Midway through my second year as a fashion student, I found a black and white photograph that I fell in love with. I built concept cards around it; I made theme books to reflect ideas that came from it; I spent many weeks on a small, wonderful journey around it. The picture was of an extremely handsome, bare-chested man, seated with a large, swan across his lap. I had never seen anything so powerful nor so beautiful…it affected me. From that one photograph, which was strikingly not unlike a close friend and flat-mate, I spent hours printing pieces of textile and long pieces of silk. I imagined a world where everyone had gone, leaving behind one man: the "lawn-mower man". For years, he kept mowing the huge lawns around a grand house, in the hope that one day someone would return.
My flat-mate had mowed the lawn once, so he became "the lawn-mower man". This evolved and by the end of the project, I grandiosely called my collection of final prints and items…"The Man With The Big Duck". I thought it was fabulous at the time and was so excited that I wanted to share it with everyone, including he whose likeness I had embodied into print.
Naively, I typed, "How is your Big Duck?" as a text message event and sent it, so I could "show and tell" and finally share it with my male muse. Unfortunately, things may be read rather differently when you are not totally and absolutely wrapped into fashion. I think the "U" may have been read as another letter in the alphabet and I have been deserted by the whipper-snipper person. He never saw the swan, and I am sure he would have been rather complimented. But…swans are swans and ducks are ducks and now my life is nothing but bird seed.
