In-Progress Photos

Final Result

Artist Statement

I made a hollow replica of a human hand, with each of the five fingers representing a "pinch pot" that I attached to the "body" part of the palm. 

At first I was really stuck on what idea to do, because I couldn't think of a lot of things that had multiple shapes globbed onto one another. However, I ended up drawing inspiration from Auguste Rodin, one of my favorite sculptors. He did many studies of human hands, and I love his work with them. I ended up creating the palm first, then making each finger by creating a little tube and stacking them on top of each other to give myself an idea of how the phalanges stack on top of one another and are connected by knuckle joints. I didn't work very hard to smooth out my surface because Rodin's technique includes a very imperfect, impressionist style that allows for little bits of clay to generally give the idea of muscles and tendons without recreating the look exactly. I ended up adding certain bits of clay afterwards, for the knuckles on the back of the hand and tendons coming out from them.

I chose this particular position of the hand because I wanted it to be able to stand upright on its own as well as horizontally. I know that having three points of contact will allow any sculpture to rest evenly on a flat surface, so I played around with finger positions and the idea of chords, where three fingers come down to press on piano keys. I glazed the inside of the hand blue just for some interest, though you can't really see it. 

I am happy with the outcome! I was very hesitant to put a lot of faith in my ability to recreate a human body part since I don't have a lot of knowledge of anatomy, but I was really proud of what I came out with. It's not perfect, but I love that it looks like a study of a hand. I'm not sure how I feel about the glaze yet—I didn't know what to choose for a glaze so I ended up with a white satin matte, which looks  a little bit like bone. Time will probably make me fonder of it.