Hand turkey. You know you’ve made one. And if you haven’t, well, perhaps it’s time you did.
I hadn’t really given a thought to hand turkeys for years until three days ago, when I walked into a hand turkey drawing session in my neighbor’s apartment: four, or five, thirty-somethings hovering around a single sliver sheet of poster board, in various states of tracing, or decorating, their hand turkeys with pens and black sharpies.
And these birds were awesome.
A ballerina; a punk-rock bird; one had cat paws; another with Santa boots and dollar sign bling.
Bottom line is, all hand turkeys start with the simple act of putting your hand down on a piece of paper and tracing around it. How you decorate it; whether or not you cut it out; hell, your choice of material and drawing medium is just the start of a chance personal expression that will never be replicated. Because it’s your hand!
In a nod to the ubiquitousness of the hand turkey’s importance to the Thanksgiving holiday, within the same time frame, both Google and the New York Times have given the hand turkey a nod.
Here, a few other inspired birds (click on each image for the source):
Hand turkey not going down without a fight (deviantart.com)
Hand pilgrim turkey.
The Beatles bird (scienceblogs.com)
Hand turkeys in love (via 0.tqn.com)
Hand turkey (the other side is always greener) (via brainfuel.tv)
Oh My Gawd I know some New Yorkers that would die for that coat
Hand turkey moonlighting as songbird.
* * *
Editor’s Note: We are also celebrating Thanksgiving on Hyperallergic LABS, our tumblelog.
So … submit images of your Thanksgiving — photos of your meal: whether an artwork in itself, the result of hours of intensive labor, or perhaps merely arranged artfully on your plate, an expression of your holiday.
Submit also illustrations or videos of your Thanksgiving day: the food, the people you share it with, the gratitude, the happy or painful recollections of a complex personal and/or national history, or the utter absence of any of these things.
Show us, via Instagram, Hipstamatic, Lightbox, Picplz, your Holga, your cheapo point-and-shoot, your 35mm, your own drawings, your collages, your imagination: Eating with dozens of loved ones? Eating with people you’re reluctantly stuck with? Vegan? Kosher? Halal? Turducken? Fasting? Starving? Alone? At home? At the bus station? At a soup kitchen? At a turkey trot? What are you giving thanks for?
The Latest
MTV’s The Exhibit Is Back With an Inflatable Dolphin
Episode four, in which artists tackled themes of justice and injustice, was the most lifeless of the reality TV show so far.
Florida Principal Ousted Over “Pornographic” Michelangelo Sculpture
Parents complained that the famous sculpture was shown to their sixth graders.
The Milton Resnick and Pat Passlof Foundation Presents The Feminine in Abstract Painting
Curated by Jennifer Samet and Andrea Belag, this group exhibition in NYC explores the feminine through aesthetics, as opposed to identity or gender.
Tickets to Sold-Out Vermeer Show Are Going for Hundreds
The online resale market for the Rijksmuseum’s smash exhibition is booming, with tickets selling on eBay for over $2K.
NYU Steinhardt Opens 2023 MFA Thesis Exhibitions
Taking place at 80WSE Gallery in New York’s Greenwich Village, Part I is on view from late March through April while Part II opens in May.
Miniature Worlds: Joseph Cornell, Ray Johnson, Yayoi Kusama
Through small-scale works, this exhibition at the Katonah Museum of Art in New York examines Cornell’s prominent role in the lives and careers of Johnson and Kusama.
Three Looted Antiquities at the Met Repatriated to Turkey
Nine other repatriated works were seized from Met Trustee Shelby White, whose collection was subject to a criminal investigation.
Required Reading
This week, the world’s lightest paint, Pakistan’s feminist movement, World Puppy Day, and were some of Vermeer’s paintings created by his daughter?
The Wider World and Scrimshaw
On March 28, join the New Bedford Whaling Museum online and in-person for a symposium on global carving traditions from across the Pacific Rim.
Who Will Decide on the Future of a Miami Native Burial Ground?
Native activists say sacred remains and objects dug up from a Brickell construction site should remain there, but mega-developer Jorge Pérez is pushing back.
How Can a Curator Approach South Asian Futurisms?
How do I acknowledge my shortcomings while reckoning with obscured histories and the exclusion of subaltern narratives in the fine art landscape? A working checklist for curators.
MCA Chicago Presents On Stage: Frictions
Will Rawls, Shamel Pitts | TRIBE, and Barak adé Soleil explore Blackness, queerness, movement, and dance in performances at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago.
The Complicated Legacy of Camilo Egas
The Ecuadorian painter, a leading figure of Latin America’s Indigenismo art movement, has been both praised and scorned for his representation of Indigenous peoples.
Tom Jones Zeroes in on Ho-Chunk Visibility
“I think about the young kids, the teenagers, and I think being able to see yourself represented in art is so powerful,” says the artist.