two things happened … well three really (and maybe even 4) … first I love breadfruit, if I could eat breadfruit and fried plantain every day I would be a happy man!

then I was talking to a designer, about a project, who asked if I had any food images – I have some food dreadys, but none actually ‘of food’ – and ya know I had been planning a breadfruit one in my head but hadn’t drawn it yet … and so I thought I would draw some …

and as I was looking through some ideas for a mood board on the art, some photos, including one of a dude named ‘basil’, by Brie Williams, leapt out at me and an idea started to coalesce into what was to become this ‘breadfruit on a mantel piece like a family treasure’ – my mother loves breadfruit so much she always calls it by its nickname ‘breshy’ …

truth is it, the breadfruit, started out in the dready sitting on an open shelf in a kitchen, but the photograph of ‘basil’ made his way into it, I couldn’t live without him in it, felt he fit the vibe, and Brie had given me permission to use him …

and then as basil made his way in, I found that didn’t like the way the glasses and bottles and cups I was drawing on to the shelf, were distracting from the breadfruit … and then the little vase with flowers crept in …

and so the art really moved, by itself, in a direction I didn’t realize it had gone until David said ‘it’s like a mantel piece, like the breadfruit’s a family heirloom on display’ … so although I didn’t think of that I’ll take it as my own …

Wray then shared a pretty cool history of breadfruit in Jamaica with me; of how the first trees to come to the west inides were planted at Bath Botanical Gardens and where the first suckers ended up and where they are now … like the greater history of our food and how we identify with it, how we nationalise it and how it exemplifies what we think we are and yet are actually not really.

food … for thought …

history …