For my birthday this year, my best friend cast her own hand in plaster, so that I could hold it whenever I wanted to. So, this is the hand of my best friend, Devon Deimler. She’s a mythologist, a scholar and an incredible artist, but she’s been mostly a professor these days so it’s meant a lot to me to see her artwork.

We went to art school in Baltimore together. Technically, we were in the sculpture department but it was more like social practice, following a lineage of conceptual artists, event-based artists. We were lucky. We had a rad professor. We had a bunch of people that would come down from New York—far-out thinkers. 

We lived in Baltimore together for years, collaborating on many art projects. But ever since I moved up here [to Washington state] and she moved to LA—and with COVID— it’s been hard to see each other. So, this gift of her hand was a very tender, loving one. 

It can hold things, if I want it to. Or I can make offerings to her: Oh, you’re feeling depressed. Let me just rest a cigarette in here. I have so many objects that are ancient, and so meaningful, in all different ways. This one is brand new to me. I love that freshness: Did not exist before. Created for me. It’s just sweet. I mean: How often does a friend give you their hand?