Gesturing
John Updike, 1980
A couple, married for many years, are both having other affairs yet can't seem to leave each other for good. They have been together for so long and know each other so well that they can see through each others' words, understanding what each is really saying through their subtle gestures. They find comfort in the way they can communicate silently through a smile or movement of a finger – the husband seeing his wife's gestures enduring inside of himself, permanent and transparent as if they were cut into glass. I formed the word gesturing out of cast glass to embody this permanence and transparency. I photographed the word as a series, slowly being covered by a dividing line of increasing opacity. As the material accumulates, edges of the letterforms force their way through, legibility growing fainter but never disappearing all together.
