Hands! Tools!

The Bay Area Discovery Museum is an interactive children's museum. In 2002 it chose Grendel’s Mother to inaugurate their artist in residence program. As there was ongoing building and renovation at the Museum, the curator requested that the project have a construction and tool theme.

During four days of public demonstrations, Grendel’s Mother encouraged children and their parents to trace their hands and simple tools such as hammers, pliers and clamps onto steel sheets. The artists cut these silhouettes out in public demonstrations using oxy-acetylene torches. The resulting positive and negative cut outs were then assembled into a brightly painted twelve foot long folding screen, which is now permanently installed at the Museum.