I contact people and ask if we can meet and talk about the ways they hold their hands, I would like to draw them, record them.
We meet in people’s front rooms, an office, a camper van, a studio, a cafe.
We talk about a language of holds, about the ways the hands hold each other, we experiment with the hands in different arrangements.
We identify one hold, one that feels like it meets something inside.
I invite the person to wear the cotton gloves. I slowly sew the hands into them with red stitches. The stitches are made in points of contact between the hands.
We are close to each other, it is intimate, I feel the warmth of the hands, a breeze of breath. It becomes easier as we proceed, the hands seem to rest into the gloves and we speak. We speak of different things.
When complete I ask the person to remove the gloves slowly, place them down and feel the afterglow of the materials on their hands.
I ask if I can draw their hands. Everyone agrees (so far…).
I perceive the hands differently now that I have touched them and sewn them in, this seems to guide my drawing.
I give a copy of the drawing to each person.