What Hands Do

'What Hands Do' is a body of work that I have been working on for the past year (2015-26). It is a deeply personal journey brought to life through watercolor paintings, printmaking and pit-fired ceramic sculpture. For the month of April 2026 it will be on view at Truth or Consequences Contemporary. (After that it will be on view in a smaller format the gallery.

I started painting for the first time, with watercolors, last spring-summer. Most of the 150+ watercolor paintings that I created over the summer of 2025 were bound into two handmade books with wooden covers, sewn in a Coptic style binding.

Last summer I also scratched 17 intaglio plates of plants, from life, from places that I hold dear. These intaglio prints are studies of plants from northern New Mexico, Colorado and Wyoming that I worked on printing over the winter and spring '25-26. One set of these prints was also bound into a large format book entitled ‘What are The Colors of the Place You Love Most in This World.’ A handful of these intaglio prints I adorned with watercolors, and some with foil-stamped text.

There is also a sculpture component to this installation. Ceramics was my first love. Pit-firing clay pieces was something that I did for the first time in high school and studied more deeply in college. With great joy, in the last year I have been drawn back into this form of creating. This installation is a meditation on deep time, lineage and loss. The installation includes an assembly of ceramic pieces, some functional, some purely sculptural, along with a collection of 15 glass marbles that I commissioned Joshua Cravens to make with my Dad's ashes.

All of these works come together in a study of what it means to be a floating body in this world, to be both deeply connected to and completely severed from our past. It is a meditation on new connections to understand one's body through the act of creating and connecting to the non-human world.

A large hand-bound book rests open on a white pedestal in a gallery. The cover of the book is made of naturally dyed paper in shades of yellow, mustard, rust and tan — What are the Colors of the Place You Love Most in This World? - a hand-bound book by Jeannie Ortiz with covers of hand dyed paper. In the background on the wall are the prints that can be found in the book.

A large book of black and white etchings of botanical specimens is opened with a tattooed hand — The book of intaglio prints - What are the Colors of the Place You Love Most in This World?

two hand bound books with leather covers rest on white pedestals in a gallery setting — Two hand bound books with wooden covers - Each book is a compilation of watercolored pages - these books are titled Vessels and Studies

A close up view of a black and grey-brown sparkly clay vessel and hand sculpture in an assemblage of other objets in an art installation on a white pedestal in a gallery — What Hands Do, an Offering - A close up view of this installation made from pit-fired clay pieces and glass marbles

A close up view of a black and grey-brown sparkly clay vessel in an assemblage of other objets in an art installation on a white pedestal in a gallery — What Hands Do, an Offering - A close up view of this installation made from pit-fired clay pieces and glass marbles

A sculpture on a white wall of a dark hand with an eye in the inside which is mounted on an intricately carved wooden tablet — I See From Here - a sculpture in ceramic & wood

a small sculpture of a human head with bird legs stands on a white pedestal. it is made of tan clay with black speckles. the toenails are painted white — A Tiny Spirit - a small ceramic sculpture

the left hand of a person holds four small handmade books, three are red, one is grey. The title, Tegument, is foil stamped in metallic red on the cover — A small series of Singer books made especially for the show, entitled - Tegument - they contain a small selection of images form the show as well as writings adjacent to it