dready art ‘the lady marcia’ – 30×40 – original commission on canvas

the building of this dready, and it really was that, a piece by piece building of and idea, was so much fun …

I was waiting on inspiration, because the remit had been ‘something caribbean or caymanian’, vague, non-specific,  then one day online, I saw a photo of caymanian craftsman and catboat builder, Kem Jackson, leaning over one of his catboats, in his yard, and that started the germination of the idea …

then I built it, really, thought on thought; I drew the tree, then the catboat, then the building – the shed …

it took some time to work out where the shed would go exactly … then the fence and once I’d done the fence the shed found its place.

in that photo of mr Kem, behind him, on the wall of his workshop there’s art, hand painted and cool … and that led me to do art on the front wall of the shed; let’s put a dready in the dready …

then, when I was done, all things in their place, it seemed to need a person and I wanted him sitting in a chair … and where; under the tree, under the shed, on the grass?

the final thing was the old oil drum – every farm yard, every garage, every works shop I ever spent time in growing up had an oil drum …

it seems fitting, given the source inspiration, that I should ‘build’ this image, piece by piece, into a complete dready …

life …