grasping hand

Arches CP 300 gsm, 7" x 10".

i asked siena to model hand poses with me, two hands interacting in various grips, pushes, caresses, touches, pokes, hovers.

i am not sure how to use these poses, whether as individual images or as an assemblage of many different hand poses in the same scale on a single large sheet.

i later realized that her right hand and my left hand correspond to the two hands of a single viewer: you can match this pose with your own hands. this fired me to shoot another series with the right hand on the left side, or with two left or right hands, the handshake relationship, that cannot be duplicated by a single person.

i think the model both creates the basic materials for an image and exerts a kind of moral pressure to realize the image as skillfully as possible. the model may be a landscape, or a bowl of fruit, or a face, or a physique, or a gesture, or a cafe interior -- whatever. the form and presence of the model is accepted as the starting point for the reality or truth that the artist encloses in an object.