Sensitivity to colour is part of the furniture for any textile artist.I can name or give names to any colour and can see and love subtle changes and shifts and vibrations within colours which give them life. Lighting is very important in the studio, I use three lamps all using different systems of full spectrum bulbs and get three different effects!!
So, whilst watching an anti reflux procedure or fundoplication done laparoscopically with full spectrum LED lights I was captivated by the colour.Words were not enough to get across the range of shades so I went to my embroidery thread drawer and spent time looking at my ombre dyed silks and these are what I chose.
The first image here looks at some colours that you might expect to find but gold?? Under LED and with minimally invasive techniques the fat in membrane glistens like gold dust.
Muscle has a dark berry summer pudding range, fats are more peach melba and mango.
Around the edges of the abdominal cavity you find bluer toned pinks which shift into the glistening opalescence of the abdominal wall, it made me think of freshwater fish. Bluey greys are around the margins with slatey browns like an approaching storm or cocoa. The deepest reds are like a cotinus coggygria or smoke bush with its shifting ember red to purple black
A while back I spoke about gardening and knew I would have to use this as a tool for material understanding. Sensitivity to colour and understanding complex surfaces are also part of a gardeners'skill. The best gardens have sublime or unexpected colour use in their planting because the gardener has a sensitivity to which blue toned pinks match those chartreuse greens or which hot reds bring out a vibrant pink. They also know when something looks wrong, either aesthetically or because a plant is sick, by its' colour or texture.
I am beginning to look at how we understand what we mean by 'wrong' by looking at colour perception.Over the next phase of my residency I will be exploring this facility and that of touch to learn to see what a surgeon sees.
p.s. this peony from my garden against a heuchera and an erysimum.
