At my second session of observing surgery I found myself thinking about two things. First was how colourful the body is inside and secondly how like textiles it is.
The layers of colour as the surgeons went in were a bit like this...
yellow, white, golden yellow like oil, white , dark glaucous red, white, PINK, raspberry pinks, sausage pinks, peach, cut strawberry pink,blue stitches.
As I focused out onto my surroundings it went...
strawberry pinks,(sausage and peach now hidden under swabs), raspberry, glaucous red, sunflower oil yellow, spring green, turquoise blue, sky blue.
Then the textiles. I found that I could not see the inside workings of this live body as mechanical but as material. I saw a hand stitched quilt with cotton wadding. Inside the wadding was knitting to cut through and then macrame to avoid cutting. Layers of thick felt cut cleanly and then trapunto to be handled with great delicacy. Finally we get down to mending some stumpwork with needlelace.
A tiny rouleaux loop is fixed in place between two other larger rouleaux and we listen. The sound it makes must be right. Tiny, tiny stitches.
On the way out layers of holding stitches through the knitting ,big thread and big needles. Skillful flicks of the thread to mend the felt and the wadding. Then finer stitches to seal up the quilt.
The life support machines make a continuous noise like a distressed blackbird and I can smell roses. .
image taken from this work
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