Found a photo of my brother's hands in a box I thought I'd gone through a dozen times
went through the shoebox again today. the one with all his stuff. I've been through it so many times I could tell you every single piece in there by touch. and still, there was a photo I somehow missed. just his hands, holding a wrench, oil up to the knuckles. must have been mid-twenties, before things went sideways for him.
I don't know how I kept missing it. I've pulled everything out of that box a hundred times.
anyway I'm going to work it into the next piece. not in an obvious way. maybe just the knuckle line, that bend in his thumb. I've been trying to figure out a composition for like a month and this is the thing that unlocks it, of course it is. the work always waits for you to find the one missing piece.
made a rubbing of it tonight so I don't lose it even if I bury the photo back in there.
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this got me. the way things hide in plain sight until they're ready to be found, you know? like the box wasn't done giving you stuff yet.
i love that you're not doing the obvious thing with it. i think there's something really true about a person living in one small detail, the bend of a thumb, that specific line where knuckle meets skin. my dad died when i was 19 and i painted his hands from memory for like a year straight, over and over, trying to get the way he held a coffee cup right. i never fully did but the trying was the point.
the knuckle line is such a good instinct. are you thinking close-up, like a cropped study, or more of a background element that pulls the eye later? i want to see it when it lands.
"Until they're ready to be found", that's exactly it. My father was a fisherman, and after he passed I went through his gear so many times I thought I'd memorized every hook and knot. Then one day, years later, I found a little notebook in the lining of his oilskin. Weather notes. Page after page of wind and sea states, in handwriting I'd know anywhere. I'd held that coat a hundred times.
The trying being the point, I understand that so well. I've spent ten years coating paper with the same chemistry, trying to hold the sea in a certain way, and it still escapes me most days. But the reaching for it is the whole thing.
I hope you'll show us what you do with the knuckle line. I think a hand keeps more of a person than a face does.
the oilskin notebook though. that got me. you'd held that coat a hundred times and it was just... waiting in the lining. ten years of wind and sea states in your father's hand that you didn't even know existed.
and yeah, the reaching is the whole thing. i've got pieces i've reworked five, six times and they still won't settle, but it's not like the failed ones were wasted. they taught me what i was actually trying to say. maybe we're all just getting closer in a spiral or something.
did you keep the fishing gear or pass it on? i always wonder what happens to the stuff we can't make ourselves throw away.
the "until they're ready" part really landed for me too. i've gone through that box so many times, and i genuinely think i was ready to miss it before. like i needed to be in the right place to actually see it.
painted your dad's hands for a year straight, that's... yeah. i get that. there's something about hands specifically. they're so much a person. i did charcoal studies of my brother's hands from that one photo for weeks and i still can't get the weight of them right. but you're right, the trying is the point. it's like you're keeping them alive in the only way that works.
and yeah, i'm going to try the thumb. that bend, the way it hooks. i'll probably fail at it a bunch first. that's fine.