The Canvas

It sounds horrible when I describe the glorious moment of reveal, but it was pretty damn euphoric if you ask me.

I consider myself an artist. I find completing a piece of work, satisfying and rewarding.

Whether it’s a painting or a sculpture, I like the praise.

It’s the “awe” factor that really sparks me.

So, when I got bored with the everyday, run of the mill art work, I got an idea.

It was one of murderous intent.

I perceived the piece as a commission, payed for only by the “awe” of any and all who witnessed the reveal.

I researched for months.

I read anatomy text books.

Anything from scar tissue to the affects of tattoos.

It was through my research that I found “The Surgeon as an Artist”, written by Manuela Von Sniedern. An interesting piece of literature that compares the surgeon to the likes of Pablo Picasso, expressing that the hand wielding a scalpel is very much similar to the hand that wields a paint brush. She explains the surgeon’s reverence to the artist due to the demand of machine over man and the lose of skill over machinery.

It is this article, that shaped my influence.

The obsession from that read only fuelled the intensity and excitement in me. I read that article word for word, until I found the words to which the author was referring from, “The Knife” written by Richard Selzer. Allen Richard Selzer, an American surgeon and author, who wrote this essay to fictionalize his stories of the operating room. One of twenty-four essays written to which most if not all were actual memoirs of his career.

A null warmed over me when I stumbled across Von Sniedern’s essay, solidifying irrational thought.

The murderous intent slowly dissipated and forgotten.