No. 438, Inherent Wisdom, Love and Beauty

"Inherent Wisdom, Love and Beauty,". pencil, May 2019

Hands are hard for me to draw.  In fact, if you peruse my work, you'll see all sorts of ways that I've treated hands:  Faded them, cropped them out, hidden them, just plain avoided them.

So when I was asked to create an image of three overlapping hands for a housewarming gift, I paused a bit before accepting the challenge.

I'm glad that a high school friend and I were able to put this project together for her newly-married daughter. It's a special gift that spans three generations -- the hands are daughter-mother-grandma or "Oma."    She wanted to call it "Inherent Wisdom, Love and Beauty."

Apparently the photo used to create this drawing was an afterthought.  It was meant to be taken professionally on wedding day, but in the hoopla it never was.  So the next morning everyone gathered round the wedding dress and made it happen for themselves. 

Interestingly, my friend specifically requested a "repurposed" frame and mat in keeping with her motto of  "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle." You can trust me when I tell you that a square frame and mat are not easily found in this size, but after two or three attempts we settled upon this silver shell with a mat that -- by sheer luck -- is the same color as the wedding dress.

The bride doesn't remember but I met her when she was just learning to walk. And really I hadn't seen her mother much since high school -- Fräulein Cicero so long ago.  
Such great memories.  Keepers.