Influences for Print - Puebloan Handprints

While researching artists who may incorporate hand prints or prints of the human body in their artwork, I came across an interesting type of art in Anasazi Rock Art.

 This is the art of the Ancient Pueblo People who inhabited the Four Corners in the USA before 1300AD, now known as southern Utah, northern Arizona, north-west New Mexico, and southern Colorado. Early pueblo dwellers were named 'Anasazi' by the Navajo people, meaning 'ancient stranger or enemy' in the Native American language of Navajo.

The Ancient Pueblo people painted and carved a variety of different images into the cliff face with all of them believed to be deep and meaningful, although it is likely only the creators will ever know the true interpretations. 

It is the hand prints seen in the images below that are of interest to me and my forth-going print project. 

I am increasingly interested in the overall effect that the hand prints create on such a surface as this. I am intrigued to experiment with printing onto a range of different surfaces like this, paying particular attention to printing onto natural forms.

 

It was important to me to research this topic further to see what sort of interpretations there were for the meaning of the hand prints in the Anasazi rock art. I have discovered that the hand print symbolizes life, legacy, creative spirit and channelled energy. It was also used as a way for the artist to sign off, leaving a single hand print to immortalize themselves within the artwork.

An example of this is evident in the famous piece of rock art in the Chaco Canyon 1054 Supernova artwork.

While researching, I also came across this poem by Paul Young inspired by the rock art of Chaco Canyon and was interested to include this different type of creativity within my project. 

'Chaco'

Nothing is as it was 
all changed now as the land absorbs
the light of this new star burning
by day.

Always the heavens have directed us
homes and shrines in accordance
that we not live against the grain
of the cosmos that we become
integral part of pulse and flow
but this new presence shining above
what can it mean?

The people look to us but no priest
can explain. Concerned faces in the village
quiet confusion in kivas
fire messages blaze nightly and
runners run the roads.

Sandstone pressing
into my back I lie
on this ledge with my paints
record mysteries of the sky.
Below, the wash all appears
as it was but the
bright light brings wonder brings fear
will the rains continue to love
this place?

Sun, I paint
moon in crescent, fiery star
my palm into pigment pressed
against rock acknowledgment
Nothing is as it was.

Paul Young