I have wanted to explore the complicated layers of our collective humanity through one of our most important senses, touch. This focus on the subject of touch led me to the realization that we humans are in fact “out of touch.” Invisible barriers are being erected as a consequence of an increased awareness of the emotional and physical disconnect we are experiencing. 

 

This disconnect is heightened by fear.  Ironically, we struggle to accept, compromise and trust as the chasm between “us” and “the others” broadens. Yet our innate compassion can overcome our disconnect and many of the “us” can and do get beyond that which separates the “others.”

 

Our hands provide the means by which we express ourselves through physical engagement in the world. With them we are able to create amazing structures, write prose and poetry, express visual ideas, make music, comfort through touch and communicate in a myriad of ways what we are inspired by and love as well as what we find loathsome and intolerable. In order to bring about positive change it is the personal responsibility of each of us to be mindful of how we use our hands in our interactions with this precious world because we hold in them the power to destroy as well as to create.

 

With these hand-built sculptures I hope to reveal our common connections and, most importantly our basic empathy toward one another. We can strive to be supportive of each other by working to recognize, honor, and respect the  common threads of our humanity. 

 

So, to you, the viewer, I hope to touch you and expose your humanity for we have far more that connects us than divides us.

​

P. Kloczkowski Luberda