The inspiration for this piece comes in part from a pin a good friend of mine gave me for my lanyard, which took the form of a brain being knitted -- the swirling gyri of cerebrum morphing seamlessly into yarn on needles. This gift was to mark my shared loves of medicine and creating (specifically crochet, but knitting was the closest she could get!), but what had been a very literal interpretation took on more meaning when last year I became unwell in such a way that it often felt like my brain itself was unravelling, with nothing I could do to stop it. The ability to simply crochet my brain back into shape would have been a delightfully simple solution to a particularly complicated, painful, and at times seemingly impossible to solve, problem.

This piece is made from acrylic yarn, which forms the swirls and folds of the gyri and sulci of the cerebrum, on top of a papier mâché core. The paper used to form the core comes from old prescriptions and pharmacy paper bags -- things which, over a year and a half of weekly prescriptions, I have acquired quite a lot of! -- and which have come to symbolise the medicine which, at times, feels like the only thing holding me together. The cerebellum, behind and below the cerebrum, is crocheted from acrylic yarn over a core -- again made of old prescriptions and pharmacy bags. The brain as a whole is designed to be as anatomically correct as is possible within the constraints of these media, and more yarn is used at the bottom to visually simulate the metaphorical ‘unravelling’ of the mind experienced at times of great stress, strain, or severe illness.