When I'm Not Making Jewelry.....

In those rare in-between moments when I'm not making jewelry, or organizing my work space or re-arranging my website, or... ahem... Facebook, I am usually doing one of two things: photographing my cats or sketching. Perhaps I should try sketching my cats!

Lately, I've been obsessed with hands. Perhaps because it's one of the few things I can draw fairly well, quickly and still find meaning in the process. It's not just about the act of sketching, though that certainly has it's purpose, but about the process of considering the art before I begin. It's about the entire experience, and taking from that some sort of introspection, hopefully, and growth. Perhaps I'm obsessed with hands because I work with mine every day, because they give life to creative expression. They can soothe and conceive, they can be stricken with pain and even cause it, they can fabricate, construct and actualize. Hands are a rare, but often unrecognized, gift which we take for granted more than we appreciate them.

I spent most of the month of April photographing my own hands, and then using them as a reference in my art. In the first image is a fist, gripping a pair of holy beads with the strength and determination of the self-assured. By drawing that strength, I was also absorbing it. In the next is a forward-facing fist with wings and a bright crescent moon halo above it. Here I was, for lack of a better word, evoking action and momentum during a time in which I had none. And in the last is a gentle and relaxed pose, a tranquil finger on which a butterfly has perched. This.... this was to invite serenity.

Hands are one gateway to the soul. How gentle we are with them, or fierce when the call for such has been made, is a statement about our self-worth, self-reflection and self-expression. Our hands can represent the journey we take with others and the journey we experience alone, through our creative endeavors or personal labors.

Appreciate their role in your life.

I saw we all go get a manicure!