My piece for the Nelson Jewellery week handshake show, CHAINreaction (at the refinery in Nelson) was a rather personal piece for me. I did not set out to make such a personal piece but once it was finished it felt cathartic, as if I had needed to make something about this experience all this time and this was the moment for it to come out.
My chain was made up of beef and lamb bones, graduating down in size as the chain goes along. Each of these bone links is connected together via sterling silver attachments which screw into the bone, and are fixed with a sterling silver nut on the inside of the link.
These screwed bones ended up looking somewhat visceral. I intended for them to reference the medical intervention on the body as a way of fixing it, but I didn’t expect them to be quite so emotive…
Close up image of my chain.
Now my personal story of screws in bones is rather dramatic and one of the many experiences in my life which feeds my practice today. When I was 16 I went to my GP for a check-up as I had a nasty cold. Whilst I was leaned over with her listening to my breathing using a stethoscope on my back, she said “hmm that’s interesting” (which is rarely a good thing to hear any doctor say). She got me to stand up and bend forward touching my toes. As I was doing this she saw a noticeable difference in one side of my back, you could call it a hump. She sent me off for x-rays, which we promptly did, and referred me to a spinal specialist.
example of what my gp saw that concerned her
3 Months later I finally had my specialist appointment. This specialist showed me and my parents my x-rays which were rather shocking. Instead of being a relatively straight line, my spine was an “S” shape. He said I had long thoracic idiopathic scoliosis and that I would have to have major surgery relatively soon or risk my spine continuing to curve and end up being disfigured with long term complications. Needless to say my parents and I were shocked. We got a second opinion but the verdict was the same.
My Spine before surgery
In preparation for the surgery I had to have an MRI as well as many x-rays and other assorted tests. I ended up having my surgery 1 week after I turned 17. They cut open my back and placed two rods along my spine, these rods were fixed into my spine with 27 screws and all topped off with a bone graft to fuse everything together. I spent a day in the ICU and a further week in hospital, as well as a whole month off of school.
Pre and post surgery x-rays from front and side view
You wouldn’t know it just looking at me but my body is full of hardware, and it will be for life. It keeps my spine straight and all of my organs in the right place. I am grateful for the life I have now because of it. This is just one of my many medical excursion stories but in this one it’s my own body on the line. While the images of my spine look brutal, the screws protruding into my spine, the alternative would have been much worse. I guess that’s what I’m talking about with this chain. Sometimes the only way to fix something is brutal and can be traumatic, but it’s always better than being broken and in pain.
