Do I ever notice this encasement I live inside? This thing that can produce ideas and get me from one place to another.

My body.

Yes, I exercise. And yes, Tai Chi and sometimes yoga. But yesterday I had the luxury of taking a class with Caryn McHose, this reknowned movement teacher that offers classes all over the world and on occasion to those fortunate to live near to (and far from) her studio here in Holderness. When I say luxury, I mean the opportunity she offers to experience this physical self in a way other than routine. On this day, she used the starfish as inspiration, as example. But also as paradigm: that humans and starfish were early on both one cell organisms, and the way the starfish radiated out from that beginning can be seen to parallel our own radiating out from center: with the head (and tail) plus the arms and legs all extending from “the middle”.

And to feel that in my body? Me, equally feeling hands, feet, head? Feeling being the key word here. The sensation was startling: my hands in contact with another extension, touching my other hand (so delicate, so tender), and my feet (so nurtured by the attention) and then… what was this furry feeling round part at the top of me?

I use my hands every day. All the time. I touch the softest, most luxurious cloth in the world constantly. Am I registering the sweetness of the touch?

And do I want any of my viewers to actually touch my art?