The Hand in the Salt

Sculpting is a unique art form in that it can take the thoughts of the artist, the vision that an artist has and put it into a tangible 3D object.  These objects can simply represent something else like emotions or an idea.  My inspiration of creating this hand came from my constants thoughts throughout the past weeks on hands themselves.  The design of hands, the functions of them, what they can represent in and of themselves has taken ahold of my fascination as of late.  From these thoughts I was able to form a hand I pictured in my mind, all the little lines, the bevels of the veins on the hand, the intricate details were represented through the sculpting of the material in my hands. 

Though one of the greatest aspects of this medium is being able to actually take the medium into your hands and shape it into an object that others can touch and feel all the details, it does have limitations.  The object itself can’t have the depth of focus like a painting nor can it move like a movie.  These objects created through sculpting can represent great ideas or thoughts however.  For me, I thought it was interesting to take this inanimate material and animate it in a sense into something that is so familiar to most people.  Along with this, like in this picture where I’m essentially having a handshake with my creation, it represents the camaraderie with the human race.  Hands are our way of contact with others, where we can give a pat on the shoulder in reassurance or hold hands with our sweethearts.  It represents the basic needs of human nature. 

Reading over Scott McCloud’s little comic strip on comics, reminded me of how old sculpting is as an art form.  Just like he talked about, comics in our day are similar to the “comics” of ancient Egypt, my sculpture resonates with those of ancient Greece.  The times of Michelangelo’s David and others can be seen through not only my little sculpture, but other artist’s works for the fathers of this art form will subsequently be shown throughout the generations since them. 

A quote from Philip Guston expressing his thoughts on this art form, I feel fits well to what I was explaining with this work,” painting and sculpture are very archaic forms.  It’s the only thing left in our industrial society where an individual alone can make something with not just his own hands, but brains, imagination, heart maybe.”  Though it wasn’t necessarily imaginative to create a hand, the thoughts behind creating it, produced a unique perspective into the hand itself.  Ultimately it created an ironic aspect for it was hands working that modeled this hand representing the work and glory that hands can do.