glazed porcelain
2.5" round
Madena Asbell is a conservationist, botanist, horticulturist, and artist living and working in Joshua Tree, CA. She attended Goldsmiths College in London and has an MFA in photography from CalArts. She worked for the Mojave Desert Land Trust from 2016 to 2024 where she established their plant conservation program and Mojave Desert Seed Bank.
The act of creating can take many forms. For me, it has almost always involved nature. Starting in early childhood, I explored my relationship with the natural world through drawing and illustration, creating works with graphite on paper, a medium I still love for its intimacy and immediacy. Later, I explored abstract painting and photography, which culminated in an MFA from CalArts in 1998. I’ve never felt entirely comfortable being defined as an artist, and eventually found myself working directly with nature through the worlds of horticulture, ecology, and conservation. For the past 25 years, I’ve been working with California native plants, learning about them, growing them, and protecting their populations and habitats. There is little that I find as creative and satisfying as enticing a seed to germinate.
The Joshua tree represents many of the things that continually fascinate me about the natural world, in particular, the interconnectedness and vulnerability of life, as well as its strength and resilience—from the story of Joshua trees masting (their tendency to bloom unpredictably yet all at once), to the unique and mysterious pollination of its flowers by a singular moth species, to the production and dispersal of its seeds.
Seeds are the future—our own as well as that of the Joshua tree. For life as we know it to persist, plants must grow, flowers must be pollinated, and seeds must germinate.
Seeds are living things. And if they are to remain alive, they must be fortunate enough to find themselves in the optimal conditions for dormancy, survival, and germination.
Seeds are patient. Whether they are buried by wind and water in a sandy wash or cached under a rock by a forgetful rodent, seeds are capable of waiting, sensing, and responding to their environment.
Seeds nourish. They are the foundation of our terrestrial food chain and provide food for all life. In the desert, numerous animals, from kangaroo rats to quail, depend almost entirely on seeds for their diet.
Seeds are transient. For a seed to fulfill its potential, it must cease being a seed and become something entirely different—a plant.
Seeds are beautiful. Each has its own structure, often with intricate surface patterns and textures. If you ever have the chance to look at a seed under a microscope, be sure to do it. It will open a whole new world, and you won’t regret it.
The porcelain Joshua tree seeds in this exhibition are not intended to be anatomically accurate, but instead are a simple meditation on the strength and the fragility of the Joshua tree and her seeds.