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By Mary Therese Biebel mbiebel@timesleader.com
Features Writer
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Ask Sally Wiener Grotta what makes a hand fascinating, and she won’t mention softness, smoothness or elaborate manicures.

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ABOVE: Grace Hatton’s working hands are part of a growing series Sally Wiener Grotta has assembled. The photographer is looking for more artisans to be her subjects. RIGHT: Sally Wiener Grotta shot many photos of glassblower John Choi as he worked at the Banana Factory in Bethelehem. This is a display of photos of Choi as they appeared during a previous exhibit. Grotta’s project, ‘Pennsylvania Hands,’ will be at the Electric City Trolley Museum in Scranton starting Thursday.

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Grotta

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“All the hands that I have been photographing are not the glossy magazine hands of beauty, but they’re honestly hands that work, that have seen life, that have a great deal of character.”

Grotta, a writer and photographer from Newfoundland in Wayne County, has spent the past several months visiting crafters and photographing them, with emphasis on their skillful hands.

A monthlong exhibit of her work, titled “Pennsylvania Hands,” will be on display at the Electric City Trolley Museum in Scranton, starting Thursday with an opening reception from 5:30 to 8 p.m.

Grotta has watched with admiration as her subjects spin wool, tat lace, blow glass, stitch quilts or make a thatch roof.

“I am learning so much from every single one of them,” she said. “Because of their intimate involvement with their art form, with their craft, they have wisdom they developed from their fingertips inward.”

Her focus is on people who create something functional as well as attractive, from tiles to woven cloth to – this one, she believes, will surprise her friends – guns.

“I am adding a gunsmith,” she said, “but the guns are not for killing people. They’re Pennsylvania long rifles. At first, I thought I was out of my element, but then I realized, this is appropriate. We’re talking about what was necessary to build our society. If I had lived in the 1700s that’s how I would have had to get food.”

The gunsmith’s long rifles are sought by historical re-enactors, Grotta said.

Some of the artisans she has photographed have allowed her to try her own hand at their crafts, which has only increased her respect for their finesse.

For example, glassblower John Choi, whom she photographed at the Banana Factory in Bethlehem, let her pull a “gather” of molten glass from a furnace.

“You have to keep the wand turning constantly because gravity will pull the glass downward into a glob,” she said. “It takes not just coordination, but strength and coordination.”

Whether crafters work with glass, stone, wood or wool, she’s noticed they have in common “the discipline, the devotion to their medium.”

Grotta expects to return to the artisans’ workshops to follow their progress, and she hopes to travel beyond the state borders to photograph more crafters, so “Pennsylvania Hands” will become “American Hands.”

The photographer recently learned an exhibit of her work is scheduled to be shown at the Capitol Rotunda in April, and she’s thrilled about that.

Meanwhile, she’s developing an appreciation for palms and knuckles and fingers – whether they’re calloused, work-worn, or similar to a relative’s.

“Marie McCoy-Houk, the weaver said, ‘Oh my goodness, I have my mother’s hands.’ When she said that, I looked at my own hands and said the same thing,” Grotta reflected. “I have my mother’s hands and my sister’s laugh.

“Isn’t that wonderful? I have them with me all the time.”