About This Project

That's Sasha (my former pet, not the cat I dissected), to the left. When she was born she was almost a bluish grey, though over time it turned into a warmer color. Unfortunately, the yellow isn't, or rather wasn't, an artifact of the image editing process. If you've been reading carefully, you've already seen the bit about hepatic lipidosis. Gizmo's grey may well have been similar; after soaking in preservative for however long, it was impossible to tell. The first question you're probably asking is: why? I wish I had an easy answer for you. It's not that I became intensely emotionally attached to my lab dissection. I mean, I did become attached, but not in the way you might think. It was more a sense of ... well, intimacy is the best way I can describe it, the intimacy of knowing a creature or place or thing in incredible detail, of coming to appreciate that detail.

That's part of it. Another part was that CVA was so overwhelming, having made it through the experience (I got an A in the class), I felt a need to express myself. The surprising part is that this need manifested itself at a visual level. Usually, if I need to let my subconscious (or right hemisphere, or whatever metaphor you want) communicate, I do so through language.

But what really started me on this project was that I had all these photographs I'd taken as a study aid, and I wanted to be able to show them to people who would otherwise go "eeew!" That meant changing them in some fashion so that they no longer showed viscera or blood vessels or muscle tissue.

As you can probably tell, I'm not an artist, and the program I used (The GIMP) was very limited, but I did my best. Hopefully you've enjoyed them. I tried not to be too repetitive, and to maintain some consistency, but at times I was scraping the bottom of the filter barrel. Speaking of images, mine are all copyrighted. If you want to use them, all I ask is that you give attribution. The only ones that aren't mine are:

• the coelacanth, from Wikipedia, following the licensing agreement on the image
• Hello Kitty, from the Hello Kitty Has No Mouth website where it's claimed public domain (Sanrio, please don't sue me. It's educational, I swear)
• The mounted cat skeleton, whose source I don't recall. I'm fairly sure it came from the CVA class website; it might even be one of mine, but I don't have the original. If it's yours, I'll happily add attribution or replace it (tho I'd prefer not to do the latter).

For the non-squeamish, there are links at the bottom of each page to the original images. The squeamish perhaps ought to avoid that.

I'll end this project with two more photos of my cats. The grey one is no longer among us; the other three -- all boys -- are still very much alive. I hope you enjoyed this. If you liked the site, or didn't, or found a mistake (I'm sure there are many), drop me a line. My email is bwhite at mudpuppynet.net, except change the amphibians (instead of "mudpuppy" it's "frog").

If you'd like to start over, click on Sasha's picture. If you liked this site and want to support a cash-strapped college student's quest for a PhD, please donate.