My yucky muse -- making collages out of an old medical textbook

I never wanted to be a doctor, nurse, or ultrasound tech. I don't like thinking about what's underneath my skin. Instead of blood, tissue, sinew and bone, I prefer to believe that I really am made of "sugar, spice and everything nice." 

So why am I so drawn to old anatomical drawings? Yucky images that make my skin crawl?

Recently I found an old medical textbook called Human Microanatomy. Every glossy page is filled with an illustration like this one:

Truth be told, most of the illustrations are much grosser. Yet they inspired me…became my muse, even. I selected three full-page drawings as the background for simple collages.

I love the title of this illustration -- "Vascularization of the nephron." I turned the man and boy upside down -- instead of pulling him out of the water, the man appears to be extracting him from a tangle of tubes.

This one's my favorite -- "Nervous Tissue." The girl comes from a religious book for kids. Can you guess which one is the "bad" girl?

This was the first collage I made from the book. I don't love the dark background, but I'm happy with the orange sticker masking the "Lumen Intestini" (which sounds like something off an Olive Garden menu).

Have you ever been inspired by something that repels you? Or is it just me?