The Many Shapes of Pods

I have been seeing a lot of pods over the last week or two. Maybe it’s because it’s the Fall season up here in the northern hemisphere, when many plants have matured or given up their flowers to put forth their essential, seed bearing components. When I think of pods, the first things that come to mind are round but elongated forms, maybe larger on one end with the other coming to a point. But that is an extremely narrow image of a pod. In truth, pods come in quite a large variety of shapes.

When speaking of the pods grown in nature, pods can be round or flat, long or squat, smooth or rough, and as small as a pea or so large it takes two hands to hold one. The only defining factor with pods is that they hold something, encasing a collection of possibilities in their many seeds or whatever else might be hidden away within.

That’s why I thought we’d start the week of with an interesting piece that might be described a study of pod varieties. Lori Phillips, who looks to work exclusively in ceramics now, took a detour into polymer a few years back to create this piece.

Most of these beads look like they could have been inspired by real versions in nature, although I’m guessing from looking at the free form work elsewhere on Lori’s Flickr page that these all came from her own imagination; but either way, they seem to show a fascination with natural forms.

Why do we see so many pod shapes in polymer? Well, the truth is, we like to to play with all kinds of shapes; it’s just that I get the feeling that we may have a particularly strong affinity for pods. Why do you think that might be? We’ll explore that question while we admire the many pretty variations of the pod form in polymer this week.