You may have seen me swirl wine, fondle jewels, twist lipstick…and yes, push a few buttons. Hi, I’m a hand model. But please don’t judge a girl from the wrist down. Technically speaking, I’m a parts model – since my body parts are frequently featured in advertising. My mitts are my main money makers, and have lent a hand to countless campaigns and occasionally double for celebrities, such as Katy Perry, Penelope Cruz, Natalie Portman, and more.
I didn’t plan for a career in parts. As a kid, I never gazed up at the stars and whispered, “One day… my hands will be all over the wooorld!” But here we are.
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I grew up on a manic organic commune in California, and dreamed primarily of returning to “normality” – as I imagined it – in New Orleans, surrounded by my big Italian food-biz family.
People always told me I had nice hands (mostly my grandmother), but it wasn’t until a random casting with OPI nail polish that I booked my first official hand job.
I live in Los Angeles but work between both coasts. LA leans commercial, while New York is all about big beauty and high fashion. One week it’s couture clutches in Harper’s Bazaar, the next I’m cleaning up Tang spills with the quicker picker upper.
When I first moved to Hollywood, I dreamed of becoming somebody. Little did I know I’d become somebody’s body.
I love what I do, but contributing more than nice nail beds matters to me too. So I created Hand Jobs: Tales of a Hand Model – a blog where humor, heart, and humanity go hand in hand.
Here’s an essay I wrote for the New York Times Modern Love column called, My Rebound Relationship with a Robot.
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I also conceived a lotion love child, called Essentiel by Adele, a multi-use moisturizer made with natural ingredients I grew up with and essential oils I’ve used daily for decades.
This video explains how it nourishes healthy, happy skin and is good for the planet too.
My next creative baby, Skin and Deep, is a film that weaves together archival footage, personal writings, present-day scenes, and re-enactments in which I play people from my past. It explores family, love, loss, beauty, and longing. It’s a documentary-in-progress that’s been incubating inside me for a long time – heartwarming, heartbreaking, and often humorous. Less about polished parts, and more about the deeper ones we rarely show.
Here’s a three minute trailer:
Stay tuned and please stay in touch! 🫶
