Megan Feniak

Partial Sarcophagus 

In Partial Sarcophagus the impression of a hand is hollowed out from cherry wood in two halves that would meet to enclose it like a shell. The interior handprint has been removed using a small repetitive chisel-mark. This repeated mark is concave, each mark resembles the inverse of a small fingernail, a bite-mark, or perhaps the inside of another smaller seashell. From the outside, the shape of the hand is muted. The fingers—clearly pronounced in its interior—are no longer attenuated, their translation reduces them to soft bumps. The hand becomes a wide, smooth, paw-like clamshell, softened with very fine sanding like stones shaped by the sea.

* * *

It is the most natural thing in the world to pick up a stone smoothed by the sea. I have one I brought with me, carried many miles across a sea of grass. Ontario to Alberta, a smooth dark stone no larger than an almond warm inside my pocket. My charm. It came into my possession on a beach, on a warm night when the view was altered by swarming midges. Just shooting the shit, we throw stones in the lake and stare into the sun. Someone is talking about the seagulls, and my friend absently offers it to me. It is special because she is absent-minded, the gesture is perfect in its un-specialness. Sweetness is overlooked in the midst of summer’s abundance; the touch of a friend’s fingertips to the palm is nothing when you are throwing stones side by side on a beach. I try to remember it as the stone cools in my hand.