Helen Pynor is known to crafters the world over as the artist who knit heart & lungs with diaphanous strands of human hair. This month, she's featured in London's Wellcome Collection exhibit, "Brains: The Mind as Matter." It's an exploration of many of the "strange and extreme things that have been done to the human brain in the name of science," according to the press release.

"Headache" (detail) by Helen Pynor, C-type photographic print on glass, 2008.
Photo courtesy of the artist and GV Art, London. 

Pynor's bright yet haunting piece features no knitting this time around, but rather, black cotton embroidery on fine silk fabric. The text reads: "Headache – press brown paper soaked in vinegar against the forehead" and is taken from an old home remedy Pynor discovered in an oral history archive at a library in Australia. 

"Headaches aren't something I'm prone to, otherwise I might have been tempted" to try the remedy, she maintains. It's possibly just as well that she hasn't, as "I've been told that some of the old remedies are no longer as effective due to contemporary ways of manufacturing things."

Anyone out there got a home remedy of their own for curing headaches they'd like to share? Knitting and embroidery, perhaps?