Underlayers

 

 
  I was recently approached by an anthropologist, Kaitlin Burton, to study my work with a focus on the Textile Body. There was a visit to my studio and I was observed at work out and about!
  The result is this website with her observations about me and the digital legacy of this particular piece of work (please wait for the site to load).

https://kroseburton.wixsite.com/underlayers

Higher thoughts

 

 An aspect of this project is simply 'what can the arts offer the sciences' and I often hear how relaxing creativity is for people. Would you be surprised to hear that for artists creativity can be anything but relaxing? It is challenging and full of uncertainties, full of questions.

  It is also an intense space away from the world and this is what attracts people to this idea of it being calming. The space that the mind goes to when absorbed in creating anything is away from the mundane and the base things of life. You are for a time lifted up, in brief you must rise into your creative self. To do this you must let go the worst part of yourself and this is what it has to offer everyone.

( the image above shows a new piece of work concerning conceptual spaces in the body. The stitches are bullion stitches, they make no sense when you do them, they exist in uncertainty until the last moment, but they work nonetheless!)

500 stitches

Fleur short clip 2 from Paul William Craddock on Vimeo.

  Above is a small clip of me stitching a cigarette paper. Why? Apparently the father of vascular surgery, Alexis Carrel, could put 500 stitches into one so it seemed an appropriate challenge.
 Things to note when stitching paper;
1.It is not like woven fabric so will tear easily,
2.You are slowly destroying the paper,
3.You are replacing the strength of the paper with the strength of the thread and the moment of that exchange is full of jeopardy.
4.Never take your attention off the work.
5.As with needlelace, the first row of stitches is very important.

Filming done by and courtesy of Paul Craddock

Handling the fragile unknown

 

During this residency I have looked for experiences that would somehow replicate those of surgery for me. On previous posts I have spoken about gardening and poached eggs and the parallel experiences that these gave me but recently I gained more insight into a particular mindset for handling fragile and unpredictable objects.

  At the  Victoria and Albert Museum in London there is the Bromley Hall Pattern Book a huge old book from 1770 containing fabric designs. It is in a very fragile condition both in its construction and contents and has very restrictive handling requirements. I went to visit this book and found a remarkable parallel. The book itself is approximately 34x40 inches in size and 5inches deep when open and it fills your arms. I was instructed in handling the pages and how to slowly turn them; one at a time and with consideration to their movement and that of the designs glued (or unglued) to the surface. Resting on a giant supportive bean bag the spine had to be carefully monitored as the pages were turned and then assessed every few pages to decide if the book needed to be readjusted. It took time. 

  I had to listen to the spine as the pages rolled over and decipher sometimes whether it made a good sound or a bad one. It was hard to resist turning them quickly as each page, whether I cared for its contents or not, had to be handled with equal care.

  The most unusual thing was realising that I knew what to do. I found that shifting my whole body weight from one foot to the other as I turned each leaf assisted the giant pages to safely fall (not that you ever just let go of the page until it 'lands'). It was a dance-like fluid motion that supported my arms without them moving.

   I had to assess the distribution of the beans in the beanbag and understood how to massage and coax it so as to gently support and move the whole book as the weight of pages slowly shifted from one side to the other. My understanding of all this came from somewhere in my previous experience and it seemed to be from a human origin. It was like holding a sleeping baby or perhaps moving an unconscious patient.

 You have to watch and wait with something so fragile and vulnerable. It informed you of what it would do not the other way around. Listening and watching and assessing the potential possibilities but not second guessing it. Any wrong or impatient move could have repercussions.

 Of all the parallels with fragile materials it was the handling of this book that gave me most pause.

Images of the book by kind permission of the Victoria and Albert Museum.

In the news

 The Textile Body has been in the news this week ! Firstly on Front Row on BBC Radio 4

and then today in the Lancet, an article Reframing Surgical Simulation the Textile Body as Metaphor

many thanks to Professor Roger Kneebone, consultant surgeons Colin Bicknell and Sam Gallivan  and the team at Front  Row.

Old silk

  The image above is one that is often with me when I see aneurysm repairs and was the subject of discussion with a surgeon recently. She described the stringing and disintegration of the inside of a diseased artery and I immediately could picture it and understand what the challenges were in trying to mend this. I spoke of the shattering of the silk and surrounding weak tissue and was similarly understood by her.
  A few weeks later a similar operation revealed all those problems writ large and with high drama. A complex operation with weak materials and then a rupture.Heavy blood loss ensued and a room of high emotion as the surgeons worked frantically, the scrub nurse worked frantically and likewise the anaesthetic team. I found that I was holding my breath as this 'piece of silk' disintegrated in their hands and I saw a miracle as they raised the Titanic.
  How does an expert work? they cope with deteriorating situations making difficult decisions in the moment. How do you spot invisible deterioration? How do you decide how far to go? How do you decide that you can't do anything, that the mend itself will do more damage than the tear. I know these decisions, they are material. How do you know when to cut your losses? How do you go from a planned small repair to a big unexpected one?There is no hindsight only expertise.
 All the while the other team members worked like bees, so quietly and efficiently. The clear liquid in the drip was changed for thick red, then clear red, then two shades of yellow. When the emergency was over it seemed that they all stood quietly and cleaned their antennae.
  I realised that pledgets are small promises made with each stitch.

In the moment

   I do not takes notes during surgery but rather allow the many new visual experiences to sink in as they happen. Afterwards I will sift through and do a quick diary which is often like writing down a dream; I don't always have a full view of surgery let alone an understanding of what I am watching from an anatomical perspective but I know colour and material and tool use. Above is an image of a piece of my work in progress at a rather confusing moment visually!  I know how to translate this but anatomy is another thing so below is an extract from one diary entry made about half an hour after coming out of theatre.

 ''Vertical incision so different, more solid layers revealed.....thick and compact.
Organs in detail-MANGO-finally named that colour! and pale blue pinks and organic egg yolk,'thought of 90's catwalk shows of bright colour clashes. Food colours in the abdomen, flame colours in the blood. Big crochet structure,uneven bobbles with thread capillaries and single cell clingfilm membranes.
(surgeon)opens out another fan shaped translucent structure with a fat pink edge and yellow centre and the light shines through it.
The cancer feels hard in the stomach lining, a suede beige, but hardly different to its' surroundings-a slight distortion but deadly. (I should point out at this point that once the tumour had been removed I was allowed under supervision to touch it).
Glimpses of pink things,smooth and shiny,translucent and dense......
The smell of someone's perfume mingled with blood stayed with me .A wild aromatic smell, otherness,strangeness,damp places of the world.
Theatre nurses,intense and watchful,quietly fetching equipment,listening.''