Connected is made of 74 individual pieces. It measures 12”x18”; 15”x21” framed. It contains 8 different colors of glass including wispy, striated, semi opaque, and mouth blown. The look and feel of this piece is drawn from a compilation of anatomy textbook illustrations.
The background is divided into anchor points indicating the different structures of the knee. Clockwise from Top Left: Quadriceps muscle, quadriceps muscle, femur, medial collateral ligament, tibia, fibula, lateral meniscus, fibular collateral ligament.
This glass was commissioned as a retirement gift for an orthopedist who specialized in knees. What my client didn’t know is that I also specialize in knees, as in I have TERRIBLE knees. I think about them all the time. Protecting them, strengthening them, rehabbing them, the pain they cause me and the havoc the reap. I’m an expert at K-Tape. I blew out my first knee on the night of my high school graduation while dancing far too hard to New Order. No regrets!
A brief history of anatomy illustration
275 BCE Herophilus teaches anatomy, Alexandria, Egypt; performs dissections of human bodies.
ca. 150 Galen dissects apes, monkeys, cows, dogs; writes treatises on human anatomy.
ca. 600-1100 Knowledge of Greek anatomical treatises lost to Western Europeans, but retained in Byzantium and the Islamic world. Islamic scholars translate Greek anatomical treatises into Arabic.
1100s-1500s Galen’s anatomical treatises translated from Arabic into Latin, later from the Greek originals.
1235 First European medical school founded at Salerno, Italy; human bodies are publicly dissected.
1316 Mondino de’Liuzzi stages public dissections, Bologna, Italy; writes Anatomia.
1450s Moveable type invented; Gutenberg Bible printed (1455). Copperplate engraving invented.
1490 Anatomical theater opens in Padua, Italy.
1491 First illustrated printed medical book published in Venice, Johannes de Ketham, Fasciculus medicinae.
ca. 1500-1540 Earliest printed illustrated anatomies.
1510 Leonardo da Vinci dissects human beings, makes anatomical drawings.
1543 First profusely illustrated printed anatomy, Vesalius’ De Humani Corporis Fabrica.
1670s-1690s Schwammerdam, Ruysch and others start making anatomical specimens and museums.
Bidloo starts movement toward greater anatomical realism.
First art academies founded atomy is a key part of the curriculum.
1600-1900 Anatomy plays an important role in medical education and research.
I love thinking about anatomical structures and how to translate them through glass. Some of the glass included in this piece is so special- the background that looks like corpuscles is mouth blown and razor sharp. The red muscle tissue couldn’t be more ideal of a match. Check out some of the highlights below.
