Laura McCafferty

In October 2007 I was standing on my stand at Origin, Somerset House- My plan for this exhibition was to make one huge artwork that people could come on to the stand and just enjoy. The piece was The Crufts Misfits, the 300cm by 100cm artwork. This well documented piece features 14 people and 11 dogs. On the third day of the show a couple came to see my work, to talk about a possible commission. They came and took one look at the piece on the wall and decided that they would have one similar of their entire family. I was surprised and overjoyed that somebody was confident to put such a big undertaking in my hands. I fills you with such pride when people trust you. The next stage was to travel to their home to meet and photograph all the family members. It fitted in so well to my work as I love to stage gatherings and document the moment. Over the next few months I studied the faces and figures in the images and spent weeks carefully completing the pen line drawings- they had to be perfect. A good likeness and achieving the subtle family resemblance was a must. Following this I had to select the appropriate fabrics, make all the fabric pieces, carefully apply them to the base, screen-print and spend weeks hand-stitching each individual fabric section. It was a huge project but I loved every minute of it. I had it stretched and framed and a long wheel base van delivered the 3 meter artwork to their home in April 2008. It was nerve-wrecking as they had been happy for me to complete the whole piece without them having seen any of the progress. They were delighted and I so happy with the outcome. I visited their home a couple of months later and we celebrated by having a beer in the garden.