We are wonderfully made

[0:00] I'd like to open with a prayer, if you could please bow your heads. Lord, make us instruments of thy peace. Where there is hatred, let us sow love. Where there is injury, pardon.

[0:15] Where there is discord, union. Where there is doubt, faith. Where there is despair, hope. Where there is darkness, light. Where there is sadness, joy. For thy mercy, and for thy truth's sake. Amen.

[0:36] That's a prayer by St. Francis of MBC. I have a copy of these words by the doorway of my studio. It's interesting that Dr. Ola Skleemaker has been illuminating for us the problem of stewardship on a global level.

[0:51] Today, I'm going to pull the view much closer. How are we doing on the stewardship of the body? This is a picture I made some time ago. I'd like you to have a look at it and think what it might be.

[1:06] We'll revisit it later in the talk. Just have some guessing going on in your mind. So, upon hearing the diagnosis of cancer, I went numb with shock. Everything about my life was to change.

[1:25] The gift of the disease was an acute understanding and awareness of my own mortality. I went to Florence to study art, and a chance tour brought me to an incredible place, La Specula.

[1:39] It is an 18th century facility for the instruction of art and medical films. The models are made of wax and they're very lifelike. They represent every aspect of the human body.

[1:51] Joint, sinews, uteroi, nerves, skeletons. Very realistic. I actually stood in the middle of the largest room. Most of the people on the tour had left very quickly.

[2:06] And I actually wept at the beauty of these structures that I had not ever seen before, particularly. They were these extraordinary landscapes which housed the soul.

[2:19] My mind was on fire with the intelligence and humanity of what I saw that day at La Specula. So, the initial exposure to the human body in Florence led me to a decade's odyssey from Italy, Spendr River, Toronto, Cambridge, Oxford, Vienna and Paris over the last ten years.

[2:39] Generous sponsorship of professors of anatomy in all these places enabled me to work in their labs alongside of medical people. At the University of Oxford in Cambridge, I painted and sculpted during ongoing medical lectures and operations.

[2:57] I was struck again and again by the similarity of internal structures of the human body and common landscape features like trees, rocks, water and clouds. This isn't a new or original thought particularly, but when we're really studying things close on, it does come through.

[3:13] And it occurred to me it was as though God having created a wonderfully good blueprint decided to use it again and again. So from the original chalk and ink explorations, I branched out, come intended, into sculpture, painting of landscape studies and animal bones as well as the internal human landscapes.

[3:33] So today as an artist, I'm inviting you to see the interconnected beauty of our bodies and our world. During the past decade, I've had a lot of time to consider my illness, my heart, God's plans for me, and an ongoing question.

[3:49] Why, as a society, and particularly as Christians, are we so confused about our relationship with our bodies? Reaching back in history, there's been a bifurcation, a separation between body and soul.

[4:03] It mainly comes from Greek thought, actually. It's not part of the Judeo-Christian view of humankind, in which the body and soul forms a unity. It might even be a consequence of the fall. Our general brokenness is sinners, so for whatever reason, we refer generally to body and soul as different elements.

[4:21] I'm not the only person to have a problem with this bifurcation, this division of human being into body and soul. We're not talking about just a theory. What if body is soul? Body as soul?

[4:36] What if the meat of us is the mind of us? What if the chemicals are the emotions? Up until very recently, scientists believed the information was passed linearly in the nervous system from nerve to nerve.

[4:50] But now we know our body organs communicate directly with the brain, and vice versa, through chemical messengers known as neuropeptides. These neuropeptides pass messages between nerve cells and neuropeptide receptor molecules then receive the messages that are triggered to be released by emotions and thoughts.

[5:10] It used to be believed receptor sites for neuropeptides were located only in the body's endocrine and immune system and in nerve cells. Now we know body organs such as the kidney and the bowel have receptor sites for these so-called brain chemicals, as do blood cells.

[5:25] These chemicals are part of the way in which thoughts and emotions affect our physical body's direction. Recent discoveries reveal our organs and immune systems can themselves manufacture these same so-called brain chemicals.

[5:39] What this means is that our entire body feels and extruses emotion. All parts think and feel. If you're interested in this new area of medical research, I recommend Dr. Candice Kirk, who's been a researcher at Georgetown University.

[5:53] She's the author of Molecules of Emotion, the science behind mind-body medicine. We've been aware of gut feelings. We've all had them. These have been referenced in literature for centuries, but we were always told, at least I as an art student was always told, this was not physically possible.

[6:13] Feelings are sorted out only by the brain. But the new evidence points out a different reality. So gut feelings are the truth. On a physical, factual level. Since all our emotions are chemical changes, ranging all over our bodies, how would we separate our chemistry from emotion?

[6:29] What is body? What is soul? Would it be more correct to call it the body-soul continuum? And if we all acknowledge that this unity of body and soul is a truth, does that change the way we perceive our bodies?

[6:45] Speaking of science, for a long time now, physicians have scientistized medicine, making it the exclusive property of the sciences, although it used to be considered an art.

[6:56] In the modern rush to exterminate the mind and soul in favor of the mechanical, empirical-based fact model for medicine, we bypass the soul. If you cannot count it, it must not count.

[7:09] I certainly do not wish to negate the truly marvelous advances, medical miracles, which have been achieved over the past hundred years or so. I think Dr. Perk puts it rather well when she points out, however, that a medical establishment must now deal with the mind and the soul.

[7:29] Many people seek out alternative medicine, sometimes with disastrous consequences, sometimes with miraculous cures. Maybe they are doing this because mainstream medical practitioners have excessively exterminated the soul from any conversations about the body?

[7:42] We are well aware that stress-related diseases are topping the charts in terms of modern mortality rates. This is an example of the body's soul not being at ease creating physical results of disease.

[7:53] I am sure you are as true as I am when you read the stories about people who go to church and pray living longer. So, it is not a mystery for us. I have some interesting experiences while working in dissection labs.

[8:08] I had an experience common to different countries and different cultures. There I would be working away in the cornfield lab on a chalk study, and there would be some medical person who would interrupt me, usually a surgeon or a pathologist, and they would offer me money for the unfinished piece of work.

[8:25] Initially, I found it a nice experience, a bit of a ride for my ego, always nice, the work is touching people. But when it kept happening again and again in different countries, different cultures, perhaps among people who might or might not normally collect hurt, I began to find it odd.

[8:41] I wondered what was going on. I recall these folks would continue to stare at the image while talking to me. So, I took my questions to Dr. Heather Gretton. She is a psychologist in our congregation.

[8:53] She was very interested in the whole idea. Her theory was, the people I was encountering were originally tracked into the field of medicine because they wanted to help people.

[9:05] That's an emotional-based decision. Their subsequent training systematically cuts them off from feeling any emotion while they are doing their jobs. Surgeons, in particular, require an emotional disconnect in order to cut into their fellow human creatures.

[9:21] My art, on the other hand, is all about emotions and feelings. I use drawing, painting, and sculpture techniques to explore the topic as I work on a piece of anatomy.

[9:32] I'm thinking, did this hand hold a child, caress a wife? Did this heartbeat to a different drummer? These are not just parts of leftover tissue generously donated to a medical school for me.

[9:45] I'm constantly reminded this was a person. This was a part of an actual person. It's very moving. Sometimes I get quite of a rot while working and it takes a certain amount of emotional energy to explore the places I'm exploring, since I'm not, by training, cut off from my emotions.

[10:01] Interestingly, something of emotional nature is frequently remarked upon by people who look at the art, and what I find fascinating is when someone talks about the feelings in the work. I don't consciously put them there. I just feel things myself as I'm working.

[10:15] Something seems to end up in the art. Dr. Gretton believes my work offers doctors a form of emotional release. My work lets them revisit the feelings that led to their original decision to become doctors, to their own original emotional origins.

[10:29] They wanted to care for people. I don't know if she's right, but I find it a very interesting theory. There's another response to my work, or rather the idea of my art, and while infrequent, it's quite painful to me.

[10:43] People who have not actually experienced seeing the art complain that it's gross, horrid, and repugnant. I've come to understand this is far more to do with their relationships with their bodies than it is with my heart.

[10:56] In the ten years I've been showing the art in Paris, Scotland, England, Canada, Japan, and Amsterdam, no one actually seeing the work has criticized it negatively. I don't know, maybe one reason only terrifically polite people go to see my work.

[11:10] But anyway, so in the first few years I had a lot of trepidation showing the work, to be honest. Now, I'm keen to hear what people wish to share with me as they move through the gallery.

[11:24] The most common response is about a part of the body. They've had a medical go around to it. So there'll be some very athletic guy standing in front of a study of a patella, because he blew out his knee and he had all these knee operations.

[11:37] He'll tell me about, you know, that this was a really important thing in his life, that he had to trust this medical team and so on and so forth. It's fascinating. People who've had their hernias repaired, gallbladders removed, they're keen to have a look at their bit.

[11:50] And the story and the narrative is the people who have faced the challenges of illness and surgery are this huge, rich, unlooked-for bonus to showing the artwork, which is very gratifying.

[12:01] My favourite story about this body of work, you can't get away from the pens and the function of the work, the wife of my husband, the wife of one of my husband's colleagues, she's upright, Protestant, Irish lady, evangelical Christian in her early seventies.

[12:19] She and her husband have been close friends with my husband and myself, and when she heard I was working on drawings and paintings of human organs and bones in Cambridge, she berated me for it. Why would you want to create ugly, gross, exploitative pictures?

[12:32] I don't think I'm doing that, I responded. What about all the lovely trees and flowers and mountains that God offers you for subject matter? What about them? Well, they're all beautiful. We all know that. I think we're beautiful inside too, I responded.

[12:44] She glared at me and quickly changed the topic. And then several hours later she demanded to see the work. And I demure thinking, you know, let's just leave this. You're not really open and I don't think so.

[12:57] And she became more and more demanding and finally I produced an offering of the most recent studies I've been doing. She stared at it and she actually messed it up. This only happened a few times with my work, but it's very moving.

[13:08] Through the tears she said in this really quivering voice, you mean we look like that inside? It's so beautiful. I didn't know. And she went where, asked where these mysterious lovely objects were in her body and we talked on for ages.

[13:25] And she's just a big fan of the work and she thinks it's important as Christians we change the way we think about our internal bodies. She thinks it's that elemental, that marrow-ish, you know?

[13:37] So, that was very gratifying and interesting. On another occasion, I was astonished at the response of another friend at Cambridge. This chap is one of the brightest lights in the Cambridge Maths Department.

[13:50] Quite an eminent scholar you are ever wanting to meet. Huge breadth of general knowledge, he's brilliant about everything. And when he first saw the work he frowned, confused. Is it really all jammed in there like that?

[14:03] He said when he was looking at the first study. And after a series of questions on both sides, it was revealed his own personal mental picture that had nothing to do with reality. He thought his central body cavity was sort of like space.

[14:16] There were little bits hanging there, you know, heart here and lung there. And I had no idea that educated people could be so in touch with reality of their own anatomy.

[14:27] I just found that absolutely amazing. But it was really only during the Renaissance that anatomy really got going. Before that, many societies had a lot of taboos about cutting into dead bodies.

[14:39] And even up until a few hundred years ago, early anatomists had to obtain closeness through nefarious means, hanging around prisons and graveyards as the poor. To study anatomy was considered a shameful activity, desecration of a dead person.

[14:52] Today many people leave their remains two medical facilities. But it was those early intrepid souls who had a hunger and curiosity about the workings of the body who gained us knowledge that wound up on the Sistine Chapel ceiling as well as near the medical test place.

[15:08] I want to make it clear I don't create the work to push some ideology or message. I am led by spirit to investigate things and I feel it's a sacred charge to do so.

[15:20] I'm surprised as the next person is when the work has any impact on anyone at all. I create it because I'm led to create it. Most artists I've had a conversation with about this subject feel similarly.

[15:31] They're pleased that the work moves people but that isn't why we do it. We don't do it for money or fang or to be thought trendy. We do it because we're compelled by something bigger than ourselves and our own wills to create it.

[15:42] I was thinking more about how we do think about the body. What are the cultural and societal influences about the way we perceive our bodies? There's the usual embarrassment, shame, vanity, competition.

[15:55] The culture of self-loathing in which women in the West are raised, which can lead to eating disorders. The deification of fashionable beauty as though if someone looks fashionable enough, he or she must be full of virtue.

[16:08] Madison Avenue advertising types have a lot to answer for in the creation of current very strange physical ideals. That's just the attitude to the outer body. When people consider their internal organs, it's usually with repugnant as though, yes, we're made of meat. I don't want to think about that today. Gross.

[16:25] In popular culture, only teenage boys who like to watch slasher films have any trick with the body, other than medical people. Since we're so cut off from experiencing death up close, there's a slew of television about medical medicine lately.

[16:40] It's not particularly realistic for the most part, but the creators of such shows are tapping into, I think, a human hunger for older knowledge, something we've removed from our modern lifestyle, perhaps. It wasn't always like that. In the fairly recent past, people were birthed and died at home.

[16:56] They were cared for and catered to by their loved ones. Death was not sanitized. It was part of life. There are several marvelous books about this North American mania for the deconction of death.

[17:08] The Loved One by British author Evelyn Wall is hilarious, as is Jessica Mitford's American Way of Death. They're both indictments of the modern system. Now, in modern times, death has been edited as to almost evaporate.

[17:23] We die in hospitals. We're trained technicians, quickly remove the body, zipping it up into a large black bag, so nobody will have to look on the dead first. From there, it goes to a place where there can be pumped full of chemicals to make it life-like, though it's sleeping, so we won't be upset looking at it.

[17:36] Or it goes into a closed casket that's made into ashes, put into a taste-worn. Like most people, this was my experience of death, until my dad chose to die at home.

[17:49] And although we did have the technician show up with the black bag eventually, we sat with my father's body for several hours. And it was amazing, instructive. There was his body without the life force infusing it.

[18:07] It was so obvious he'd left. He was no longer with us. His body-soul continuum had irrevocably changed, and I'm glad I saw him like that, and understood that part of being human.

[18:19] Medical people are honored by being allowed to be around when people die. My personal feeling is, I think we need more poets and artists in there at the ending.

[18:31] In terms of Christianity, there's a long history of denying the body, of mortifying the flesh, of vilifying the body. Myself, I think the body is a bit like electricity. It is, in and of itself, not harmful, but must be used properly to avoid complications.

[18:48] We look to the Bible. We're given good advice. Jesus does not vilify the body, as later Christians did. He acknowledges that it is what is in your mind's soul that defiles you, rather than anything about your body.

[19:01] The message here is clear that it's not the body which is at fault. The body is not inherently evil or sinful. And he spent a lot of time healing the bodies of the afflicted and driving up mental illnesses as well.

[19:12] He referred to a state of sin as being problematic for the entire organism, the whole body's soul. Christian artists who work with images of the human body frequently have to contend with accusations from people holding the Old Testament, about not making graven images. I've come up against this myself a few times.

[19:30] Well, those images were created specifically for idolatry, worshipping something other than the Lord. As well, figurative art was actually commissioned by God when he described how the Israelites should fashion the art of the covenant.

[19:48] Go back there. Have a look. It's there. I think it's obvious the inspiration and intention of the artist is very important, particularly with working with such a sensitive subject as a body. There's the famous miracle of the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 9, verses 20 to 22.

[20:03] Just then, a woman who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years came up behind him and touched the edge of his cloak. She said to herself, If only I touch his cloak, I will be healed.

[20:14] Jesus turned and saw her. Take heart, daughter, he said, your faith has healed you. And the woman was healed from that moment. Why did Jesus decide to display himself as a healer of people, as someone who catered to the body-soul?

[20:31] Perhaps nothing is more personal, nothing is more profound to we humans. I hope that my work can contribute to a healthy respect for the body.

[20:42] After all, our Christian lives on earth are supposed to be lived out in these bodies. These wonderful creations of bone, and tissue, and chemicals, and thoughts, feelings, that are the temples housing our souls, maybe in part they are our souls.

[20:57] They were designed by God. Who are we to disparage them? Perhaps, if we see them as sacred, as something to be appreciated, something beautiful and worthy of love, we would take better care of them, respect them more, and in turn respect ourselves and each other more, which could only be part of turning our hearts towards the crest.

[21:19] I don't think artists are the overarching solutions in this situation, but some of us do use depictions of the human body to celebrate the sacredness, the huge gift of human life which God has granted to us.

[21:33] I'd like to share with you the work of several artists who choose to explore bodies to create their images. Shout! Shout!

[21:46] By Vancouver artist Grace Tan. It's one of my favourite pieces in the world. I love this piece. It's charcoal and paper drawing inspired by King David's bones. A small area which you probably might not be able to read is actually found in scriptural quotation.

[22:04] This art is unabashedly specific about the body. Unlike a lot of images of the body, it's clearly not sexualized. This is a very important point to the artist.

[22:17] She wants to be clear she does not produce pornography but rather the opposite, a clear healthy celebration of the sacredness of the human body.

[22:28] Her statement visible on her website, In a world filled with many inspiring subjects, the human, the imago Dei, must surely be the most worthy.

[22:40] Here is another example of Grace's work, Ape. Such a moving expression of human sadness and isolation.

[22:54] Almost the opposite of the joyous King David. This work uses a Renaissance compositional element of the square and very few diagonals, which impart the solitude, the peacefulness to the work.

[23:05] It has such an enormous emotional impact on the viewer. Very, very strong work. These pieces are quite large.

[23:16] They are being shown to you basically almost the size that they are. In fact, in the case of the first one, it's, I think, twice less size or one and a half less size. Is this 48 by 48?

[23:27] 48 by 48. So, next, we have Ming Man. This is by Thomas Anfield. He's another Vancouver artist.

[23:38] It's a life-size oil painting of his wife's back. It's painted using traditional methods and a tenderness he feels for her seems to communicate through the painterly brushstrokes.

[23:49] Thomas is a very interesting artist. He's also a choreographer. And so, a lot of his work is about the body. He uses body as subject matter in both his dance and his paintings.

[24:00] Next, we have Prayer Circle in Bronze and Steel by Mother Vancouverist David Robinson, who many of you know as the son of our previous rector, Harry Robinson.

[24:13] David frequently works the small model and scales work up to the monumental. His work can be viewed here at St. John's in the side chapel and office lobby. And over at Thousand Parkers, he also has a new studio gallery that you can visit.

[24:28] Next, we have Font in Bronze, Copper, Steel and Water and it is such a profound expression of the Christ as suffering servant.

[24:45] Next, we've got Enlightenment. Bronze and Steel means no words to communicate the human condition of needing God's salvation. Lovely work.

[25:00] On Holy Ground. Another small scale bronze. Many of you who saw The Majesty's show and subsequent shows today might be familiar with this work. I hope you're enjoying revisiting it. His work frequently pits the vulnerable human body against the geometry of machine or other structures.

[25:17] There's usually a tension in the work and he moves between solemn, feasible moves and dynamic movements. He recently completed some spectacular equestrian work, studies and large work involving horses as well as human life.

[25:30] Moving on, we come to several works by Robert Young, a wearers-exchange regular or shall we call ourselves Erex Wars. Robert is one of Canada's most significant artists.

[25:41] We're blessed to have him here with us and blessed by his talent and insight. He's an artist of his time, but he's never run with the crowd. His work is hugely original and makes use of technical knowledge reaching back hundreds of years.

[25:54] He's graciously offered up some notes on these slides I wish to show you this morning. This is Sounds Inside, a smaller gouache work with spectacular use of color, expressing a musical reality to me anyway.

[26:08] The lovely ancient castle in the picture is an interesting choice of juxtaposition for the jazz musician. Sounds Inside is the title of a Miles Davis composition and in London Robert listened to a lot of BBC radio in his studio and found they never played anything in the jazz category beyond Louis Armstrong.

[26:25] Here we have Charlie Parker in a typical Renaissance portrait format by an open window through which can be seen a landscape, in this case borrowed from Titian's sacred and profane love, proposing that such music was not only transportative, but on an equal footing with all great art.

[26:42] Not that it had reached that level by 1973 in America. Next is The Explorer, which is oil on linen, 60 by 45, fairly large work, features Robert's esquizat dressmanship and complicated composition.

[26:59] It's a beautiful puzzle which can be admired on a number of levels. When in grade 11, Robert was given a book that very nearly diverged him from a responsible career as an art history student at UBC, the dangerous river.

[27:13] An Englishman, R. W. Pattison, explored the Nahanni in the Yukon, 1928, when it was still the subject of various legends, and when men kept disappearing up there. One of the legends concerns a headless valley where a couple of white decapitated corpses had been found.

[27:28] Nearly 30 years after making the painting, Robert woke up to a connection with the two alarmed girls' women. He borrowed them from a Renaissance painting by Massolino that showed John the Baptist's head being presented on a plate.

[27:42] But the painting really concerns a question that nagged after the upheaval of the 60s. How to look like a man? How to be a man? In this case, it involves a rather unwieldy contraption and no encouragement from the ladies.

[27:54] Next, we have the persistence of style. Again, large scale oil on linen canvas. Again, the beauty of the shapes and composition.

[28:06] Robert frequently offers us a built environment to enter into in his paintings. The ability to create a fictional yet believable architectural reality is not common in today's contemporary art scene, in part because A, nobody knows how to do it these days, and B, nobody can teach anyone else how to do it.

[28:21] I think that's starting to change in part because of the influence of Robert's work and other artists like him. The title Persistence of Style is borrowed from de Chiracos' persistence of memory.

[28:36] Robert received a postcard of the 1920s pugilist, Georges Carpentier. Carpentier? I don't know if I'm saying that correctly. Like the former image, it depicted a man who had a rather refined look considering his profession.

[28:51] But was it the proper image for a man? Being a man in the midst of high feminism was a bit of a struggle on a slippery slope. He has a dressmaker's pattern between his legs. The painting was made in two pieces that could be disassembled and put into a box to fit in the bulkhead on a plane to London.

[29:06] Oral. Ulrich and Meinhof, the Terrorist, was featured on the front page of the Sunday Times in about 1976. Robert felt bad when he saw they cut her out from the background of the brick prison wall and then stuck her down again.

[29:23] So she appeared to have grips penetrating the left side of her body. Why do this violence to her image? She had been an innocent child once. What happened to her to make her do horrible things?

[29:35] She was an empty vessel. A fiend, if you choose. Or a person of strong convictions and ideals, if you felt that way. Stalin was far worse. But people were able to overlook what he did even when they knew about it.

[29:47] How should a Christian look upon this lost soul who put herself in prison? Robert was not a Christian when he painted this piece. The final piece of Robert, thank you, is a study for a work he is currently busy with.

[30:03] Carefully staged and sighted, the figure seem iconic forming a unique tiny universe within the picture plane. Windows, bricks, costumes, a nude, nature, street, buildings, were invited into an alternate reality of thoughts and notions and ideas, as though we could enter someone else's mindscape.

[30:20] It's a very cerebral and brilliant work, even in its own form. So in this study, in the center, Giotto's 14th century allegory for poverty, who in the original fresco is being married to St. Francis while Christ looks on and charity offers her heart.

[30:36] To the right of her, Hideko Takamine is in a still from the film, Woman Climbing the Stairs. To the left of poverty, Ulrika Meinhof again, and a figure borrowed from the American painter Isabel Bishop.

[30:51] Robert does not feel responsible for the image, though he has been attending for months the enlarged version on the canvas every day. To him, this is a gift. And though he sees that it has multivalent potential, he may not know the meanings for years, maybe never.

[31:06] I find this a fascinating confession from an artist who seems content to rest in the mystery of his creations. I'd like to add at this point, there are many wonderful artists in our congregation.

[31:17] I've included a very small sampling of people who are my friends in this talk, which is specific to the body. I'm leaving out a huge amount of terrific work done by wonderfully talented people, mostly due to time constraints as well as not wanting to have any depth by the slide occurring this morning.

[31:32] So, next is some of my work. Number four is the shoulder blade in chalk. I was limited to what I could use as art materials in these labs.

[31:44] I wasn't allowed any solvents, any oils. Paints were generally frowned upon. So I took up chalk, which has the benefit of being portable, but you can also offer quite vivid color and tonality.

[31:55] Number five is a heart within lungs with the ribs cut away. All of these are quite small in format, about 15 by 20 inches.

[32:07] They're not large because, again, I needed portability. Number seven is the intestine and the nervous system, which runs along the gut. Number eight is a knee with the kneecap removed.

[32:24] And number nine is half of the brain, the teenage girl's brain, the corpus colosseum, the part of the brain in which the two halves talk is larger in women than men.

[32:39] Number nine is the inside of a heart. It looks like a tiny forest of birch trees.

[32:50] It's so exquisite in the interior. Those of you with any medical background here this morning know this, but for the rest of you, that's what it looks like in the middle. Okay, so number 12.

[33:02] This is the slide I showed you at the start of the talk. Do we have any guesses? I've heard of my phone's spine. Close, close.

[33:14] Isn't it a section right through your chest? Yes. You're cheating because you've had an avenue. Okay. When this won an award, the judges asked me what it was.

[33:27] And I said, okay. The top of the shoulders and head have been taken off the body. The heart and lungs, as well as all the main organs, have been removed. We're looking down into the central chest cavity of the body.

[33:40] At the base is the spinal column and nerve systems going down. But what basically is emptiness. Why would I want to make a picture of emptiness? I'll tell you.

[33:51] This was a young medical student I knew in Oxford who died in a motorcycle accident on a weekend. I came in on Monday to work and there he was. All his organs were given up for transplant.

[34:04] This is a picture of generosity and death. It's a work in which my tears mingled with the chalk that I will be back in.

[34:15] So, some of my sculptures. These sculptures are created in a very ancient way. Working in the anatomy lab, I model wax as I study real human bones.

[34:28] I use the bones as my subject matter, but the wax is an original sculpture created by my hands. As when an artist paints a tree but uses the tree as subject matter. I only explain this because my husband said I had to.

[34:42] Because a lot of people think I just take bones and make a cast of them. I don't. This is interpreted work. This is a sculpture of a human pelvis. So, the lead crystal, I use lost wax process.

[34:55] The kiln has to be heated up to 7,000 degrees to melt the lead crystal. Using lost wax process. The molten crystal pours into the mold, taking the place of the wax which shoots out.

[35:07] And the resultant lead crystal sculpture is mounted. So, this is the seat of being. It's cast lead crystal. It's a human pelvis comprised of bones modeled from people of both genders and several ages.

[35:24] Medical people see it and sort of frown and then smile if they realize it's a composite of humanity. So, this pelvis doesn't really exist. Technically. That's all I made it.

[35:35] One little girl remarked she thought it looked a bit like glass Mickey Mouse ears. It can be read on different levels. So, this is obviously a small maquette that has been put into different situations as a proposal for competition.

[35:54] So, next I think we thought, yes, that's the little maquette itself. Which is actually life-size. So, yay, yay. And next we've got caduceus.

[36:07] This is also cast lead crystal. It's a life-size human pelvis and spinal column of vertebra. The curve is something I researched. It's the curve of a cobra. It can be achieved by a flexible human being now.

[36:20] The color and shape are delivered. From a distance, the 33-inch high green-inch curve looks like a snake. Like a reptilian other. Something strange, suddenly venacing.

[36:32] As you move closer to, you become aware it's a structure common to all of us. I mean, you know, it talks about original sin. It talks about humanity. It talks about how we fear maybe ourselves.

[36:46] So, there's a lot going on in that one. Next we have Cuvier Blue. Oh, that's the detail. That's a close-up of the spinal column. Each of those little process beats.

[36:57] Very, very fussy to cast. So, next we've got Cuvier Blue. This is a neck vertebra from a Cuvier-beaked whale.

[37:08] It's also cast lead crystal. We all, as human beings, have a very similar structure in our necks. But this one weighs about 20 pounds. So, it's a big. Or just a fat thing.

[37:20] So, next we've got Thoracic Ice. This is a chest-level vertebra from a grey whale. Cast lead crystal. Again, very similar to human chest-level vertebra in many ways.

[37:34] And this is a view of mole. And I include it because of the bone-like nature of the cliffs. You've been looking at bones. Now you're looking at geology.

[37:45] You see the similarities, yeah? And next, afternoon grazing. And there are the lungs in the tree. The brachyach.

[37:56] Again. And now, I'd like to end with some scripture from the Bible. In the image of God He created Him. Male and female He created them.

[38:07] Genesis 1.27 1 Corinthians 6.19-20 Do you not know your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, whom you received from God? You were not your own, you were bought at a price.

[38:20] Therefore, honor God with your body. And John 1.14 The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us. Thank you. Thank you. Are there any questions? Are you all right?

[38:31] Are you okay? Yeah. So far. You're a little flush. Yeah. Yeah. Well. So, um, yeah. That is beautiful. Thank you. Thank you.

[38:42] Thank you. It's not quite that big. It's the oil about day by day. Thank you. Did you ever use a drawing? Do you ever use a drawing? Do you ever use a drawing like a white portrait? Yes. Was that different than on the... It was fascinating. Yeah.

[38:53] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, um, yeah. That is beautiful. Thank you. Thank you. It's not quite that big. It's the oil about day by day. Did you ever use a drawing like white portrait?

[39:04] Yes. Yeah. Was that different than on the... It was fascinating. Yeah. Yeah. Seeing surgery on live bodies was seeing the dynamism of the life force. Because even when someone is under anesthesia, there's still movement. There's still light, you know, present. And it's absolutely riveting.

[39:15] My favorite works are from that. But that body of work, unfortunately, is in Tokyo right now. So, I couldn't... Anyway. Yes. Dr. Packer, did you have... Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.

[39:26] Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.

[39:37] Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.

[39:48] Yes. Yes. No, I'm just a... Oh, sorry. No. I thought you were in hand. Sorry. Yeah. I thought you were juicing. Okay. That was my biggest nightmare last night.

[40:00] Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, no. I know you know you were perfect control. Oh, no. I understand that totally. Oh, yes. Harvey. I find it, I wonder, how was your observation on, um, I'm being, um, I'm being I'm being bad. Why does our bishop deny physical resurrection of our Lord?

[40:21] What's he got against the body? I don't know, I think you've got to get him up here and ask him. Isn't it odd that there's a tradition that shies away from the physical resurrection? Yeah.

[40:32] Where does that come from? Or to talk about how we're going to have new bodies and happen, people just don't want to seem to even ask their telelogic to go there. It's very interesting. Yes, Sheila.

[40:44] I was interested in what you had to say about are the emotions chemical and so on. Because actually, I think we are discovering through neuropsychiatry that they are. You know, if you look at the relationship between serotonin levels and depression, for instance.

[41:01] But I was wondering about those things which are not as big and organic as the things that you work with. How will you get at enzymes or endocrine type chemicals, you know?

[41:17] Microscopes. No, but I mean you. Yeah. I'm working with macroscopy over at UVC right now, looking at the images they're coming up with. Because those structures on a cellular level are equally as interesting organically to make as any of the macro, gross physical anatomy I've been working with.

[41:35] So that's another area I'm currently working on actually. Oh, great. And it's fabulous. It's just so exciting. Yeah. Well, I think it's interesting to me, having worked in a hospital for so long, although not in the operating room, about how much of the body can deal with the things that are wrong with it.

[41:54] Yes. You know, the body can, in many cases, heal itself. That's right. And I wondered when you were talking about having been in operating rooms, if you could see the action of things that go to the site of the wound when a surgeon cuts into your body.

[42:12] You know, the adrenaline level rises, the white blood cells all say, we've got to make more, we've got to make more, and they rush to the wound site. And, you know, this kind of stuff would be fascinating to include in your work, but I mean, I don't know if you've gone this far with it.

[42:27] Wonderful. No, it really is fascinating. I mean, Candace Kirk and that gang, who are looking into psychoneuroimmunology, are doing wonderful research about this, that basically things we've always kind of felt in our gut are true, and that we've got to listen to what intuition means.

[42:46] And it's just fascinating to me, that this is sort of an overlay of medical research right now, and is being confirmed by hard science and by the casualty support. It's really, really interesting.

[42:57] So, your next talk will be about... Oh, my next talk. You're a little of woman. I got you up there. You did. You did.

[43:08] You did. We were having a chat by the coffee back there, and I said, oh, I don't know if I could do a talk, I'm just an artist, and she sort of whacked me over the head, don't worry about it. And now I'm up here, so be careful when you talk to Sheila at coffee.

[43:20] Fascinating. I enjoyed all of it. Oh, good. Good. Thank you. Just a comment. I'm just very interested in spiritual cleansing and body cleansing, you know, how correlated that is.

[43:39] Oh, like fasting and that sort of thing? Yeah, I didn't go there. I don't know. I mean, I'm not a medical person. So, mostly... But, like, when I work with a drug addict, I just see that happening to the body.

[43:53] Oh, right. Like the healing that Sheila was talking about. They reach for the intelligence of the... They feel something I like. Yeah. Yeah. It's very interesting, isn't it?

[44:06] Thank you. Yeah. Have you seen the wonderful display by the German fellow of the... Gunter von Haugen? Yeah.

[44:17] Oh, yeah. Yeah. I saw the first show of it in Europe, in London, actually. And, you know, I take issue with him dressing them up and being very showmanlike about some of them.

[44:32] But, actually, 90% of the exhibit, for those of you that haven't seen it, some of you have, I'm sure, is actually just set up very cleanly and respectfully. And you can just have a look at all these wonderful organs and so forth, structures of bodies that have been...

[44:48] Basically, all the fluid has been replaced with plastic. So, it's a plastinated model of something, but it's extremely realistic. It's wonderful. Wonderful, wonderful.

[44:59] And what's really interesting is there's this hush that happens when people go into the Gunter von Haugen exhibit. You know, natter, natter, natter, and everybody's in line up for hours and then they get in there, among all the pieces.

[45:11] And there's this sacredness, you know, that discerns, that I find fascinating. Hmm. Yes? I'm just curious, your picture there is beautiful. I love it. Thank you. You mentioned how that pattern is reflected in the patterns of the body.

[45:24] Of the bones. And then you showed the hillside and you can see it again. The bones, yeah. And then you look at the microscopic. Are you looking at that at all through some of the notions of the Mandelbrot sets, the repeated shapes?

[45:36] Oh, yes. My husband's a mathematician. Yeah. And he has access to all those fabulous patterns. Really represent, for our new name that we have, and it's lovely. And I think that the patterning and the microscopy project are kind of interrelated at this point, because there's just so much graphic interplay, as you say.

[45:47] It's so lovely. And it's really funny because scientists like him are saying, this is really beautiful. Look. But they don't go anywhere with it. Yeah. And an artist thinks, oh, that's something I could use, yeah. Do you see that repetition in creation as sort of a hallmark of the hand of God?

[45:59] I do. I do. Because it's just, well, it's so brilliant. Yeah. I mean, to make a lung, to make a tree, that works. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

[46:10] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

[46:21] Yeah. Yeah. Anybody else? Yeah. That material that you make the spine out of… Yeah. Why did you choose that?

[46:32] I mean, when I see that it sort of speaks in a way almost transparent, but yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

[46:43] Yeah. Now, I'm pretty much. Yeah. Very much. I'm so glad you blocked off. It's extremely expensive to work this way. to work this way, let me tell you. Because first of all, when you have a lead glass crystal goblet for instance, they know how to do that. They have ways and means. They've been doing the same goblet for a thousand years and they know what to do. When you do something like my spinal column, nobody's ever done it before. So we had to blow up eight of them before we got it, right? And the lead crystal is just as expensive as a lead crystal always is. The whole mountain cost, you see. But I wanted it to be something very precious.

[47:23] And you don't get that kind of look with anything other than that crystal. It's quite, in person, they're quite jewel-like. And I like to illuminate them from the base of the prints that they sit on, that they glow. And they are precious. Because, well, we are precious. And the shapes are precious. So. Yeah. So I guess we go ping like really that crystal good.

[47:49] Yeah, I do. I mean, yeah, you can ping the person. I'd probably yell at you if I saw you do it. I mean, it's just like our Mongol yellow dust moon is to ping the upper.

[48:02] Herbie, do you have one? Does Dr. Gregg have been reading a therapeutic? She does. You know Heather so well. Yes. No, she thinks that that might be a great idea with some of the people she works with. So she's, she very kindly asked me if she could blow some of my work. You're way ahead of being there. So. Yeah.

[48:26] Do you have to do something every day? Do I have to be? Do you have to draw every day? Oh, make art? Yeah. Yeah. Pretty much. Well, if I'm sick or I'm in the operating theater or something, you know, but yeah, it's kind of like breathing. I think a lot of us are like that. Robert, Robert can't even rest on a Sunday.

[48:47] Who does the washing up? Washing up? You need a dishwasher. Martin loathes it. I'm not allowed anywhere near it.

[49:00] Very proprietary. Very proprietary. So, I guess that's probably it. Is that it? Do you know I ever do miniatures? I mean David Robinson's work in?

[49:13] Oh, well, I think a lot of us work, yeah, on small little tiny maquettes and things, and yeah. Oh, David for a while, you know, he's working with a glue band. That was during a period that I was assisting in his studio, and he was actually not wearing his correct wafer lock mask and working with a hot glue gun and spinning stuff out into little figures. And we came over and he was high as a kite. And the other assistant and I had to sort of get him aired out and get him by a window. So, yeah. You know, a lot of us work small to begin with to figure things out, but quite common, I think, with sculptors, yeah.

[49:51] Do you keep those yourself, or do you sell them all? Oh, it depends. I mean, if it's a real life maquette, I mean something like Cedar Bean, which I showed you, yes, that's for sale. I'm only going to make five of them, though.

[50:03] I don't want it to become like garden gnomes, you know. Tell them to the garden, I don't think. But anyway, yeah. Yeah, a lot of us do sell the maquettes, more real life maquettes. Sometimes you've got one that's really a favorite because you craft a problem that you've been working on for some time. You tend to hang on to this.

[50:24] And if you go to most artists or sculptor studios, you'll sort of see wraps and stuff that, oh, yeah. And you sort of look at it and you think, why aren't they keeping that? You know, if it was a breakthrough for you, it's an important case.

[50:35] Yeah. Right. I guess that's it then. Thank you.

[50:46] I just have... you know... You're defence of your life in one place. You're not having a PhD program at the megaphone.

[50:57] You'll see... ...you know but you don't have a PhD program, I don't know you're not herself, you know? There are people who meet at the table. You share the technique as your gratitude for you.

[51:11] I am gonna disagree. All right.