Chicken Hands

I thought enamel would be bound to do for my hands. At the start of the project one of the managers pressed large black rubber gloves on me along with a big tube of barrier cream. I was grateful and they have sat in silent reproach on a shelf ever since. The good news is that constant exposure to enamel hasn’t resulted in any effect whatsoever. My hands are fine, as my hands go, but then they were done for long ago.

My son met me coming in one day a few years back from winter digging the vegetable beds. I was cold and tired and horribly muddy and was grateful for his look of concern. I went so far as to imagine the steaming cup of tea which would doubtless result from his anxiety. However, after examining me intently for a few moments, he looked me in the eye and said ‘Ugh! Your hands look just like chicken feet’ and then departed repelled.

He’s absolutely right, I babysat my sister’s chickens recently and I checked. The price I guess for never bothering with gloves for anything from shovelling gravel to fishing etching plates out of acid.

Enamel is the most extraordinary stuff, quite aside from being reasonably hand friendly. The more I work with it, the more I want to experiment. It has aspects of printmaking in its application which makes it user-friendly for me, but it has the sensitivity and luminosity of watercolour. The slightest overlap or variation in thickness is apparent and its delicacy a challenge. I think it would lend itself marvellously to seascapes which I am thinking about for the first time (helps being on a small island) but not for this project. Sadly Aylesbury Vale is as far from the sea as anywhere in England.