For a great deal of my artistic career, I've drawn a great deal of inspiration from the masters of the Italian Renaissance. The local art museum in Dayton has a bronze piece by Auguste Rodin called the "Hand of a Burgher of Calais" that shows the tension possible in a sculpture using just a human hand. Inspired by this and other works by Rodin, I sculpted this glazed ceramic sculpture of a hand with the wrist bound in hemp twine and the fingers clutching upward as though struggling against the binding.