The Devil in the Details - Illustrating the Devastation of Thalidomide
When Lisk Feng was a child, she got into bed each night, closed her eyes, and began telling herself a bedtime story, filling the blank canvas behind her eyelids with visions of characters and colors as she drifted off to sleep. Now, decades later, Feng is an award-winning freelance illustrator whose soulful depictions of human life have graced the pages of The New Yorker, The New York Times, and now the Lost Women of Science podcast.
Feng created the illustrations to accompany the most recent season of Lost Women of Science,The Devil in the Details, which tells the story of Dr. Frances Oldham Kelsey. Kelsey was a medical doctor and pharmacologist who saved countless children when she stood up to big pharma and blocked the sale of thalidomide in the U.S. in 1960 while working at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration as a medical reviewer.
Thalidomide caused enormous harm in many countries. Pregnant women who took the drug, which was marketed as a safe sedative, gave birth to children with shortened limbs, heart defects and other serious health issues. By blocking its approval in the U.S., Kelsey shielded most American women and children from the brunt of the tragedy. Feng’s illustrations are poignant, but subtle.
Feng, who is from China, currently lives in New York with her husband. She received a master’s degree in fine arts from the Maryland Institute College of Art in 2014, and she has been awarded two silver medals from the Society of Illustrators for her work, among other accolades.
I sat down with Feng via Zoom to talk about her illustrations and artistic process.
Gillian Dohrn: So, to kick things off, can you tell me a bit about what drew you to this project?
Lisk Feng: Well, for starters, I’m a huge fan of podcasts, and I’ve never done a project dedicated entirely to women. I really like the format and the mission, and wanted to participate however I could.
I was excited to explore using metaphors for different medical topics and playing with contrast to convey emotion and importance. For example, in the art for the first episode of this season, Dr. Kelsey is backlit and there are hundreds of papers swirling around her, which is meant to highlight the amount of pressure she must have felt. I’ve experimented a lot with this project, but I really relate to the story on a personal level.
Gillian Dohrn: What do you mean?
Lisk Feng: Well, I just love stories like this. Dr. Kelsey was fearless and passionate about her work. She didn’t let other people influence her, and she just kept pushing for the right thing. When she investigated thalidomide and discovered the issues with it, she was fighting for everyone. She was working to protect not just pregnant women and mothers, but their children too. And it took a long time, but she did finally get the recognition she deserved for that. I just felt very inspired by her whole journey.
Gillian Dohrn: It sounds like you’ve gotten quite familiar with Dr. Kelsey’s story and the science. What was the learning process like for you to create these images?
Lisk Feng: The Lost Women of Science team sent me a bunch of reference material, but there was still a lot I had to learn on my own: like what she looked like, and what thalidomide pills looked like. Turns out there were many different versions of the medication on the market, but I wanted my art to be accurate. So for the second episode, where Dr. Kelsey is standing at the mouth of an enormous pill bottle, I found an old image from the 50s or 60s and drew the label to match. And for the pills spilling out, I combined all the different versions I observed in my research.
But each time I work on a new project, learning the backstory helps me grow as a person. If The New York Times asks me to create art for an article about medicine or politics, I read the piece, do my own research, and learn something about the world. Other times, the lessons are more personal, and more emotional. Still, I practice keeping some distance between myself and my work to avoid getting burnt out.
Illustrations by Lisk Feng
Gillian Dohrn: I’m glad you brought that up because I wanted to ask you about that. This project involves some sensitive content that has the potential to be upsetting. How did you navigate that in your illustrations for the season?
Lisk Feng: I think this varies a lot from artist to artist, but I prefer to focus on the emotion in a situation instead of creating a literal representation. You can’t avoid it entirely, which is why I showed the mother and child together in the illustration for episode three with the child’s limbs shortened. But I’m not drawing children with birth defects in all the images, just this one. Instead, I worked with metaphors and visual cues to evoke a certain feeling: drawing long shadows can give an air of hopelessness, and the giant pill bottle feels intimidating. Lighting and layering are both very important.
Gillian Dohrn: Talk to me about the image you referenced for episode three, with the mother and child. How did you come up with this?
Lisk Feng: Well, for every episode I start with several ideas and work with the team to pick the best one. We landed on this version, where a mother holding her child to her chest falls backward into the water. She’s helpless, cradling the baby and dropping into this unknown body of water. I wanted to convey what mothers must have felt in this position: depressed, angry, scared, the whole range. The metaphor of falling into water is helpful because it’s not like drowning: you don’t know what is going to happen, but there is suffering. To me, that feels like a gentler solution than drawing a woman crying, or focusing on the child. And with the water elements, I can make the composition more vivid and complex, which mirrors the content well.
Gillian Dohrn: Was it difficult? To create something subtle that would still get the point across?
Lisk Feng: For me, it was an editorial solution. I was problem-solving because obviously the child has these physical anomalies, but I wanted to capture emotion. Not just the way people impacted would feel, but also listeners. So I focus on that feeling and then use elements of the story to show it. When I don’t have ideas, I doodle, and eventually things will come. And this is my style: soft-spoken but powerful.
Gillian Dohrn: Talk to me about the image you referenced for episode three, with the mother and child. How did you come up with this?
Lisk Feng: Well, for every episode I start with several ideas and work with the team to pick the best one. We landed on this version, where a mother holding her child to her chest falls backward into the water. She’s helpless, cradling the baby and dropping into this unknown body of water. I wanted to convey what mothers must have felt in this position: depressed, angry, scared, the whole range. The metaphor of falling into water is helpful because it’s not like drowning: you don’t know what is going to happen, but there is suffering. To me, that feels like a gentler solution than drawing a woman crying, or focusing on the child. And with the water elements, I can make the composition more vivid and complex, which mirrors the content well.
Gillian Dohrn: Was it difficult? To create something subtle that would still get the point across?
Lisk Feng: For me, it was an editorial solution. I was problem-solving because obviously the child has these physical anomalies, but I wanted to capture emotion. Not just the way people impacted would feel, but also listeners. So I focus on that feeling and then use elements of the story to show it. When I don’t have ideas, I doodle, and eventually things will come. And this is my style: soft-spoken but powerful.
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