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CREATIVITY
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Autumn on the Banks of Sister Creek. Copyright Alfred L. Laborde, MD
sions were relaxed and carefree. a rigid, confined painting totally lacking creativity.
At those innocuous moments I began to see the contrasts in In surgery, planning is everything. Picturing the end result
my own life. My surgical career was exact and unforgiving, and gives you the best results. With art, my best work has been by
I severely missed the relaxed and carefree side. I certainly felt accident. The work that has received the most compliments was
that my creative, relaxed side could compliment my surgeon’s never planned. I have always said that a masterpiece is never
personality. planned in advance.
EARLY BEDTIMES For several years, I used art at a therapeutic tool, never realiz-
In addition to those relaxed Saturday mornings, I took advan- ing that anyone would be interested in what I produced.
Thanks to my family, I have had more than 10 art shows with
tage of my kids’ early bedtimes to begin drawing and painting the sale of more than 300 pieces. The majority of the proceeds
at night. I began to look forward to these late-night painting have gone to educational scholarships.
sessions because I could feel a better sense of balance returning
to my life. I soon realized that my love of watercolors truly rep- I consider myself extremely lucky to find this balance in my
resented that sense of balance. In the operating room, being in life which has benefited both my professional ca-
complete control of the situation often meant the difference be- reer as well as my artistic side.
tween life and death. With watercolors, losing control of the
medium was the difference between a beautiful outcome verses Alfred L. Laborde, MD, is a vascular surgeon at
Peripheral Vascular Associates and a BCMS member.
12 San Antonio Medicine • February 2015
