SILVER WIRE BIBLIOGRAPHY FOR SPIRAL BOUND READERS

Guy deChauliac gave detailed instructions on suturing techniques
in his Major Surgery (1363). I wonder if Guy had heard of or tasted bananas .

Hello! This blog post is for those of you interested the research involved in writing and drawing Silver Wire, an illustrated story of sutures and sewing, which you can find online at Spiral Bound. 

Because Silver Wireexplores some very sensitive topics like research ethics and the medical histories of enslaved people, women, and the “fathers” of medicine, I think it’s important to show my some of the research for the text and visual references that went into the drawing and images. 

In the comic, I list pages and panel numbers with citations and a bibliography. But here, you’re only getting the bibliography. Why? Because they are both so friggin’ long! It is likely you will give up from exhaustion before getting half way through the bibliography! The citations list includes wry commentary and references to artists and other thinkers who influenced the work. If you are a glutton for research (or punishment), you can buy the minicomic. The comic also has images of some of my medically themed embroidery, and I’ve included some of them here along with select panels from the comic. Pictures make everything better!

A diagram of venous ligatures from 
Bernard and Huette. Printed
on fabric and worked up with
darning stitch used in Blackwork
embroidery. Plus some cross stitch.

If you just want to know where you can find information and images about the history of medicine, and don’t care that much about a list of books or references, try the following sites -- 

Many of the books and images used in the research for making Silver Wire can be found through the New York Academy of Medicine Library Historical Collection from their online collections and at their reading room. Browse their database and make an appointment - they are open to the public! 

The National Library of Medicine Digital Collection is a wondrous site! 

Archive.org is an excellent resource for pdfs of historical surgical texts, not to mention documentation of practically everything in all media.

I find the Wellcome Collection image search is a little difficult to maneuver through, but persistence will pay off! 

Bibliography

Annan & Sons, T.R. Joseph Lister, Baron Lister. Wellcome Collection, Glasgow.

Ashenden. Diorama of Listerian Operation . Image via Wellcome Collection.

Bauer and Black.Ligatures and sutures. Chicago: Bauer and Black, 1924?

Bell, Charles 1774-1842. Illustrations of the great operations of surgery : trepan, hernia, amputation, aneurism, and lithotomy. London: Longman, 1821.

Bell, John (1763-1820). The Principles of Surgery. Edinburgh: Printed for T. Cadell, and W. Davies, in the Strand, T.N. Longman & O. Rees, Paternoster Row, London; and W. Creech, P. Hill, and Manners and Miller, 1801-08.

Bell, John. Discourses on the nature and cure of wounds. I. Of generals. Of procuring adhesion. Of wounded arteries. Of gunshot wounds. Of the medical treatment of wounds. II. Of particulars. Of wounds of the breast. Of wounds of the belly. Of wounds of the head. Of wounds of the throat. III. Of dangerous wounds of the limbs. Of the question of amputation ... . Edinburgh: Bell and Bradfute, 1795.

Bernard, Claude, et al. Illustrated manual of operative surgery and surgical anatomy / by Ch. Bernard and Ch. Huette ; edited, with notes and additions, and adapted to the use of the American medical student, by W. H. Van Buren and C. E. Isaacs ; illustrated ... by M.J. Lévillé. New York: H. Balliere, 1855.

In 1626 Adriaan van Spiegel and Giulio Casseri (posthumously) published a book
on fetal development, depicting images of pregnant women standing in nature, their genitals discreetly masked by foliage. Their abdomens and uterine walls are peeled back like flower petals. I used silk, antique lace, bad-, darning-, and satin stitches on this women-are-flowers theme.

Bliquez, Lawrence J. and Ralph Jackson. Roman surgical instruments and other minor objects in the National Archaeological Museum of Naples: with a catalogue of the surgical instruments in the "Antiquarium" at Pompeii. Verlag Philipp von Zabern, 1994.

Board, Ernest. Robert Liston Operating. Wellcome Library, London.

Bock, Carle Ernst, 1809-1874. Atlas of human anatomy : with explanatory text . Wellcome Collection Images: https://wellcome collection.org/works/yu9nrqxq , n.d.

Boyer, Paul S. and Clifford E. Junior Clark. “Textbook Site for: The Enduring Vision, Fifth Edition, Technology and cultrue: Chaper 18.” n.d. Cengage Learning.2018  23-July. <http://college.cengage.com/ history/us/boyer/enduring_vision/ 5e/students/techcult/ch18.html>.

Breastcancer.org.Mastectomy: What to expect. 2018 йил 21-February. 2018 11-June. <http://www.breastcancer.org/treatment/surgery/mastectomy/expectations>.

Brunshcwig, Hieronymus (ca. 1450-ca. 1512). Liber de arte distillandi de compositis. Strassburg: Johann Gruninger, 1512.

Burch, Jon M., et al. “Single-Layer Continuous Versus Two-Layer Interrupted Intestinal Anastomosis A Prospective Randomized Trial.” Annals of Surgery231.6 (2000): 832-837.

Chartran, Théobald. Ambroise Paré using a ligature on an artery of an amputated leg of a soldier, during the Siege of Metz, 1553. Wellcome Collection.

Cheselden, William (1688-1752). Osteographia, or The anatomy of the bones. London: William Bowyer, 1733.

Colton, Virginia (ed.). Reader's Digest Complete Guide to Needlework. Pleasantville, New York/Montreal: Reader's Digest, 1979.

deBeche-Adams, Teresa H. and Jaime L. Bohl. “Rectovaginal Fisturals.” Clinics in Colon and Rectal Surgery23.2 (2010): 99-103.

Ethicon. "Ethicon Wound Closure Manual." 2005. Penn Medicine.Johnson and Johnson. 8 January 2019. <http://www.uphs.upenn.edu/surgery/Education/facilities/measey/Wound_Closure_Manual.pdf>.

Fandre, A. Le catgut, les ligatures et les sutures chirurgicales à travers les âges, préface du professeur Louis Bruntz ...Paris: Masson et cie, 1944.

Galen. Method of Medicine, Books 5-9. Ed. Ian Johnston and G.H.R. Horsley. Trans. Ian Johnston and G.H.R. Horsley. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2011.

I didn't plan on returning to Galen as often as I did during my residency but the guy
is magnetic. What a showman! 

Gilbert, C. Galen treating wounded gladiator in coliseum of Pergamon, 2nd century. Getty Images. Know Yourself, Notions of physology to youth and educated people by Louis Figuier. 1883.

Guy, de Chauliac and E. Nicaise. The Major Surgery of Guy de Chauliac. Trans. Leonard D. Rosenman. Xlibris corporation, 1363, 1890, 2005.

Guy, de Chauliac and Leonard D. Rosenman. The major surgery of Guy de Chauliac : An English Translation. Ed. Translation of Nicaise. Trans. Edouard Nicaise and Leonard D. Rosenman. Philadelphia: Xlibris Corporation, 2007.

Heath, William, 1795-1840. Wellington and Peel in the roles of the body-snatchers Burke and Hare suffocating Mrs Docherty for sale to Dr. Knox; representing the extinguishing by Wellington and Peel of the Constitution of 1688 by Catholic Emancipation.Wellcome Collection.

Hinckley, Robert Cutler. Robert Cutler Hinckley - “Ether Day, or The First Operation with Ether” - Wikipedia.org. n.d. 5 October 2018.

Hunt, Tony and Frugardo, 12th cent. Ruggero. The medieval surgery / [commentary on the illustrations by] Tony Hunt. Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 1992.

Johnson and Johnson, Inc. Lister and the ligature, a landmark in the history of modern surgery, compiled by the research readers of the Scientific Department. New Brunswick: Johnson & Johnson, 1925.

Li, Guo-Cai, et al. “Single‑layer continuous suture contributes to the reduction of surgical complications in digestive tract anastomosis involving special anatomical locations.” Molecular and Clinical Oncology2 (2014): 159-164.

Mackenzie, David. The History of Sutures. Paper. The Scottish Society of the History of Medicine. Edinburgh: The Scottish Society of the History of Medicine, 1971.

Madden, John L.Technical Considerations in Gastrointestinal Surgery. Somerville: Ethicon, 1973.

Manigaud, C. Ambroise Paré (1517-1590). Wellcome Collection: Images.

Mattern, Susan P. The Prince of Medicine: Galen in the Roman Empire. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013.

An oophorectomy is the surgical removal of an ovary. This uterus, worked up in yarn on a thrift store doily, is stitched with the same darning  stitches as the Bernard  and Huette arm, above. I pulled and yanked on the yarn where the right ovary should be, to resemble the tugging of scar tissue.

Medford, Samuel. Father, Mother, and Boy. Smithsonian American Art Museum.

Milne, John Stewart. Surgical Instruments in Greek and Roman Times. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1907.

Nicaise, E. The major surgery of Guy de Chauliac : surgeon and master in medicine of the University of Montpelier : written in 1363, here re-edited and collated from Latin and French editions and complemented with illustrations, supplemented with notes and an historical introduction about the Middle Ages and the life and the works of Guy de Chauliac. Trans. Leonard D. Rosenman. Philadelphia: Xlibris Corporation, 2007.

NIH: US National Library of Medicine. Cesarean Section - A Brief History: Part 1 - Cesarean section performed on a living woman by a female practitioner. Miniature from a fourteenth-century "Historie Ancienne.". 27 April 1998. January 2019. <https://www.nlm.nih.gov/exhibition/cesarean/part1.html>.

Ogden, Margaret S. The cyrurgie of Guy de Chauliac. London, New York: Society by the Oxford University Press, 1971.

Ojanuga, Durrenda. “The medical ethics of the 'Father of Gynaecology', Dr J Marion Sims.” Journal of medical ethics19 (1993): 28-31.

Paré, Ambroise (1510-1590) and Francis R. (1870-1950) Packard. Life and times of Ambroise Paré <1510-1590> with a new translation of his Apology and an account of his journeys in divers places, by Francis R. Packard ... with twenty-two text illustrations, twenty-seven full page plates and two folded maps of Paris of the 16th and 17th centuries. . New York: P.B. Hoeber, 1921.

Paré, Ambroise.Dix livres de la chirurgie : avec le magasin des instrumens necessaires à icelle / par Ambroise Paré. (1510?-1590). Paris: Cercle du Livre Précieux, 1564.

—. Ten Books of Surgery with The Magazine of Instruments Necessary for It Translated by Robert White Linker and Nathan Womack. Trans. Robert White Linker and Nathan Womack. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1969.

—. The Workes of that famous Chirurgion Ambrose Parey Translated out of Latine and compared with the French.Trans. Th: Johnson. London: Th:Cotes and R. Young, 1634.

Parker, Rozsika. The Subversive Stitch: Embroidery and the Making of the Feminine. London: Women's Press, 1984.

This is a representation of historical research subjects.
The pig is making a sarcastic statement.

Planella Coromina, Josep or Jose (1804-90). "Galen assisting a gladiator, wounded in the circus of Bergamo." n.d. bridgemanimages.com.14 October 2018.

Porter, Roy. The Greatest Benefit to Mankind: A Medical History of Humanity. New York: W. W. Norton, 1997.

Queen Victoria visiting the Royal Infirmary, Edinurgh. Wellcome Collection. The Illustrated London News and Sketch Ltd.London, England, 1842.

Richardson, Ruth. Death, Dissection and the Destitute. London: Penguin, 1988.

Rose, H.F. Galen, standing in a glade, looks at a human skeleton on the ground. Wellcome Collection.

Ruysch, Frederik (1638-1731). Opera omnia anatomico-medico-chirurgica : huc usque edita. Quorum elenchus pagina sequenti exhibetur, cum figuris aeneis. . Amsterdam: Apud Janssonio-Waesbergios, 1702-1731.

Salazar, Christine F. The Treatment of War Wounds in Graeco-Roman Antiquity. Boston: Brill, 2000.

Savage, Henry. The surgery, surgical pathology and surgical anatomy of the female pelvic organs : in a series of coloured plates taken from nature, with commentaries, notes and cases . 3d. Philadelphia: LInday and Blakiston, 1876.

Sims, J. Marion 1813-1883. On the treatment of vesico-vaginal fistula. Philadelphia: Blanchard & Lea, 1853.

—. Silver Sutures in Surgery. New York: Wood, 1858.

This is a lace curtain worked over in wool, linen,
and cotton floss. The image is from a gynecological
surgery book by Henry Savage, demonstrating the
Sims Position for gynecological surgeries.
The floral pattern on thecurtain looked amazingly like a uterus.

Sims, J. Marion. The Story of My Life. New York: Da Cap Press, 1968.

Smellie, William. An abridgement of the practice of midwifery: and a set of anatomical tables with explanations. Collected from the works of the celebrated, W. Smellie, M.D.  . Boston: J. Norman, 1786.

Spiegel, Adriaan van (1578-1625) and Giulio (ca. 1552-1616) Casseri. De formato foetu liber singularis. Padua: Io. Bap. de Martinis and Livius Pasquatus, 1626.

Stamatakos, Michael, et al. “Vesicovaginal Fistula: Diagnosis and Management.” The Indian Journal of Surgery76.2 (2012): 131-136. 2018 йил 2-July. <https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/
           PMC4039689/>.

Thom, Robert. Sims with Anarcha. Southern Illinois University School of Medicine, Pearson Museum.

Unknown. "Harriet Tubman." n.d. Wikipedia.5 October 2018. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
          Harriet_Tubman>.

Van Gogh, Vincent. Female Nude, Back View. 
           Accessed via Wikimedia Commons, 9/21/18. Reprography from art book. Paris, 1887.

Vauguion, de La. A compleat body of chirurgical operations : containing the whole practice of surgery ... Faithfully done into English.London: Henry Bonwick, T. Goodwin, M Wotton, B. Took, and S. Manship, 1699.

Wall, LL. “The medical ethics of Dr. J Marion Sims: as fresh look at the historical record.”Journal of Medical Ethics32 (2006): 346-350.

Whaley, Leigh Ann. Women and the practice of medical care in early modern Europe, 1400-1800. Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire ; New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011.

Wikimedia Commons File: John Bell from MPG.jpg. circa 1801. <https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:John_Bell_from_NPG.jpg>.

Ziegler, Paul F. Textbook On Sutures. 2nd Edition. Chicago: The Kendall Company, 1942.

Three Cheers for You! I can’t believe you made it through this thing!

SILVER WIRE

UNDERSTANDING SURGERY AND BIOETHICS THROUGH EMBROIDERY AND COMICS

TAKES ONE TO KNOW ONE

Page 6 of Silver Wire. I decided to
use soft colors for a hard topic.
Author: Kriota Willberg

Since my artist residency at the New York Academy of Medicine Library, I have been thinking a lot about the way I tend to be more interested or open to an intimidating subject if I have a connection to it though previous experience or knowledge. One thing that researching the histories of domestic sewing and of sutures and ligatures has taught me is that sewing was a universal skill for millennia. These days it may not be as common a skill, but practically everyone understands what it is and the basic techniques and equipment used.

My new comic, Silver Wire, explores the histories of surgery, unethical research, and slavery, by using embroidery as the medium for gaining a little more understanding of these very intimidating subjects. In the narrative, I go to the park with my doctor-friend Mollie for a lesson about surgery and suturing techniques. As we wound and sew up fruit, we explore the histories of medical sewing and decorative sewing, gossiping and joking about the great surgeons of history. But the same techniques that Mollie uses with her patients to relieve their suffering have a dark history that affects us all. 

Yes – my interests in embroidery and history changed my life by giving me a way to wrap my head around the debt global modern medicine owes to the American enslaved! I tear up just thinking about it.

Making this book really honed my understanding of the need for studying history to reconcile ourselves with the present. The following appears on the inside back cover of the book:

Silver Wire page 16.
Author: Kriota Willberg

You know, the New York Academy of Medicine Library changed my life. One day in the Rare Book Room I was reading an introduction by Charles Bell to one of his books (I forget which one.) In it, he addressed the reader and praised them for their curiosity and interest in medicine. He was inspired by his patients and his students who were “young men of science” or something like that. The guy was truly devoted to education. His language was so enthusiastic and welcoming, I felt like he was talking to me, specifically. At the end of the page, he wrote that through a shared interest in science, we are all comrades. His signature began with “Your friend…” 

I am pretty sure that Charles Bell, at the end of the 18^thcentury, had no idea that a middle aged, childless, cis-gendered female, massage therapist, cartoonist(!) would read his words and then struggle to keep back her tears of gratitude, but that is what happened. I hope Bell would be pleased.

History is full of love, suffering, service, and cruelty, sometimes all coming from the same source. By weeding through the culture and politics of medicine of the past, we can understand and improve the state of public health today. 

We need voices like Bell, Boivin*, Trota**, yes, and even (that asshole***) Sim’s to be heard, discussed, and acted upon to help us understand the present with some anger and a lot of compassion for people suffering today. We need the past to make a better future.

If you made it through this book and all the crazy citations and comments, thank you! Please consider me…

…Your Friend,

Kriota

*You probably never heard of her, look her up!

**If you’re one of those people who say she didn’t exist, then replace her name with someone she may represent to you.

***J. Marion Sims was a gynecological surgeon who experimented on enslaved women in the 1840s. His work is a major component of the book. And he was an asshole. His memoir is a huge ego trip where he talks about how touching women’s reproductive organs is the last thing he ever wanted to do. Oh yeah, there’s also the unethical research!

Page 20 of Silver Wire.
Lace and embroidery over an illustration of
"the Sim's position" from a 1876
surgical textbook by Henry Savage.

Silver Wire is a 19-page comic book followed by a whopping 8 pages of citations, notes, and pictures of medically themed embroidery. 

You can read it on Medium.com (after July 8) and if you want your very own copy, order it from Birdcage Bottom Books or find it at Forbidden Planet or JHU Comics in New York City, or Chicago Comics or Quimby’s in Chicago. 

P.S. (Get your butt to the library!)

SAMPLE OF SAMPLERS

It’s been awhile since I posted any needlework images. Here is a smattering of pieces made in the last year or two…

FLOUNCE SLEEVE

Flounce Sleeve. Artist: Kriota Willberg

The late great Rozsika Parker, in her fabulous book, The Subversive Stitch, described the way Enlightenment philosophers and scientists introduced the notion that women were essentially biologically driven to sew. At the same time, women were physically associated with flowers in some anatomical texts by Casseri and Van de Speigel. I decided to up the fantasy a notch by re-designing a flounce sleeve embroidery pattern from an 1855 issue of Godey’s Lady’s Book using anatomical images from The surgery, surgical pathology and surgical anatomy of the female pelvic organs : in a series of coloured plates taken from nature, with commentaries, notes and cases,by Henry Savage (1876). You can find this book at the New York Academy of Medicine Historical Collection. 

I worked up the pattern in cotton floss on linen. Then I accidentally burnt it with an iron when I had a migraine. It took two months to make.

Oophorectomy. Try saying that 5 times, fast! Artist: Kriota Willberg

OOPHORECTOMY

An oophorectomy is a surgery where an ovary is removed. This is a free-hand image of a (somewhat cartoonish) uterus, fallopian tubes, and one ovary. I darned yarn into a torn lace…doily? Then stitched the uterus in darker yarn. I imagine the darned doily as a representation of the broad ligament. I pulled and puckered the yarn in the area of the missing ovary to represent scarring that might occur after an oophorectomy. 

CATGUT TISSUE SLIDE

Tissue slide cross stitch pattern
made in Photoshop. Kriota Willberg

Catgut tissue slide cross stitch. There's a typo in there! I'm not saying where-
find it yourself! Artist: Kriota Willberg

I thought you might be curious as to what a pattern for one of my cross stitches looks like.

The top image is a counted cross-stitch pattern, assembled in photoshop. It's a photomicrograph of catgut imbedded in dog tissue from Textbook on Sutures(1942) by Paul F. Ziegler, and is supplemented by images from The Gentleman’s Dog, his Rearing, Training, and Treatment(1909) by C.A. Bryce, and Trichologia mammalium; or, A treatise on the organization, properties and uses of hair and wool, together with an essay upon the raising and breeding of sheep. You can access these books at the Academy Historical Collection. The text forming the border of the images is liberally excerpted from the textbook on sutures and says,

 “…catgut is made from the first 6-8 yards of the stomach-end of the small intestine of sheep. The absorption rates of catgut sutures are regularly checked by suture implantations in muscle of laboratory animals (dogs and rabbits). Following implantation, the surrounding tissue reacts to wall off and digest this foreign body. A disintegration occurs, small fragments are phagocytosed by macrophages and are thus digested.” The delineation of the dog and sheep image have been redrawn to mimic clumps of macrophages, which white blood cells.

The catgut and macrophages are made with cross-stitch. The dog tissue is tinted by using a half tent stitch, and the areas absent of stitching are the forming granulation tissue.

This piece took about 4 months to make! (Okay, yeah, because I had to work and do other things at the same time, but still!)

MEDICAL IMAGERY THROUGH EMBROIDERY WORKSHOP

This spring (2019) I traveled up to the Rochester Institute of Technology, spoke about graphic medicine, and lead workshops on injury prevention and Medical Imagery through Embroidery! Yup! The workshop was a blast. I presented a slide show on cultural and aesthetic messages that we can interpret from educational anatomical and medical imagery. We discussed anatomical symbolism used by artists in their non-medical work. Then I introduced the students (from the medical illustration, art, and English departments) to some basic embroidery stitches, gave them fabric with pre-printed historical anatomical images, embroidery supplies, fabric pens, and fabric, and let them transform the “academic” “professional” imagery into something more personal. They did some great work! I don’t have any examples of student work, but I can show you a piece I worked up using the image of a child’s skull from William Cheselden’s Osteographia, fabric pens, tulle, and embroidery.

TOM’S TUMOR AND THYMUS

My friend Tom had a thymectomy. His surgeon took a photo of Tom’s thymus with it’s (benign!) tumors and gave it to him. Tom knew I’d love to turn it into a needlepoint piece, so he gave me a copy of the photo and permission to work it up. I made it on monocanvas with wool yarn. One thing I like about many decorative projects is the way they label or name their subjects in the context of the piece, be it a painting, needlepoint, or a tattoo. So I did it too. 

Tom's Tumor and Thymus.
Artist: Kriota Willberg

This is not Tom's favorite of my work. (He is a little squeamish about it. Who can blame him?)

EMBROIDERY LAB!

THE MEDICAL HISTORY NERD'S INTRODUCTION TO DECORATIVE NEEDLEWORK
Who is going to want an introduction to embroidery that uses historical medical imagery for its patterns? Us! And here it is!

Embroidery Lab! is a component of my “Embroidering Medicine” workshop at the New York Academy ofMedicine Library. In this book are the basics of hands-on embroidery skills and stitches. The patterns in this book range from very simple to moderately labor intensive. The images come from the Academy’s Historical Collection. These pictures represent the evolution of the pursuit of biological knowledge. Yes, even a basilisk is a part of that evolution!

As an experiment, I had some embroidery patterns printed up on fabric. Here's one of the gravid uterus all stitched up.

You can find this little tome at comics stores like Forbidden Planet in NYC, and Chicago Comics. Birdcage Bottom Books will be selling it soon. You can also find it at the Massachusetts Independent Comics Expo (MICE) October 21-22, 2017. Find me at table B81.

FRACTURED FINGER X-RAY MAKES GREAT EMBROIDERY

You know what it's like to start a project, then put it away before it's finished, then take it out for a few days, then put it away again, etc.? Actually, I hope you don't know what it's like. I have a couple of them still going on. But finally I have finished one!

Matt's finger, Tricia's dress

One of my colleagues at Sloane Kettering's Integrative Medicine Service fractured the distal phalanx (the bone at the end) of... it was either his 3rd or 4th finger. Matthew was generous enough to share his x-ray with me right around the time that my friend Tricia gave me a dress with machine embroidery on it. How better to make use of two wonderful gifts than to combine them into a single project?

VIRTUAL MEMORIES INTERVIEW

TALK, TALK, TALK
A few weeks ago I had a chat that happened to be an interview with Gil Roth for his Virtual Memories Show. 

Curious about the origins of my Pathology Laffs series? How about some opinions on how people learn, or strategies for making science funny? Maybe you're curious about my past dance career. Follow this link to Virtual Memories, click on my interview, and brace yourself for an hour of fun! (The first 12 minutes are an interview with writer Paul Di Filippo) My Interview (#154) starts at minute 12:45 on the download.

I thought it might be fun to post some images and links to accompany my conversation with Gil. Here's your program!

MINUTE 12:45 MY BIO AND INTRODUCTION

Dura Mater (Dance and Anatomy Projects before 2010)

Marymount Manhattan Dance Department

The Cinematologist

Integrative Medicine Service at MSKCC

MINUTE 14:20 CARTOONISTS AND DRAWING INJURIES

Me from our last visit to the Center for Cartoon Studies

First Aid, part 2 of my self care series.

MINUTE 18:20 THE PHYSICAL STRESSES EFFECTING CARTOONISTS

From (No) Pain!

MINUTE 21:20 THE CHALLENGES OF TEACHING GOOD HABITS

It's much easier to teach people interested in what you have to say. 

The trick is to find a way to get disinterested people interested!

MINUTE 23:35 MY HISTORY WITH COMICS AND SCI FI

Welcome to my 10-year-old-world!

Andre Norton, Dark Piper

My Sci Fi tastes have matured, I guess.

Love these guys! (James SA Corey)

MINUTE 26:00 GROWING UP IN A WORLD OF NERDS

Dragon etching from Junior High.

MINUTE 30:30 HOW PATHOLOGY LAFFS AND LOUISE THE LOUSE CAME INTO BEING

The gag cartoon that started it all.

The earliest Carousel Cartoon Slideshow poster I could find. 

My illustration is the cancerous mice, bottom right.

MINUTE 35:00 DANCE, PERFORMING, DANCING COMPARED TO DRAWING

This pic got me a page in Dance Magazine.

For more about past dance projects see DuraMater.org.

MINUTE 41:00 NEEDLEWORK, MEDICAL IMAGERY, AND COMICS

Two in-progress pieces I will be submitting to 4Panel.

The bottom images are from a SciArt Center workshop.

Catherine's Knee, photo by Tom Henning.

MINUTE 52:37 TEACHING ANATOMY: BACKGROUND, VISUALIZING ANATOMY, SPECULATIVE ANATOMY

Joan Reilly created some incredible anatomy images based on class homework.

Drawing on a body helps us visualize structures under the skin.

MINUTE 59:30 MORE ABOUT SELF-CARE FOR ARTISTS

WOW! YOU MADE IT! TAKE A BREAK.

NOTES FROM VESALIUS 500 - Part 1

MISSED IT THIS YEAR? GO NEXT YEAR!

The New York Academy of Medicine Center for History is an institution that everyone should get to know. One way to do that is to go to their annual open house events. This year's event was on October 18. Guest curated by artist Riva Lehrer, this day of history, medicine, pathology, anatomy, and loads of fun (yes, fun!) was entitled Vesalius 500. 2015 marks the 500th anniversary of the birth of Andreas Vesalius who rocked the world in 1543 with the publication of his seminal book on human anatomy. In 449 more years I want a birthday party like NYAM's celebration of Vesalius!

MY PART - VISUALIZING ANATOMY

Tyner and I demonstrate the position and action of sternocleidomastoid.
(Photos by R. Sikoryak. A little blurry but he was videotaping at the same time.)

With the help of my model Tyner Dumortier, I talked about and drew muscles of the body that rotate the torso and/or move the arms in diagonal pattern. The "route" that we took around Tyner's torso was inspired by one of the plates from Vesalius' De humani corporis fabrica libri septem.

Here's a close up of Vesalius' inspirational plate.

I'm particularly attracted to the relationships of splenius capitis and the rhomboids.

I used bony attachments to create a "chain" of muscles that wrapped around the body, forming a spiral pattern. I did this because it's pretty! If you're going to attend an anatomy lecture on a Saturday morning, it ought to be entertaining at least.

Demonstrating trunk rotation and the function of the

serratus anterior and abdominal obliques.

Pectoralis major, serratus anterior, and the abdominal musculature,

get a work out in this burlesque-like image.

Vesalius and the anatomists he influenced over centuries, like Casseri (illo of one of his books above), show us anatomy in bodies situated in environments and often in lifelike poses. One of the reasons I draw on live models is to reinforce the understanding that anatomy is living in us! Not on a page.

NEEDLEWORK DISPLAY
NYAM displayed my needlework of body imagery that include colon- and end- oscopies, ultrasounds, and MRIs in their cabinets.

DRAWING THE PRESENTER
Last but not least, this is an image drawn by the fabulous MK Czerwiec, in some circles known as Comic Nurse. I love this! Notice that she even includes my reference to the muscles of the trunk as a "meat balloon." (But that's another story!)