The images below show the three stages (so far completed) of the first in a series of works entitled “Missded”. The word ‘missded’ is one my son used when he’d said he’d missed me: “I missded you daddy”.
The first image is the original drawing we made together, the second is the tracing I made of that drawing and the third, the canvas onto which I have outlined the pattern (having cut out the shapes from the tracing).
It was a difficult job, trying to cut such difficult shapes – and to remember where they were meant to go on the canvas – but that uncertainty and the lack of accuracy reflects in some ways the theme of the work itself; the remembered act, that is, me and my son drawing together.
What was interesting was the difference between the making of the drawing and the creation of the template, in that the original drawing is very much about the lines we made whereas the template is much more concerned with the spaces between – the shapes which I could cut out and draw around.
Again this somehow reflects the nature of the work’s theme; that is missing someone. The days on which I do see my children are the lines outlining the gaps when I don’t – the spaces in between. This could become a whole other area which I shall explore later.