Hands at Work - Portraits and Profiles of People Who Work with Their Hands

This collection of dramatic black and white portraits by Summer Moon Scriver along with companion profiles by Iris Graville captures the drama and tells the stories of people who work with their hands. The 144-page coffee-table book offers 23 full-length profiles and three themed collages of people passionate about their work. Scriver s photographs and book designer Bob Lanphear s layouts are a powerful combination: many of the 126 black-and-white art images are printed larger than life. Viewed in such deft detail, hands take on sensual elegance; an oboe player s thumb and forefinger steady his instrument; a midwife s hand clasps the palm of a laboring mother. Author Graville also moves in close, allowing individuals to speak with unselfconscious candor. Written in the tradition of Studs Turkel s classic book, Working, Graville and Scriver have created a collection of stories that connect and inspire.

Summer Moon Scriver has been a professional portraiture and landscape photographer for 10 years. A self-taught artist, her work has been shown in galleries across the Northwest. She feels that in close-up portraits, the magic of black-and-white photography provides both richness and simplicity. Her images in Hands at Work were taken on a Nikon D200, using digital format. As a nurse, Iris Graville loved listening to the stories of patients in hospital rooms, exam rooms and private homes. Twenty-five years later, she now gives voice to the untold stories of ordinary people: homesteaders in Mexico, hurricane survivors in Nicaragua, senior citizens in the San Juans, and in this book, those who work with their hands. Her interview, essay, and memoir pieces have been published in national and regional journals and magazines. Iris also teaches bookbinding and creates hand-bound blank journals.