Saturday, August 15, 2015

Scoliosis Art

When I am not working on art I am a physical therapist specializing in treating people with scoliosis using the Schroth Method. I look at a lot of X-rays in my job. As an artist I appreciate the image of the curving spine. As a PT I know that scoliosis can be a life disrupting diagnosis.great video of girls raising awareness about what scoliosis is.

One of the tenets of being a physical therapist is conveying to people that their physical challenges do not define them. This is what I want to convey in these pieces. This is a

Scoliosis is more common in girls than in boys. The most common type is adolescent idiopathic scoliosis often diagnosed in the pre or early teen years. There is probably a genetic component. It seems to be a problem with the rate of growth in the vertebra. One side of the vertebra will start growing faster and this will provoke a curvature to start.

The tough thing about scoliosis is it is usually diagnosed in girls right when they are hitting an adolescent growth spurt. Girls struggle at this time anyway with lots of body image issues, confidence, ideas about beauty and fitting in.  A scoliosis diagnosis, possibly having to wear a brace to school and facing surgery if the curve progresses too far makes for added stress during an already challenging time.

I have been playing with a photo layering app to combine a few images. The first one is a photo of the imprint in the sidewalk on S. Pine street. But every time I see it I, of course, read it as Spine, not South Pine. So I've had the idea for awhile of combining this photo with a spine X-ray and then layering some other images on top, perhaps more photos or paint.



Here are some of the combinations I'm playing with.


I tried the square format but don't think it works with the subject. 
I think this is still a work in progress but I like where it is going. I put this version in the procreate app and will work with it further there. 
These are a few more I'm playing with.

























1 comment:

  1. Love this, Lisa! Thank you for the unique gifts you bring to this special patient population! Your professional skills, and your therapeutic understanding of the emotional/social effects, as well as the physical. Priceless. (Your art is pretty dang cool, too. Love the "real girls aren't perfect" - much needed in this day of Barbie doll stereotypes all over screen-time....)

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