Hands That Remember

Calle Feria has held workshops for four hundred years. Twelve remain: a guitar maker, two saddlers, a tinsmith, a gilder, and others whose trades have no clean English name. The Quarterly Review commissioned a portrait series before the street's redevelopment.

Each sitting took place in the person's own workshop, at their bench, in whatever light the shop had. Nothing was moved. We spent an afternoon with each subject before making a frame, which is why several of the portraits are of hands rather than faces — by the end it was obvious that was where the story lived.

The series ran as a sixteen-page feature and was later shown as a small exhibition in the neighbourhood, printed at life size so the makers could see themselves at the scale of their own work.