A Hobart and William Smith Colleges graduate who spent more than four decades as a pediatric reconstructive surgeon will return to campus next week to explain how three-dimensional thinking shapes both surgery and his work as a sculptor.
Bruce Bauer's community-wide talk, “From Sculpture to Surgery and Back,” is scheduled for 6 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 15, in the Seneca Room, according to the colleges' announcement. His visit is part of an Oct. 13-16 series of conversations with students involving three alumni from medicine.
Bauer says he begins some jewelry pieces by studying a gemstone's color or inclusions until he can imagine an animal, landscape or other image. He designs the resulting wearable sculptures to be viewed from multiple sides, sometimes with hidden features or another scene on the reverse.
From operating room to studio
The approach echoes how Bauer visualized anatomical problems before reconstructive surgery, the colleges said. Early in his medical career, when relatively few surgeons specialized in pediatric reconstruction, he developed techniques including pediatric tissue expansion. The method creates new skin for repairs elsewhere on the body, including treatment of birthmarks and other congenital conditions.
Working with pediatric dermatologists, Bauer expanded the method's use to problematic skin lesions. HWS said pediatric tissue expansion is now used internationally.
Bauer's Chicago studio, BSBEE Designs, draws on beehive geometry, Asian art, Art Nouveau design and wildlife. His subjects include whales, polar bears, birds and dragonflies, informed by his photography and travels in Antarctica, Africa, Asia and South America as well as nature photographers' work.
The artist said he sometimes uses those pieces to draw attention to the climate crisis and people's effects on animals. He continues to experiment with methods including uchidashi, a Japanese metal-forming technique, and keum-boo, which applies gold to another metal.
Other medical conversations
Bauer and University of Washington School of Medicine emeritus professor Arnie Cohen will hold an informal discussion for pre-med students at 5 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 13, in the Seneca Room.
Cohen and physician and health care executive Timothy Crowley will discuss the rise in U.S. health care costs, its history, causes and possible changes at 5 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 14, in the Blackwell Room. Bauer's community-wide talk follows Thursday evening.
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