Artist Milt Friedly makes what can't be said.

In metal and clay, on paper and canvas, he shapes emotions that have no words, creating layers of meaning to carry his heart's voice.

An ardent fan of poetry, Friedly has long delighted in the abstract qualities of verse, the emotions that shimmer between the words and snake through the lines.

This year, the Elizabethtown College professor brings the spheres of art and poetry together in "The Handprint Identity Project," a collaborative effort of two dozen visual artists and poets from across the country.

Opening at Elizabethtown College's Hess and Lyet galleries Saturday, Oct. 18, the 40-piece exhibit of visual art will be on display through Dec. 15 before traveling to other venues. A companion chapbook contains some of the poetry created for the show. A series of podcast interviews with the visual artists and poets rounds out the project.

"There's something similar about the language of poets and artists," Friedly said. "They have an abstract quality that I prefer. When you're reading a poem and looking at a piece of art, you're getting more each time you come back to it."

Curious to see what would happen when these art forms collided, Friedly paired artists and writers, giving them the task of meditating on the theme of identity as expressed through the hand. The pairs created work in constant conversation with each other, and then the whole group responded to the resulting pieces.

"I wanted to show the conversation between artists, rather than just the presentation to the world," Friedly said.

To inspire the work, Friedly "chose a theme that would project our experiences as human beings, inspire the creative energies of the project participants and result in a public celebration sharing our diversity."

"The handprint is a common denominator that has been a symbol of man's predicaments and hopes. It is a symbol that expresses both the universal and individual. Whether a fist or an open hand, whether grasping or gently holding, the hand is powerful in expressing human emotion," he said.

This interdisciplinary venture incorporates an array of artistic personalities and styles. The artists vary in age, ethnicity, geographic location, religion and, in particular, perspective.

"I wanted poets and artists working in different genres who could bring a unique perspective to the project — those who have produced work for many years mentoring younger artists and writers, as well as those who were just beginning their journeys along the path of creativity," Friedly said.

Connecticut poet Ravi Shankar, who collaborated with Philadelphia artist Leslie Kaufman, found that despite the "transparent scrim of distance," their collaboration embraced a "tactility of spirit."

"I sent her work, she sent me photographs, and then we spoke on the phone, miles away, but in the course of our conversation realizing a certain shared aesthetic sensibility that could spring from text into image and installation," Shankar said.

The project's collaborative energy generated an outpouring of new work for its participants. For Messiah College art professor Don Forsythe, that has meant more than 200 new images and counting. University of Missouri English professor Scott Cairns was so inspired by the project that he plans to design future work around this model.

"When Milt Friedly contacted me about 'The Handprint Identity Project,' I jumped at the chance to take up again a project that depended upon our attending to one another in the process of making art," Cairns said. "This, finally, is what I want out of pretty much everything I do from now on:  a sense that I'm in conversation with another, a sense that together we are hoping to attain a glimpse of something we could not have discovered alone."

Poet Pierce T. Hibbs said his collaboration with sculptor Tom Yurkovic was exciting, as Yurkovic's shapes "demanded words."

"Our philosophical discussions, even our brainstorming, seemed to have a kinetic sense to it, as if we were pieces of light trying to find our way down to the ground," Hibbs recalled.

For his part, Yurkovic said, the project "placed me just enough outside of my comfort zone to where Pierce's ideas about scale and tactility and kinetics had me nervous, but in a good way — a sort of creative anxiety about how it would turn out. It was a great feeling making the piece because it didn't feel stale, like simply a reinterpretation of a form I have already made, or have been studying."

Poet Sandra Kohler said one of the most fascinating parts of her collaborative experience with Philadelphia artist Carol Cole "has been the unexpected emergence of connections — not only between specific works we've done for the project, but in our articulation of our understanding of ourselves as people and artists. We have come to see identity in unlikeness, to recognize ourselves in the handprint of another."

"The Handprint Identity Project" will be on display Saturday, Oct. 18, through Dec. 15 at the Hess Gallery of Zug Memorial Hall and Lyet Gallery of Leffler Chapel and Performance Center at Elizabethtown College. The galleries are open from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Friday and from 1 to 5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. Admission is free. For more information, call 361-1212.