’s journey away from each other and back again.

To mark moments of upheaval in Persephone’s story, I chose to play with form, subverting readers’ expectations of how books are typically read. The reader turns the book ninety degrees so that the gutter acts as physical barrier between our world and the underworld, between Persephone and Demeter. Die cut holes signal these transitions to the reader.