PERSIMMON "O" SCULPTURE WHITE

DETAILS

• Height 5cm

• Width 6.5cm

• Weight 6oz

• Materials: Gypsum

• Plinth Cube / Plinth Star: H 4.5cm / Gypsum

Hearty and stout, O is the bulkiest of the bunch.  A sturdy persimmon with slightly rumpled leaves and considerable heft.

Korean folklore tells of one dark night when a hungry tiger overheard a mother comforting her inconsolable child.  “A tiger is coming, you must stop crying or he’ll eat you”, she begged, but the child would not stop crying.  When the desperate mother offered her baby a persimmon to settle down, the child stopped bawling immediately.  The terrified tiger thought this persimmon must be a creature more fearful than himself, as it quieted the child at once, and when a wandering cow thief startled him, the tiger ran frightfully home to the mountains, thinking the thief was a wildly dangerous and fierce persimmon.  The mother and child were spared.  While this ancient story gives no literal explanation for the persimmon’s calming power over the innocent child, the mysterious fruit has come to symbolize the prevalence of kindness and goodwill over the tiger’s inherent mischief and corruption in both Korean and other cultures worldwide.

But few outside the American midwest know of the persimmon’s uncanny ability to forecast the weather.  Ozark tradition dictates that the severity of an upcoming winter can be predicted by slicing a persimmon seed in half and examining its contents.  The appearance of various shapes inside foretell everything from an abundance of heavy, wet snow to a winter of bitter, icy winds.  Yet even though the University of Missouri reports a remarkable 80% accuracy rating for persimmon seed forecasts, a store-bought fruit can never predict the weather in your very own backyard.

Nonetheless, persimmons typically ripen after the first frost of the season, making them naturally synonymous with the holidays.  Their bright orange hues evoke a calm liveliness that brighten any room and make for a striking decorative accent.  The “possum toddy” (a persimmon beer) was wildly popular with early American settlers, but Native American culinary traditions use persimmons to make everything from sweet puddings and breads to thick soups long before.  A modern profusion of uncommon fruits on supermarket shelves has led to a renaissance of persimmon based recipes for custards, jams and scrumptious pies…  reinstating the persimmon as an essential holiday staple.

Please note each item is made by hand and slight variations / tiny bubbles are part of the natural curing process