Expressions: A body of work

From the Spring 2012 issue of Scrubs
It started with doodling. After years indulging his left brain by studying all things scientific, Nate Lewis, an RN in the Neuroscience ICU at Inova Fairfax Hospital in Falls Church, Va., wanted to develop his creative side.

Spurred on by his sister, an artist, Lewis sketched his way though the classic primer, Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain, then turned to the human body for inspiration. The alchemy of art and anatomy really became interesting when he added music to the mix.

“I was at a jazz club listening to an incredible trumpet player when I began to picture a set of lungs being blown out of the trumpet,” he says. The result, “Jazz Lungs,” struck a chord, so he continued exploring the union of the physical and the musical.

The comingling of his three passions has led to the creation of a line of T-shirts and a company he fittingly named Somaphony, a word that unites body and sound. Besides creative fulfillment and a new business, the 26-year-old says that cultivating his artistic side “has helped make me a more creative thinker and a better nurse.”