I came across my first leather work glove while on a bike ride during graduate school in 1987. It lay on the side of a Iowa state highway between two fields of corn. I took it to my studio and drew it using a dry oil technique, juxtaposing it with a leg bone of a white-tail deer. Since then, I have continued to collect them, not only off the roads I travel, but from loggers, trail builders, wildfire fighters, and my own work gloves.
Leather gloves exude a sense of longing, portraying a stilled-life, a memento mori. There is also a sense of animism in them, from the animal whose body it came from. And there is a longing in the wearer who lost it.
Each drawing is executed on Fabriano Artistico Paper, 22 x 30 inches.