Blood red agrumi and glistening pomegranates steep the markets of Palmera, proving themselves irresistable. Just as they were for the Goddess Persephone, who spent 6 months of the year in Hades because she ate the pomegranate seeds. I set my pomegranate seeds of lapis lazuli, coral, pearls and turquoise into a bangle and hoop earrings, and called them Persephone as a reminder of the goddess, for Sicily is often called: Persephone's Isle.

Originating from Afghanistan, lapis lazuli has been used as an ornamental material in jewels, inlay work and as azure paint for over 6000 years. With a typically resinous and mottled appearance, the metamorphic rock is acclaimed for its intensely vivid and opaque ultramarine blue colour. Unusually for a gemstone it is a rock, not a mineral.