Byproducts

One day, when taking some cleaning rags out of the wash, it occurred to me how beautiful they were. Even though they were a byproduct they were still beutiful. Many people today are byproducts - byproducts of negative or casual relationships, byproducts of their upbringing, of circumstances and political situations. They are all beautiful. Almost by accident they are beautiful. I decided to stretch the cleaning rags as canvasses and add stenciled people directly on to the untreated cloth amongst the random splodges of paint to identify one kind of byproduct with another. I decided to use figures of children to try to convey a sense of vulnerability. I used my own children as models.
I particularly liked the fact that these rags were part of old candy stripe pattern sheets that I, like many others, had on my bed as a child. I felt that the nostalgia that this induced helped me to identify with the children in the pictures.