Years ago I was commissioned by Allison and Bobby Watt to paint an 8’ x 5’ double portrait of their two dads walking down a country road in Scotland. I composed the painting with the dads ‘walking out of the picture’, as it were.

I worked on the painting for a good year and a half and was planning on having an in-studio art show before passing it over to it’s adoptive parents when quite unexpectedly my own father died.

In time I returned to the painting and found I had become entranced- maybe even obsessed by the road on which the two dads were walking…the ‘road of life’ perhaps, and I started adding deeper and deeper colours to it….purples and dark reds.
I finally called the Watts to ask them to come and get it before the whole painting turned purple.

We had a nice in-studio showing and The Two Dads were taken to their new home outside of Wakefield.

Sometime later on that year, Swamperella played a gig in Wakefield and Bobby contacted me suggesting that I come see the painting in situ. He also mentioned that he had ‘something in the painting’ he wanted show me. After sound check he drove me to his new house. I could see my painting through the front window. It hung high above an archway dominating an entire wall between living and dining rooms . Bobby offered me a seat in front of the painting and in his thick, endearing Scottish accent he purred, “Now, Soozi, do you see anything on the rrrroad?” he pointed to a section of the road with an enormously long yardstick. Allison was standing nearby, wide eyed and grinning.

“No …no I don’t”, I said, “What do you mean?!”
I became quite agitated.
“Rrrrright therrrre”, he is tapping the yardstick on the canvas, “in the rrrroad…can ya not see it?”
“No …I don’t see anything…just a lot of purple and red…!”

“Can ya not see it, lass?” he insisted.
“Look, it’s your father’s face! You‘ve painted your own father’s face rrrrrright therrre on the rrrrroad!”

I was horrified….the subconscious had taken over, which normally is a magical thing, but this painting was a commission and I had a serious responsibility to deliver the correct goods. I started apologizing and saying I would fix it.

“NO NO!” They laughed and hugged me. “We love it even more! “And now we’ve started calling it ‘The Three Dads”!

Thank goodness for kind souls
and great senses of humour!

and thanks to the dads…all three of them!