Vessels Comic

Description The power of words surrounds most of our lives, and when it comes to describing things, be that ceramics or illnesses, that power is always evident. The shock of the words that could be used was not one I was prepared for when it came to diagnosis, and establishing my own relationship with those words was more important than I could have understood before. As a museum collections manager, poor object descriptions are the bane of my existence, and yet I also often come against the way we have changed how things are described. The acceptability of so many words that are used have changed, and certainly will change over time even further. "And yet, despite all the labels, here we remain."

Citations Panel 1: Red Coiled-style ware, from memory; all other pottery imagined Panel 2: Yellow Beaker People ware, from memory; Glass inspired by personal collection; all other pottery imagined Panel 3: Based on images of broken storage jar, Hecht Museum Panel 4: (clockwise from left) Based on the Portland Vase, cameo glass; Cage cup from the Musei Civici di Padova; Based on charred pots; Based on supported spindle bowls

Description So much of learning about something I've had my whole life has been going back and remembering all of the moments from the past. A distant school memory, from near the start of my clear memories, comes back frequently. I might have been a clueless child circling the netball courts, but I was listening nonetheless.

Description An old memory. One difficult part of this process has been going back through memories and realizing things years and decades late.

Citations Panel 2: 3 legged cooking pot, from memory; Coiled-style vessel, from memory; Kylix, various inspiration Panel 3: Pottery sherd, possibly Limoges ware, personal collection Panel 4: Amphora, from memory; Random cooking pot, from memory; Puzzle jug from the St Bartholomew Hospital Museum and Archive; Decorated vase from memory Panel 5: Decorated ware inspired by Beaker People ware; Drinking glass, 20th or 21st century, personal collection Panel 6: Venus of Willendorf; Kouros from the Delphi Archaeological Museum; Aztec "Kneeling Goddess" from the Museum der Kulturen, Basel*

Description Diagnosis with a chronic illness has had me deeply rethinking my relationship with my body, a vessel I am sometimes at odds with, and at other times I am grateful for the effort it makes in containing me. This comic is the first of a series I am creating to explore some of my ideas about bodies, being, and chronic illness through the eyes of a collections manager, trained archaeologist, who didn't think she like pots that much.

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