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.)

Tool use

  

  I love to watch the use of tools in surgery. Of course they are referred to as instruments which immediately gives them more importance both in the way they are regarded and used. How do we look at tools in daily life, reverently or just taken for granted? Does their cost affect our opinion of them or does it blind us to their place in our lives. As a rule I do not carry mine from room to room neither do I have them on the bedside table. I look after my needles and scissors and they are kept in their places so that I always know where they are.
  It is said that it is our tool use that defines our consciousness as a species, we are tool users. Our hands and brain work together as one which evolves our neural networks; making our own tools pushes that even further.
 After observing how we use our daily instruments I have come to the conclusion that the rules of engagement for all tool use are emotional ones;
1. don't be seduced by it.
2. don't worship it.
3. don't forget who is master.
4. look after it.

( the image above is of my making the first 300 digits of pi in needlelace, it was all about the zero.)