Clay

Abstract

The light fills a hospital space, swells through old windows and blinds, and throws you, breathless, into relief—the ridges and folds of you now textured, grained like a field, ruffled water, clay. But this is more than a display of likeness—it is the sudden exposure, as Tim Dee writes, that “our bodies are grass”, that we are the stuff of the world, “a pucker”, in Annie Dillard's words, “of the earth's skin”. And if self-evident, it's still unsettling, even for doctors, supposed familiars of the body.