Textile Body part three; fragility

  This third post about this piece looks at how fragile some materials are. I was fascinated by how parts of the gut are lifted out of the body during open surgery to give the surgeon better access to the mending site beneath. The living structure is cared for whilst out in the open and still functions despite what is going on around, in fact it moves.
  This led to some interesting discussions with surgeons as to the nature of the tissues involved and I began to understand the similarities between these and certain fabrics that I know. One of the most extraordinary is connective tissue and the mysentery. This tissue type has more poetry about it than any other as it is changeable and elusive and somewhat mysterious. It webs its' way through the body and reveals itself under a microscope as dewy, fibrous, filmy and like organza.
  Throughout this piece of work  I have represented it in four ways;as clingfilm around the 'spine', as silver lurex stitches between layers of 'skin', as wide organza ribbon weaving through the 'muscle' and as layered organza in the gut. This last one is featured here and is the one where I took the most artistic liberty with the form!
  My elastic band lucet braid gut was tested and approved by a colorectal surgeon and I added in different thicknesses of braid as directed. There are also areas of damage to it which can be 'repaired'. But then I felt that it should sit in a bag as it does when it comes 'out' for an operation and so I used an idea from a screen I made some years ago. Layered organza was finely stitched in patterns and then cut away between the stitches.Some areas were left complete and some are cut away and very fragile. Betweeen these are more unseen areas  of 'damage'.
  To complete the surface I added scraps of organza as strange little florets because the cut edges catch on all around them, rather like the regrowing fascia can in the gut after an operation.
 The final touch was to put a drawstring around the edge of the bag and sit the 'guts' inside.They then sit atop the 'vascular' layer of the 'body' and have to be carefully extricated every time we demonstrate it.
  The organza has interesting qualities in this its 'organdy' version, that is to say in cotton. Despite its fine weave it holds shape well and can be used for very sculptural work. As it is transparent it allows no faults or hiding of mistakes. It is both strong and very fragile, mostly when cut into smaller pieces where it starts to disintegrate.By layering it you can create what I have been told are perineal spaces within the work!
 The final poetic mysenteric bag is shown here.

Textile Body part two:bypass

 On of the most interesting operations I have watched was the unblocking of an artery which then required a patch. Whilst watching I often begin to compare what is happening to problems I have had when making something and when the blockage was removed I thought of some antique silk pearl string that I had.It was yellowed and tangled and had finally found a purpose!
 I wanted to replicate something of what I had seen of vein harvesting and arterial bypasses for the Textile Body and so my thoughts turned to the delicate stitches and structures which must be handled. 
  I chose cotton organdie which is both sheer and yet robust and used an old technique seen on 1920's afternoon dresses. I inserted rouleaux loops (thin fabric tubes) between two flawless panels of the fabric using a decorative but flexible insertion stitch to attach them. Using a space dyed thread  emphasised the challenges of unpicking such a structure from its surroundings.The colours of the thread change subtly along the work and would be difficult to match if you needed to replace them and the fabric shows every fault and flaw. Part of one of the rouleaux is stuffed with the old silk thread which can be seen above bulging out of the delicate fabric.
 The challenge here is seen in the contrast between the perfect fabric with its delicate embroidery and the problem bulge.How to remove the blockage or even the entire structure is the task,either would require planning and damage control. Which do you do? and how do you prevent damaging the surrounding material.There is a spare rouleaux which could be either used as a replacement or as a bypass to the blockage. The entire piece is woven through the muscle/french knitting layer.
  In fabric you can see the problems of such a procedure without having to have much surgical knowledge and yet the parallels can also be understood medically.

Textile Body part one

One thing kept occurring to me as I watched operations, particularly open surgery, was that the layers of different tissue structures in the body were all strangely familiar. I could see quilting and knitting, fine silk behaviour and embroidery difficulties. To express this I eventually came to the conclusion that I had to make some kind of 'princess and the pea' mattress structure.

  A favourite illustration when I was little was a picture of that multi layered bed.Over time it was reflected in the fabric swatch books that anyone in the fashion or interiors world would be familiar with. Finally the Great Bed of Ware (and its fabric samples that the public can examine) found at the V&A museum decided me on my course of action.

  It would not be anatomically correct but a parallel in material challenges.It would be in colours that I usually work in and not reds and pinks.There would be no cutting, no stitching and hopefully nothing for the squeamish to baulk at. It would be explorative both literally and metaphorically.

  The first layers are about the skin and fat, then muscle and artery.Underneath those are vascular challenges and delicate organ structures. OR quilting,plain knitting, french knitting, rouleaux loops, beading, trapunto quilting,lucet braid, machine embroidery, needlelace, hand embroidery and silk fortune tellers. OR linen, printed cotton, silk, wool, organdie,paper silk, raw silk, clingfilm and elastic bands. I may also include a little corsetry.
 Posts about the individual layers will follow but this one shows the first dissection down into the body.

Beginning

  Back in May I attended a craft seminar which culminated in a session of basket weaving. We had to weave a simple platter in willow. This quickly became an intense sensory experience which was strangely similar to my own practise and yet 'other'. I was taught by Hilary Burns who grows and harvests her own willow, her knowledge of which was to me like that of an alchemist.
   The colours and behaviour of the types of willow were all known to her and she spoke of them as a living force that she was accustomed too. For me the smell of the willow was mysterious and wild and transporting. It is damp,earthy,mossy and aromatic like incense. You are weaving the wild that is within.
   Into my platter I also wove some bramble (like the artist Burne Jones I am very fond of  briar) which had been de-thorned by being dragged through a punctured baked bean tin.
   It was the moment of starting the weave that fascinated me as it was a moment of impossibility. You need the counter tension of the material to hold the weaving together but it is that quality which fights against you.When you begin you feel that you need three hands to hold it all together.It seems unlikely that you will persuade the base struts to stay in place but once the rhythm takes over and the counter tensions are harnessed a platter emerges.
  The wild willow and the wild body, their mystery and the harnessing of their counter forces. The moment of near failure and the joy of using your hands to read and persuade natural materials to move. These are profound experiences for a human. To know courage and creativity changes you.
  It wasn't surgery but I bet surgeons would enjoy it.

Stress management

 ''The greatest need of our time is to clean out the enormous mass of mental and emotional rubbish that clutters our minds.''  Thomas Merton

  Here is a list of the mental and emotional rubbish that must be cleared before I can work:
computers, family problems,presenting work to the world, travel anxiety. admin., financial worries, helplessness, personal safety, invasion of self, dealing with rudeness, evil.
  It is not an exhaustive list but illustrates sufficiently what affects not just my ability to do work but to make work. And of course it is not just me that experiences this.I have seen how frustrating it is for a surgeon to come into work expecting to operate on someone in desperate need only to find that there is no bed for the patient. The consequences can weigh heavily on them and whereas you may not have a vested interest in my mental health you would have in that of your surgeon.
   How do we deal with the lunacy of our lives? It is the act of making and doing that keeps us sane whether you are an artist or doctor.The need to 'do' is a powerful force in our lives and this force must be allowed to flow through us.If thwarted it makes us unhappy and sometimes ill.
   If I could I would give every hospital a garden for the doctors to tend, an art room for them to paint in and a piano in the staff room so that they could keep their hands supple and their hearts peaceful.

Reflection

I have been asked a few times now how being involved with this project has affected my practise. On the first occasion I said ''ask me in two years time''.
  The answer clipped me 'round the ear recently. I had initially tried to produce a kind of 'chaine operatoire' or sequence of events which would lead to an answer. What I made was a pile of sticky notes. It was only this summer that I then felt my answer as a delayed reaction to events.
  As a sensitive soul I feel like one of those old fibre optic ornaments with tiny filament antennae responding to all stimuli around me. When overwhelmed (often) they tend to flatten down so that I can function until 'rebooting' in safety. A new environment will induce this response and so it was with observing surgery.
 The building in itself was a big challenge and I could say a great deal about the inhumanity of large buildings. Then the newby experience of orienting myself  and my 'self' to a new and alien environment. Watching the mechanics of surgery is utterly absorbing and informative and then there is the anti climactic feeling of coming out into the real world afterwards; all these were more than enough to stop me processing something else.
  Over the summer everyone was away and I turned my mind to creating work for the project and then the download began. What became sparklingly clear to me was what a deeply profound experience it is to be in a room with so many people healing another. The energy coming from them is intense.
  Barbara Hepworth spent time as a surgical observer and spoke of the 'unity of purpose'. It is a transcendent experience to be near or in the presence of focused healing energy and it is a lasting one.
  I realise too that this is what I have physically felt from surgeons hands. At first I was puzzled by their touch. When entering a lift or an 'after you' moment in a hallway I would feel their guiding hand on me and really felt that hand. What I was experiencing was their healing energy and it is an extraordinary thing. It was all so obvious but masked by the unfamiliarity of their environment and my struggling sensitivity. Hepworth also wrote about 'things felt but not seen' and now I understand what she meant.

(quotes from Barbara Hepworths letter to Herbert Read, 6.3.48)

Necessary Beauty

  ''Beauty is not adventitious but essential''.
Nan Shepherd made this observation on a mountain.She was speaking of the curve of an eagles' wing or the movement of a running deer.Form and function are one and since nature is very efficient the shape of a birds wing is not coincidence. Beauty lies in the total fulfilment of purpose.
 In conversation with my partner in this residency, a consultant vascular surgeon, we tried to express this by saying that if it looks good it is good. Although this phrase is not as eloquent as Nan Shepherds' we were trying to get to the same understanding of our work, the idea of form and function. Some would consider beauty in a surgical stitch unnecessary but to us it implies a deeper understanding of our materials and their interactions.
  As an embroiderer a finished piece has different requirements to that of a healer and surgeon but we take the same route to get there. We understand the mechanics of the needle in material, the effect of tension on thread and needle and the micro movements involved in seating a stitch in place. If all these are correct and we fulfill our purpose in doing the stitch it is then beautiful.
  At this time of year my garden is busy with the work of the finest lacemakers in the world - spiders. I take advantage of the master class outside my studio and watch them not only create webs from nothing but also repair their successful  but damaged ones. I say this because such an efficient creature does not choose its spot in the garden lightly. It sets up a place of work and knows when it is a good one and stays there.
  The use of tension in their spinning is a thing of wonder. Science is still exploring the biomechanical marvel of spider silk and spider 'glue' but one thing is clear in their webs - there are no ugly webs only beautiful ones that keep them alive.

(quote from Nan Shepherd's 'The Living Mountain'.)