People often say that the hands are the hardest part of the body to draw. And that you can tell the skill of an artist who can accurately capture them. So this column of hands attracted me when in the Potteries Museum.

Glenys Barton has always been fascinated by the body – the head, the hands and, more recently, movement through dance. She says:

“My subject is always humanity: sometimes a specific human, sometimes human relationships, sometimes human society. The forms may be heads, parts of figures, whole figures or figures within figures. Heads and hands particularly fascinate me. As I work I feel that I am directly linked with those who have tried to fashion the human form from the earliest times. My greatest achievement would be to create a timeless image.”