Touch Student Work

Katie Speakman

Unveiling Internal Physical Perception

Digital Artwork

 "What is a sense of one's self?  To a large extent it has to do with touch, with how we feel... Not that our sense of self is necessarily accurate.  Each of us has an exaggerated mental picture of our body, with a big head, hands, mouth, and genitals, and a small trunk...Touch fills our memory with a detailed key as to how we're shaped.  A mirror would mean nothing without touch." 

-Diane Ackerman, A Natural History of the Senses, p. 95.

 

Statement:

With this drawing, I wanted to visually capture Ackerman's description of how we internally perceive our physical bodies.  This sense of constant awareness through touch is represented by the spiritual, glowing figure within the mirror.  The outer glow represents touch--the wider the glow, the greater the perception of that area of the body.  So, the head and hands have a large glow, which gives them greater touch significance.  I placed the "perception" figure in a mirror, to show that--though she looks at an exact duplicate of herself in the glass--the woman is also seeing this 3 dimensional, holistic version of herself there.

Klara Acierno

Cramps

Graphite Drawing + ink

18" x 24"

"Many women experience extreme pain during their periods each month..."

A Natural History of The Senses, Diane Ackerman, p. 103

Statement:

The idea for this piece was to show the type of pain people endure during their periods. The feeling of our insides pulling and extending. 

Anna Kate Radford

I Was Here

Embroidery

8" x 8"

"What a marvel to see so many lives at full stretch, defined by needles and ink, so many people who wished to become their own text."

- Diane Ackerman, A Natural History of the Senses, p. 100

Statement: 

This piece is meant to represent people's innate desire to leave their mark on the world. We leave pieces of ourselves everywhere, in our houses, with our friends, even on our skin. We all want to be remembered, even if only by a few people, so we do what we can to touch the world around us and say "I was here."

Bradley Edmonds

 “How do you feel?”

Colored Pencil on Watercolor Paper

9”x12” 

“When we touch something on purpose, our lover, the fender of a new car, the tongue of a penguin, we set in motion our complex web of touch receptors.” -A Natural History of the Senses, Diane Ackerman, page 80.

Statement:

After reading this quote, I wanted to convey an image that portrays many feelings of touch into one network. The overlapping of the hands and the lines within hands allow the imagery of connecting webs relating back to quote above. I wanted the lines to create this woven texture of differing designs.

Lizzie Marino

Darkness

Edited Photography with Digital Art 

“…but to be without touch is to move through a blurred, deadened world, in which you could lose a leg and not know it, burn your hand without feeling, and lose track of where you stop and the featureless day begins” (82).

    -A Natural History of the Senses, Diane Ackerman, page 82

Statement:
A world without touch is one that would be dark, dull, and ever so lonely. Having no true sense of anything that is happening is a life in which no one should ever have to live in. A featureless existence would result in ultimate dismal, everything would be drained of color and essentially lifeless. Numbness is just a meaningless void of existence. Inevitable, darkness is humankind's largest fear.

Josi Riggert

Digital Collage

“Far more women than men claim to have cold hands and feet, which isn’t surprising. When the body gets cold, it protects the core organs first (which is why it’s easy to get frostbite in your extremities); in women, it protects the reproductive organs.” (Natural History of The Senses, Ackerman, page 91)

I have felt cold my entire life. There is a fear that coincides with being in the cold. There is nothing worst than being stuck in the cold when it is dark and wet outside. It is anxiety-inducing.