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ARTIST & GALLERY

(continued)

I spoke to Dr. Charles Sawyer after the first ten weeks of anatomy. The students were preparing for their first final, and I too wanted to show I had made some progress. I showed him some color engravings and we talked about the art of learning by the visual process. He liked the work and teasingly asked, "Would you like to take the final too?" I told him that I could draw "it," but I could not spell "it"! I then asked if he could arrange for me to do some work over in obstetrics, as I had had experience in that department. (I have four children). He said that with artwork like mine, there should be no difficulty in arranging that. But he counteroffered, (pleased that I appreciated the beauty in anatomy as he did). "What about going all the way through medical school as an artist, with this class?" Here was a person who could take a chance on someone and bellow a spark into something really special.

It was a unique experience for me as an artist to identify with these young physicians-to-be and to learn from their professors. I watched operations with them that freshman year, when it was all I could do to watch, much less draw. There the whole world seemed condensed into that dark red wound. But I enjoyed the precision and skill of the surgeons and their own humanness. I was pleased to see the feeling response of one human being to another at a time when so many human beings die by another's doing. Here, the prime concern of so many people was keeping one person alive.