The Binding Print I. To Sleep

In the collection of the Smithsonian Museum of African Art.

The prints To Sleep and To Dream frame the narrative reference Shakespeare’s Hamlet. In both of these prints the child is covered by a blanket. The crochet blanket evokes a maternal, comforting space. However, if you look closely, inserted within the blanket is an embossed gun. The gun, based on a toy gun belonging to my son deliberately disrupts the image of the innocent sleeping child, and in doing so it anticipates the next phase in his life.