The Blood System

I stumbled upon this piece while perusing Flickr, which by the way has a huge art community in addition to the photography base of the site.  After contacting the artist, Leigh, a textile crafts student at the University of Huddersfield, she was kind enough to email back with an explanation of the project that goes beyond the simple anatomy.

The work is made of 2 sheets of perspex laser cut into the shape of the human form. Each individual stitch hole was plotted precisely to map out the veins (sheet 1) and arteries (sheet 2). I then hand stitched with linen thread to trace out the blood vessels.The work was inspired by my current final year university project based on my niece who suffer's from a rare blood disorder called Diamond Blackfan Anaemia (DBA). This means her bone marrow does not reproduce red blood cells, causing her to become severly anaemic very fast. As a result, she has to have blood transufsions every 4-5 weeks.A major part of my project is workng on The Blood Bag Project, a craft project that aims to raise awareness of DBA and encourage people not only to donate blood but help in another way by creating textile blood bags. I am unable to donate blood myself and so understand the frustration this can cause to those who want to. By joining the Blood Bag Project, those people can help the blood cause in another way. I intend to exhibit the donated bags and eventually sell them to raise money for blood disease charities.For more informaton about The Blood Bag Project, please visit the following:Website: www.wix.com/leighlalovesyou/thebloodbagprojectBlog: www.thebloodbagproject.tumblr.comFacebook: www.facebook.com/thebloodbagproject

 View more of Leigh's work via her Flickr.