Late in 2018 Jia Lu returned to Canada to care for her mother at a nursing home outside Toronto. She spent every day at her mother’s side, returning every other month throughout 2019, setting up her easel during the visits. “My mother is an artist too, and cannot leave the home by herself, so I bring my work to her or we go out to walk in a park or sit in a coffee shop. She still has a lot to offer while I am working next to her.”

The daily proximity of infirmity and death made a deep impression on the artist. “I started to pour my feelings into these drawings of seeds, all my anger, frustration, disappointment and sadness, combined with the joy that I could at least share the last years of my mother’s life and still see the beauty and humor she possesses.” Each drawing became a record of her thoughts, a form of meditation on the events of the day, an outlet for her emotions and a celebration of life and creativity.

I feel I am the voice for tiny beings on whom we depend for life that are otherwise invisible. Their beauty is in a multiplicity of form and an unstoppable passion for survival and life. We all face aging and death; seeds contain our hope for the future, and carry our wisdom beyond the short span of our lives.

Each seed is completed in color combining hand and digital techniques. The project will continue throughout 2022 and end with 365 finished designs. Jia Lu plans to produce individual seeds as unique canvas paintings or as limited edition prints and is also collaborating with craftsmen, sculptors and jewelers to realize the forms in three dimensions, at a variety of scales.

In 2020 Jia Lu adapted her designs to stage costumes for the Southern California Dance Theater's production of Alice 2020, an adaptation of Alice in Wonderland for ballet.