A HANDS-on community arts project in a North Yorkshire village has made such an impression that more than 70 locals have volunteered to take part.

An initiative by Terrington Arts, based at Terrington, near Malton, aims to represent life in the village in the new millennium. Ideas were conjured up at an inspiration day a year ago, but the most popular was to take impressions of people's hands, with the help of local artist Gerard Naughton, and display them in the village as a work of art. Gerry Bradshaw, of Terrington Arts, said: "We now have over 70 hands, old, young, delicate and hard-used, and clay versions of them are being fired by Rural Arts North Yorkshire at Thirsk. We plan to site them as a work of art within the village in the spring, to be a permanent record of the community in the new Millennium."

The project is part of Terrington Arts' Living History project, supported by National Lottery funds.

Updated: 11:46 Wednesday, January 22, 2003