Touch Response

 

An Expert's Touch

Kneaded erasure

Final solution is a digital photograph

“Feeling doesn’t take place in the topmost layer of skin, but in the second layer. The top layer of skin is dead, sloughs off easily, and contributes to that ring around the bathtub. This is why safecrackers are sometimes shown sandpapering their fingertips, making the top layer of skin thinner so that the touch receptors will be closer to the surface. A carpenter looking for rough patches may run a thumb over the plank of wood he has just planed. A cook may roll a bit of dough between a thumb and forefinger to test its consistency.” - Diane Ackerman, A Natural History of the Senses, p. 68 

Statement:

Experts and professionals within their field work with similar materials all the time which builds this comforting bond to the senses. Like an artist adding water to their paint to adjust the consistency or nurses being able to identify medicines without having to read a label, their touch having been fine tuned to notice the difference in the viscosity between medications. I chose to use a kneaded erasure because artists who use charcoal are constantly kneading their erasures to the consistency that they like. 

Skin and It's Textures

Toilet paper and cotton ovals on mixed media paper 

9" x 12"

Many touch receptors combine to produce what we call a twinge. Consider all the varieties of pain, irritation, abrasion; all the textures of lick, pat, wipe, fondle, knead; all the prickling, bruising, tingling, brushing, scratching, banging, fumbling, kissing, nudging. Chalking your hands before you climb onto uneven parallel bars. A plunge into an icy farm pond on a summer day when the air temperature and body temperature are the same. The feel of a sweat bee delicately licking moist beads from your ankle.” - Diane Ackerman, A Natural History of the Senses, p. 80 

Statement:

The idea for this piece was inspired by the complex way our body’s receptors interpret sensations and the varying differences in them all. I used paper products to demonstrate the many textures, bumps, and scars skin has; how one part of the body not only feels texturally different from others but also experiences sensations different.