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Donated
to: To
the Family.
Description:
I met Rachel on the Internet on the
"BabyGreenHouse'
women's forum. She was overjoyed to be
pregnant with her first baby, and like so many
women there we swapped our pregnancy stories
and became great friends. When she was 8
months pregnant her husband Andrew was
diagnosed with terminal cancer. I offered to
cast Andrew and Josh's hands as soon as he was born,
so that Rachel and little Josh would always
have a piece of Andrew to remind them of the
time when for just a few short months their
family was complete. Rachel lived on the other
side of England, and since I could not afford
the train fare and Andrew was too sick to
travel, the wonderful mothers of the forum
raised the money for my ticket.
The
gift is for Josh's future, from me and the
women of BabyGreenhouse,
who support each other through everything life
throws at us. Rachel takes enormous
comfort from the casts I made for them that
day. But I was given the greatest gift - the
honor of meeting that amazing family who held
strong together through Andrew's agonizing
treatment right to the end of his life. To
know that when Josh is grown up he will still
be able to connect with a small part of the
father he never really got the chance to know
means more to me than anything I have made in
my life.
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Andrew
and Josh |
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Rachel
and Andrew |
Publicity:
It received loads of publicity on the
Babygreenhouse forum which resulted in me
getting bookings for dozens of other jobs.
Up until I posted the pictures, a great many
of the women who had donated money for my
trip didn't know really what a life cast
was.
I
would have got more publicity, but Rachel's
been through a lot this year and has had
quite a lot of publicity to do with
her husband's cancer, so I don't like to ask
too often as I don't feel I want to profit
from her tragedy in any way. She has been
the bravest woman I know and somehow amongst
looking after Andrew, dealing with his
death, raising a baby single handedly, she
has also managed to launch two new national
magazines with some success! Amazing woman.
Some
other wonderful (unrelated) art pieces have
come out of our friendship too - this year
the women of the Baby Greenhouse forum
brought out an art calendar produced
entirely by members - photographers,
designers, models, marketers - of which
Rachel was one. We did it to raise money for
Andrew's favorite charity, Sparks. The
calendar was 'Beautiful Bumps And Babies'
and I had the pleasure of body-painting some
of the pregnant ladies who modeled for the
calendar. My favorite (featured in 'The Sun'
newspaper over here) was a belly painted up
like a Christmas pudding on a naked pregnant
lady from our forum.
About the Artist
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