This project began when shelter-in-place first started, as a way to connect with distant family members, and continues as a way to hold hands in this age of social distancing. I request a person to send me pic of their hand, right or left. Gathering these lines and sewing into canvas, trying to capture movement and detail, treating each line as important--as important as their hand would be to me if I was to gently hold it. On the back of each work I write the person's name: this is my sister-in-law's palm.
She lives in Trinidad--how long until we can see her again?
Working on creating an installation with both the palm lines and some other shelter-in-place work: thinking about the presence of absence-how many are gone now (through this disease, through police violence) and the absence that now lives in their families' lives. Thinking about collective experience. Wishing for the day this present experience shifts, though I know there is no shifting back. May we shift forward together: more loving and more aware of how connected we truly are.
