These Hands
The Healer
Clare is the healer.
she presses,
stretches,
moves
the skin,
holding back
and pushing down,
feeling the response
and
deepening.
she’s the connection,
her hands
the link to her
power to heal,
she talks with her hands
to be understood.
words by Callie Beuermann
These Hands
The Individual
Mary is the individual.
with hands that split across
the top
like her mother’s,
with hands that remember
the welts blooming
after days making hay,
and digging up turnips as
the light fades and the frost
creeps in,
with hands that know a hot country
and the sun marks
as proof,
with hands that write
so that everything has a place,
with hands and joints
that ease as
warm water flows over
them—
with hands that write,
that advocate,
that connect,
that support,
that feel.
words by Callie Beuermann
These Hands
The Mentor
Jim is the mentor.
training vines
driving tractors
lifting stones
killing weeds
building fences,
all to be on the land
balancing the mind and
the hands.
all to read and learn even more,
to tackle a jungle of blackberries
and to clasp his hands together
with his many worlds,
all to teach and
mentor and
grow
the art.
words by Callie Beuermann
These Hands
The Maker
Susie is the maker.
with fixing hands on
the black dirt cotton farm—
with hands that row
and calluses that
form and heal
over and over—
with hands like spiders
over a keyboard—
with hands that
move by themselves,
moulding and shaping and creating
clay and glass and jewellery,
gentle with patience
kept safe for them
to make.
words by Callie Beuermann
These Hands
Love
Chris is love.
she’s three or four years old,
next to her sister—eight or nine,
in clothes made by their mum,
smiles and love.
she sees the nooks and crannies
of her hands
as an expression of love—
hands in the cats’ fur,
giving hugs,
holding people,
memories of the keys of a piano,
sowing the seeds of a garden.
words by Callie Beuermann
These Hands
The Giver
Emily is
the giver.
beads on beads
on thread,
folding, making,
exploring.
Emily
loses herself
in love and care;
she accepts her dad’s final gift
of transformation.
she is
the glass bead among
the rust
she stays the same
and changes,
all at once.
words by Callie Beuermann
These Hands
The Performer
Ben is
the performer.
he transforms a room with
percussive hands
against
his guitar—steel strings
tear up his hands—
his storytelling tool,
his noisemaker.
his hands are protected
by rings and the echo
of his dad’s hands,
a connection without touch.
his hands fall away from
his body
as he works,
but touch pulls them back.
words by Callie Beuermann
These Hands
The Glazier
Michael is the glazier. His hands tell his story—that of love, of family, and of hard work.
He’s held windows and aluminium all his life, but he also held his father’s hands when he was younger, he holds his daughters’ hands when they are sick, and holds his wife Lisa’s hands in times of stress and happiness.
There are scars on his hands, each one a story: of an accident, of pain, of a skilful surgeon’s work, of slow healing.
Michael has always been a maker and a fixer, renovating the places where his family lives, building furniture, fixing anything and everything. The glazier knows glass, but his hands know love, family, and creation.
words by Callie Beuermann
These Hands
Paste Ups
Hands—clasped, held, idling. Full of life, these hands are stories about connection, beauty and emotion.
This series of hand portraits were installed across the inner northern suburbs of Melbourne, Australia from 5th – 19th October 2021.
These paste-ups were immense showings of the beauty and power of hands. The decomposing of each poster, as you'll see in the images throughout these pages, showed a magnified version of the way life reveals itself on our own hands.
