Scarred

  Scarring is a problem for skin and fabric, once cut or traumatised it will never be the same. Some heal very well, almost invisibly, some do not. As a prompt to discuss what we know about someone before we operate on them I made this small velvet quilt for the Textile Body. Following its format of nine squares I took my inspiration from 18th century.whole-cloth quilts and used silk velvet to illustrate the problem. It is a material that is both beautiful and easily damaged.

  Scars on the skin take many forms but keloid, hypertrophic and contracture scars are particularly problematic. In appearance they can be highly raised from the original site of damage or incision, dense and overgrown or having the appearance of pulling the skin surface in multiple directions.

 Used in conjunction with another layer that looks at fragility in ageing skin it can be used to explore different aspects of touch and how we understand 'wrongness'. It has already been used to engage young adults interested in going into medicine at a yearly event at the Wellcome collection as part of the Saturday Studio programme.

Tumourous

 Quite simply I was asked to do a cancer layer for the Textile Body. The format therefore would follow the grid of nine textile squares which could sit on top or amongst the other layers in the 'Body'.I worked with surgeons who deal specifically with cancers and was given access to theatre and to tumours that had been removed.
  However it was not beyond my imagination to know what was was wrong when it came to a piece of silk so I chose this piece of tabby coloured antique silk. It is very high quality with a very smooth surface and in some places the silk is discoloured. This was my queue for the first signs that something is wrong underneath. Snags, puckers and adhesions are not desirable in silk and  not in humans either. On the reverse of each square is a pocket in silk mousseline, the finest silk available.It is both very sheer and delicate. Inside each pocket I placed an object which was uncomfortable in colour, texture and usually juxtaposition thus being contextually 'wrong' too. They could all be felt through the silk.

   Mostly it was hard to guess what they were before seeing them but when medically examined the diagnoses were largely the same. ''Unnatural mass'' and ''this is the sort of thing where you have to control the expression on your face'' were two early comments.

   One though was designed to be unseen, a gist (gastro-intestinal-stromal-tumour). I had been allowed to examine one after surgery, it was like a malevolent brain with its' own blood vessels and a texture of cauliflower and dense goo all in a membrane. They can remain benign unless ruptured so I imagined the monster lurking within and recreated it.

   Two rubber finger monsters and a plastic flower did the job, all compressed into a silk pouch and secreted between two layers of pleated silk pocket. It can be removed by untying a white ribbon and carefully sliding it out from the pleats.
   Many thanks to surgeons Chris Peters, Tamzin Cuming, Sam Gallivan and Roger Kneebone  for their advice on this piece. It has already been used to engage young adults interested in going into medicine at a yearly event at the Wellcome collection as part of the Saturday Studio programme.

Feely Box

   The language of touch.....what words do we use to describe that sensation? In discussion with several surgeons I have noticed a particular type of verbage, both medical and poetic that is used to describe the sensation of touching living tissue, healthy and diseased. As they spoke I noticed how they looked away from what they were touching, seeing it inside their mind instead.The hand was held flat with all the fingertips being employed at once.

  This was a queue for me to make a piece that explored this facility and could be used by those who were not medically trained or were thinking of going into medicine.

 Colour could not be ignored though so I chose a palette of grey and ivory with a dash of fleshy pink and red. This was to see if the way someone touched the piece would change according to the colours.

   To enact the unseen element I made two 'pockets', the 18th C. kind which would have hung from a belt worn inside the clothes ('Lucy Locket lost her pocket'..etc). One was all in ivory silks the other in brown and blue with a fleshy coloured metal organza lining. Each also had textured detail just inside the pocket opening.

  To go with the pockets are currently twenty nine paired cocoons of silk each with a foam material inside.I chose packaging foams and kitchen materials both for their familiarity and for their approximation to organic materials. It was during an experiment with one surgeon where I realised the potential for parallel understanding with these ordinary pieces of industrial fabric. In their different densities and textures they can feel like inflammation, tumours, cysts and old scar tissue.

The cocoons can be handle individually to discuss how to touch and examine something, doubled up to recreate specific conditions, hidden inside the pockets or pressed against a large foam 'echo' block which gives a different 'reading' altogether.

 Some have a few extra small cocoons inside and there is also a pin cushion to go with them all. The pins can be pushed carefully into the foams to see what it is to have to stitch these materials; thus giving a good approximation to surgical extended touch.

    Lastly a chatelaine of manilla tags with all the comments made by surgeons who have examined the piece (top photo). The Feely Box has already been used to engage young adults interested in going into medicine at a yearly event at the Wellcome collection as part of the Saturday Studio programme.

 Many thanks so far to surgeons Colin Bicknell, Chris Peters, Cara Baker, Celia Riga, Sam Gallivan, Laura Coates, Tamzin Cuming and Roger Kneebone. Also to Rachael Matthews, textile artist and Angela Oakes, masseur and yoga teacher.

Habit vests

 I saw the phrase 'habit vest' on a crossword that the person next to me on the train was doing. Although I couldn't see what the clue was I liked the idea of it being a conceptual thought garment. It made me wonder how many of us wear habit vests in our lives and whether we should take them off sometimes. I certainly have these past three years! 

 This is me in theatre and if you knew me you would know how different this outfit is to my usual ones. It has been a journey into another world, one where I do not have any 'habits' or assumptions only revelations.

Thankyou Colin for the photo!

undisciplined

                             


     How can the undisciplined mind understand the disciplined one ? It is a question I often come up against. I am still looking for a way to bridge the gap in a world of instant convenience encouraged by technology.
   To someone who wants to learn a sense of wonder is important as is the idea of possibility. Add some discernment and maybe the right words that translate one experience to another. I can teach someone to embroider in an hour, I find it harder to get them to discern if their decisions are valuable and relevant to what they would like to make.
   It is important for everyone to discern the good from the bad and for them to think that what they do is valuable. It is also important for them to make mistakes without which they have only a fragmented experience. Self consciousness is the enemy here, the inner demon that suggests that everyone is looking at what you are doing, the internet in your head watching.
  Sometimes the journey will be slow, maybe a lifetime; sometimes it just comes down to empathy and sometimes it is a matter of sowing seeds that will stay in the mind until needed.


UPDATE: apologies to those of you who have visited this post for other reasons!!!!!!! but thankyou for making it the most popular post, I hope it was 'instructive' !

Strange cousins

  If we were to include surgery in the textile arts they would be considered very strange. Not because they are surgeons but because they, on the whole, don't practise other textile skills or use them in surgery. Generally people that can sew also embroider a bit or knit or quilt or make curtains or some of these or all. Most textile artists will combine techniques as standard. In short, when did we lose touch with our strange cousins?
  I find that when I explain techniques to a surgeon they understand them and can even see a parallel with their own sewing. Alternate names are offered for stitches and thread dilemmas  with some considerable understanding and empathy which they initially find surprising.
   It becomes harder when you offer up a different textile skill, knitting for example. Knitters use intuitive maths to build 3d sculptures from a single yarn. They are human 3d printers with infinitely more flexibility of thought than a machine.
  Then look at tailors, the use of geometry must be acknowledged and again this is often used intuitively. Someone who moulds cloth around the human body has a grasp of 4d maths, of the Mobius band and of the effect of time on their work.
  These are just two areas of understanding which can involve great material skill and which I feel the world of surgery either generally or in specialist fields could benefit from.
 Come back! we need a family reunion!

(image of a crocheted glove cuff repaired and augmented with needlelace.)

Wart Carpet

 

 To find an image to go with that title was a bit of a stretch! It's not a phrase I would ever have come up with but I find myself in that situation on a regular basis now. Every time I speak with a surgeon they describe situations  that they have encountered with remarkable eloquence. If I put an interesting textile into their hands the knowledge gets plumbed to a deeper level. I recently has a studio visit from a surgeon who I had invited to discuss scar tissue with me.In preparation I had selected some very odd materials to talk about and what results! In fact it will lead to another form of textile metaphor, more to come. It also shone a light down the path of 'What's Wrong', the discussion I will lead in November.

  On this recent visit though we discussed degenerating fibroids, fat filled spaces and making a map .Scouring pads have a whole new meaning to me now.

Dance like you know how

...if you know one dance the next one is not so difficult to learn. You understand footwork and rhythm, eventually you can make up your own dance. Then you see a dance from another country, is it the same in any way? Do you use your feet still? Which part of you do you move next? Rhythm is the key. The underlying rhythm of intuition.
  If you sit and refuse to dance because you don't think that another cultures' dancing isn't relevant to you then you won't get far.
 Come join the strange dance of interdisciplinary craftsmanship.

Images are of a button that asks why earwigs have wings and of a pair of scissors in lace.

Acceptable damage

-On being acceptably anti social,
-On doing damage as an exchange,
-On flying the plane

  In a couple of months I will be leading a discussion into what experts mean when they say something is wrong. When I say leading I mean as an explorer into a world of language that is usually tactile, assumed or missing. It is a wild land and there will be refreshments for the explorers.
  I have included some images of buttons that I use to make, finished or in progress. They each required a leap of understanding as to button-ness as they had pins in them or were made from something unlikely or were just fiddly and full of construction jeopardy. I knew how far I could push things and this is what we will discuss and maybe much more.

What I know about armpits, plugging gaps and David Bowie

This could be a winding path.
   Above is an image of one side of the Epiploic Cube. It is based on the armhole of a 17thC. dress. The construction of clothes during the 17thC. was such that armholes were high and tight. The next idea to add is that silk rots, the worst thing that can happen to silk is a human.A I have said in a previous post I am not an expert in antique clothing nor a conservator but I do have experience of wearing and mending antique clothing. I collect antique textiles and am very fond of the well loved ones with thinning sections and exposed layers. In brief I can use all of this to plug a gap in knowledge when I handle materials which are old or delicate. I can guess very well how a tight high armhole will age if made in silk and I know how it will need to be mended; all this kind of knowledge sits at the front of my thoughts when I watch surgery.
    So, David Bowie collaborated a long time ago with Bing Crosby on 'Little Drummer Boy'. The world of tradition met the world of the avant garde and who knows how many unlikely collaborations it germinated. At the time, perhaps, followers of each side were uncomfortable with their sound, as a child I was one of them. Now I listen to it and hear how their harmonies wrap around each other in a painfully honest way. I see Bing's jumper and David's dual eye colour and I hear two musicians just being musicians and not superstars.
    What has this got to do with me doing the work that I do, with me cutting up poached eggs and handling ancient books in order to understand it? Some people will be uncomfortable with it and some will understand why. Some will shout about it in the staff room (yes I was listening but you didn't know it was me) and some will see me as part of the furniture. This is the strangest time of my life and I am living every moment of it.

Expert thoughts and metaphor

 Over the past three years I have been in conversation with many experts in different fields but being expert is the base line. Alongside my work with Imperial College I have also worked on a project for the V&A museum with magician Will Houstoun where we looked at expertise itself by studying some of the fruits of it, the objects in the museum. In discussion Will and I looked at what it takes to be an expert. The starting point with all those that I have met was the same with Will and I, not an exchange of the nuts and bolts of our understanding as many people imagine but the discernment that has evolved with our experience. Will and I talked of the quality in expertise that requires you to be better than you need to be which leads to a level of discernment which is the fruit of our expertise.

 It seems to me that after speaking with so many leaders in their field, be they surgeon, craftsperson or  performer that this discernment is often best expressed through metaphor. So far I have produced two metaphors for the residency, the Textile Body and the Epiploic Cube.

 The image above is of a small piece of lace that I made in order to understand the mind and practice of the lacemakers of the 16th and 17th C. and is part of that research done as an interdisciplinary project with the V&A, Imperial College and the Art Worker's Guild.

They of course didn't wear sparkly nail varnish

Old Clothes

  

  During the many operations I have seen over the past three years I often see old and damaged tissue. The surgeon has to deal with it's fragility and it's unpredictable behaviour and has to know what can be salvaged.

  When I get home I start to think of where in my life that I have to do something similar and naturally I think of clothes. I mend all my clothes, mostly linen dresses that wear thin across the hips and under the arms. I darn them, darn them again and then patch behind the darns as the fabric thins in wider and wider areas. Sometimes I have to piece in a whole new section because I know that there is nothing more to be done with the disintegrating cloth. During the medieval and early modern periods we know that linen clothing was cut down to children's clothes when the main areas wore out. Eventually the rags would be used for char cloth and then fertiliser for the next flax crop.

 Most people now do not wear linen clothes all day but they do wear jersey t-shirts and there is a similar comparison. Here is a general timeline for a t-shirt wearing out and it is similar to a human!

1.fading and sagging

2.frays around the neck

3.thins under the arms and down the front

4.small holes appear and when held up to the light you see that there are many pin point holes,

5.you put your finger through it one morning

 What can be mended is down to experience and the discernment of the mender. Are you fixing a seam that has broken or are you dealing with systemic damage?

 The image above is from the Epiploic Cube and was inspired by the patched and darned areas of the Bayeux tapestry and a 17th C. embroidered nightgown. The colour was chosen because the blueish brown is often used in medical illustrations from the 18th C. 

  It turns out that this side provokes the strongest reactions of revulsion from surgeons when handling the cube!

Epiploic Cube part six

  Describing a complex surface is daunting. Do you begin with colour or form? How do you separate and prioritise visual signals into words that have meaning for another, perhaps for a student learning a complex technique or for an interested but inexperienced viewer?

  You may make assumptions about what you are seeing, some of them correct but not all. It may be that ignorance of one detail can undermine your knowledge and send you in the wrong direction.

 What do you see? This cube constantly rotates your vision and perspective, some planes sit as complete or framed squares and then rotate to juxtapose with another. Between each individual cube other spaces reveal themselves briefly, flashes of ribbon from another side poking through and then retreating.

The Cube explains without words how a surgeon has to think, see and navigate.

Epiploic Cube part five

 
  This is about the details of the model. I often see or am told about problems or anatomical details that I can immediately see in my mind as fabrics or technical challenges that I have in my work. Peritoneal spaces is one, fragile tissue another. Sometimes it is simply how to avoid that annoying but important thing that is getting in your way.

 
How I translate one to the other is part of what this project is revealing.The world of textiles is broad enough to be able to provide ample examples of material parallels that anyone can understand. My career has incorporated much of the field of textiles to one degree or another, each experience linking and building with its related areas to give me insights into areas that I don't always need to be expert at in order to understand.

 

 I don't need to have made a 17th century dress in Spitalfields silk to know that the underarm is fragile, my knowledge of wearing 1920s clothing is sufficient! I also know about piecing patterned fabric together and that it can take as long to make a repair in pattern look good as it can to make a whole new garment. The details shown here reveal my knowledge of all these things and more translated through a medical understanding.

 Image 1. shows a detail inspired by the hip inserts on an 18thC. corset to which I added folded organza. This was what came to mind when I was told about peritoneal spaces.
 Image 2. shows embroidered ribbon, rouleaux loops and couronnes all in similar tones, a complex surface often seen in vascular surgery.
Image 3. shows raised embroidery on silk where the pattern is disappearing into pleats, this problem is found in early printed silks and brings up questions of frugality and the skill of piecing pattern. It also shows how complex work gets hidden away.
Image 4. shows wear and tear that is perhaps beyond repair yet some parts are still sound. How far can you take the repair of antique materials is a challenge I have often witnessed in surgery.

Epiploic cube part four

One of the things I wanted to do with this piece was to hamper it's movement in some way. I had an idea of what was possible and in conversation with a friend and colleague Will Houstoun I realised that he could point me in the right direction! We spent a day with the mock-up model working out how each side related to the next and then applying ideas to it. Here we are looking at two methods of restricting its movement with straps and ribbons. I also wanted to add more surfaces that reveal themselves during the rotation and it was Will's knowledge of origami and kirigami that gave me the solution. The pale lavender side has folds and pockets usually found in pop-up books which can be seen in the images above and below.

  All of this then had then to be applied to the silk which has a different way of behaving than paper. I also had to incorporate other details to illustrate fragility and technical parallels to surgery! The result is a model that seems to have it's own life. You have to understand to what it wants to do through touch and let it tell you what it will do , rather like the old book I handled at the V&A.

Epiploic Cube part three

  Inside the cube you can see and experience the complexity of navigating a space that is both awkward and movable. I have made an secret passage between two of the sides where a tube, known as a rouleaux loop, can pass. One side shown below has pale lavender organza embroidered folds with a central pocket. Inside the pocket itself there are little surprises but also the fabric tube. This is stitched to another tube in scarlet silk like an anastomosis.

 The tubes can be gently pulled from one side of the cube to the other, this time a rectangle of scarlet taffeta. There is no flat plane to work on and the adjoining surface has tensioned straps which pull the inner surface closed again.

 The tube is then revealed again through a pocket and folds on this last plane.

  

 This is one idea I worked out by working with  magician Will Houstoun  with whom I spent a fascinating day and will talk more about in the next post, part four.

Epiploic Cube Part Two

I will  begin this tour of the cube by talking about historical costume detail. The side facing you in the first image has a woven ribbon detail done in a style reflecting the woven detail on a type of button called the 'death's head' button. It is not known how it got this name but it is a visually simple but technically complex woven thread method found on (expensive) buttons around the 18th C.
  The outer sides of the cube although square are formed of groups of squares and rectangles according to the engineering of the folding mechanism This gave me the opportunity to design each themed surface around the folds or openings.One particular side has just two rectangles which seemed far too easy so I added a pocket flap to one half. I now had an inside and an outside or anterior and posterior to play with. Using a shift in colour from grey lilacs to rose reds and greens  illustrated the change. Inside the pocket I placed a mini passementerie trimming such as would have been made to match buttons and silks of the era. In a parallel to surgery (one of many) this has to be removed before you proceed.

  Turn the cube a little and you see a blaze of golden orange.Silk ribbons are threaded through hand embroidered eyelets, tiny pinked edged panels are stitched with French knots and slashed through to reveal golden silk. If this sounds like a fashion article that's because I have recreated the high fashion detail of the 17th C. ,the slashed doublet. The silk ribbons have real silver aguillettes to finish off the ends which then tuck into the eyelets. These move about as you turn the cube giving an uneven weight shift as you feel the ribbons slide and stretch.

 There are nine surfaces to this cube and the other details are;
3. a patched embroidered shift, (tabby)
4. the gussets and reed boning channel stitching of a corset,(shell pink)
5. a quilted petticoat,(merlot)
6. the deaths head pattern on chiffon, (space dyed blackcurrant over magenta orange)
7. the folds on the hip of a 18th C dress, (scarlet)
8. the underarm of a 17th C dress,(liver)
9. a pocket in a 18th C dress. (lavender and sky blue).

 All these details were found in the V&A's 'Historical Fashion in Detail, the 17th and 18th Century, which is one of my favourite books!

Epiploic Cube Part One

  Listening to surgeons speak about operating I would hear them talk about the planes of the body which intrigued me. I also began to hear about spaces in the body that sounded rather strange and then during laparoscopic surgery witnessed spaces being created .Up until about 18 months ago I was concerning myself with trying to understand how basic anatomy worked and what sort of challenges were face with stitching. I had looked at diagrams and museum specimens and seen the live body from inside but now there appeared to be another way of looking at it all, the surgeons understanding of a 3-D organic form.
  Last year I had made myself a magic cube toy in foam and leftover fabrics. As I rotated each surface out I watched my own hands mirror those of the surgeon and I looked at the toy with fresh eyes! In short I decided to make another but this time in embroidered silks. Each surface would use textile techniques of the 17th and 18th centuries and I would use the colours I'd seen in keyhole surgery. Many hours later and a day spent with a magician and I have the Epiploic Cube to present; a textile investigation of surgical conceptual space.
 The next few posts will show some of the ideas in the cube.

Dissection

  The title is a clue, this post contains some descriptions of surgery, not explicit but descriptive ( just in case it bothers you).
  Removing the gunk from a blocked artery saves a life, saves the mind in fact from a stroke. To find the correct spot is not so easy, they know it's there and they know where it should be but it's hiding.
 This is what the NHS website says about this;
 'a small cut is then made along the narrowed sections of artery and the fatty deposits that have built up are removed. The artery is closed with stitches or a patch and your skin is also closed with stitches.'
 This is what really happens; they must gently dissect away the connective tissue, a veil that holds everything in place, hiding structures from the surgeon. Very carefully and gently they part these webs to finally reveal the carotid artery, vagus nerve and hypoglossal nerve. Once it is ascertained which is which and where they continue. Cobweb fibres stretch briefly under the scissors before tiny cutting movements separate their bonds, the unknown is revealed beneath. It is swollen with a yellowish tinge, the healthy sections are distinguished by a blueish tinge.
  The subsequent stitching is what brought me into this project, the tiny spacing of sutures along a patch, a tiny gusset patching a frail artery. There is a discussion about what I would call 'seam allowance' and of how to cut the patch to the right size. The mending is done.
 

Oblivious

  My presence in the operating theatre is under contract and by permission of the consultant. The unconscious patient is not aware of my being there and I am very mindful of that fact. They don't know that I am there and would they even care? What do they even know about the operation? What do they want to know? There is so much trust in submitting to the knife.
 I am an anomalous presence and maybe that is not important. I do not draw or record anything in theatre but I do see inside them,something they do not. I see it as a privilege. I am there whilst they are not. This aspect of what I am doing goes 'round and 'round my head whilst observing, where have they gone? Is consciousness a conceptual space?

'will ye no come back again,
 will ye no come back again,
 better lo'ed you canna be,
 will ye no come back again'

( the above image is from the current piece of work that I am making looking at conceptual spaces.)

It's all about me

  Well, this post is in particular. I have been asked several times how this project has affected my own work and I have evaded the question each time. It's not because I didn't want to but I have been aware from the start that the answer was so big that I may never get to the end. I just didn't want to give one aspect more importance than another. Finally though I have been able to get some coherent thoughts to sit on a page and here they are, briefly. Each bullet point could be discussed at encyclopaedic length but I shall leave that to another time!
1. Like Barbara Hepworth I am a medical artist in residence. My work during this time , like hers, is anomalous to my usual work. We have a shared experience, we witnessed the 'unity of purpose' and it  has a profound and life changing effect.
2. Life filters into your work, everything affects you.
3. The end result hides the process, the real work, work in every stitch. The end result can not be hurried.
4. Expert practise is highly nuanced, it's all about subtleties not nuts and bolts.
5. A community of thought opens up to me, an endangered species.

(the image above is of an old fob watch case that I filled with embroidered moss, tiny fungi and fragments of stories. Like me.)