Happy Birthday to A Reception Collection!

Celebrating my lifelong love of antiquity

It’s time to celebrate, my lovely readers! Today marks the 1-year anniversary of A Reception Collection. My own birthday is also right around the corner, so I’m in a festive mood. I’ve been having a wonderful time on this blog so far, and can’t wait to share more adventures in Greco-Roman art and pop culture with you in the ages to come.

The first ever post I made on A Reception Collection was a little foray into my childhood, looking back at a favourite book of ancient mythology. For this blog’s first birthday, I decided to take another, deeper dive into my own past. With some help from my mum (kudos, Mothership!), I dug up a stash of my childhood scrapbooks, and looked through the drawings and photos there. Many, many of them are historically and mythologically themed. What can I say, the ancient Mediterranean is a lifelong passion/obsession/hyperfixation for me…

Here are 10 highlights from my childhood archives. I’ve put them in an internet-friendly numbered list, but this isn’t a ranking in any way. That being said, if you have a favourite of these, please tell me in the comments!

10. Apollo and his Lyre

This cute little Apollo dates back to my 8th birthday party. This was a historic event for me because I was allowed to go full-out with the ancient Greece theme: I smothered our house with drawings for the festivities, and planned a whole roster of ancient-inflected activities. I believe this Apollo was part of an Oracle of Delphi setup, where my mum dressed up like the Pythia and gave “prophecies” to my party guests! He displays a few trademarks of my childhood mythology illustrations. His curly blonde hair and orange tunic are copied straight from the visuals in D’Aulaires’ Book of Greek Myths, which is maybe the closest I’ve ever gotten to a personal Bible. It was a holy book to my child self, and I can’t overstate how much it influenced me. The way I picture the Greek gods today is still very much in line with their portrayal in D’Aulaires’.

On a sillier note, I have no idea why I always drew ancient Greeks and Romans with such round, chunky sandals. They look like they’ve got dinner plates strapped to their feet! I also drew a lot of square and boxy lyres, like the one Apollo’s holding here.

9. Vibrissa et Aqua: a Latin comic story

One of the joys of growing up homeschooled was that I could study almost anything that piqued my curiosity. When I started developing an interest in ancient Rome, my mum procured the wonderful Minimus textbooks, so I could learn a little Latin. This light-hearted comic I made involves characters from the Minimus stories, getting up to one of their signature adventures in Vindolanda. Here’s a rough English translation:

Vibrissa and the Water

-Vibrissa [a cat] sleeps in the garden

-Suddenly Minimus [a mouse, Vibrissa’s perennial rival] approaches

-Vibrissa jumps up and runs after Minimus

-Vibrissa and Minimus run around the water

-Suddenly Vibrissa slips. Vibrissa is in the water!!! Vibrissa is terrified!!! [“Help!” says her speech bubble]

-Flavia [a young woman] hears Vibrissa. Flavia runs into the garden, and saves Vibrissa.

-Now Minimus and Vibrissa are tired. Now Minimus and Vibrissa sleep. The end.

8. Welcome to Olympus

My childhood archives are packed with drawings of Olympus like this one. I was very keen on perching the palace of the gods precariously at the top of the mountain, Grinch-style. Note the map labels here, possibly influenced by the maps in children’s mythology books. I find the “you are here” especially charming: did I draw this as a guide for prospective visitors?

7. An Egyptian Drawing

I can usually tell the inspiration for my childhood drawings: many of my Romans are pulled from Minimus or from The Roman Mysteries, while my Greek gods owe a lot to the D’Aulaires. I can’t say the same of this Egyptian piece: I’m not sure if it was copied from something, or just vaguely inspired by Egyptian artwork. Regardless, I’m quite fond of the colour scheme, and the hieroglyph border is great fun. I can’t tell if it says something, or if it’s just meant to look cool…

6. Broken Amphora

This was a homeschool project from around grade 3, when I was hellbent on becoming an archaeologist. My mum cut up this vase picture I drew, then I had to put the pieces back together. I remember feeling like a real archaeologist, vigorously deploying my Scotch tape!

I love that I chose a domestic scene to recreate for my vase: there are tons of variations on this theme in ancient Greek art, and they’re often a valuable window into the lives of women and children. Gender history, domestic history and I go way, way back.

5. The History News

I had it all figured out when I was a kid. When I grew up, I was going to invent a time machine, uncover every unsolved historical mystery in the books, and start a media empire where I interviewed people from the past. A foolproof plan: all I had to do was sort out time travel!

Sometimes I created projects set in this hypothetical future, where people from across history could communicate with each other. This little “History News” advert is from a newsletter for my homeschooling group. That same newsletter features a lengthy “interview” between some Roman girls and a time-travelling reporter, who was supposed to be my future self. They were giving me a firsthand account of Queen Boudicca burning their hometown to the ground. Looking back, that interview piece is about five times longer than anything the rest of my homeschooling group put in the newsletter: I guess I’ve always been an enthusiastic writer…

The radio station is 106.6 FM because I was obsessed with the number 1066, for Medieval history reasons.

4. Drawings from my Brother

When we were kids, my brother drew me this Trojan Horse and this little Vesuvius. We called it “Besubius,” because that’s how he pronounced it back then. He also insisted the volcano “interrupted” back in Roman times, as in “Besubius interrupted Pompeii”! My brother is five years younger than me, and was therefore very, very small when I first developed my fixation with Greek mythology. I’m touched by these little drawings he made for me: Felix, if you’re reading this, you’re the best. You always have been.

3. Picking Favourites from Olympus

It’s dangerous to choose a favourite Greek deity, and I should know better. However, I’ve never been able to help myself! These four were my gods of choice when I was about 10, and I must confess that they’re still among my favourites today. I have tattoos to celebrate Hermes, Artemis, and Athena: I’d better hurry up and get an Apollo one!

Again, the colours and stylings here are pulled straight from D’Aulaires’ Book of Greek Myths. I vividly remember a couple years where I wanted to wear a pale blue minidress all the time, because I was convinced it looked like the tunic Artemis wears in D’Aulaires’! The dinner-plate sandals strike again here, alongside some charmingly off-kilter proportions. Athena’s spear looks more broad and sturdy than she is, and her poor shoulder owl’s hanging on for dear life.

2. Vesuvius at Home

Another perk of homeschooling, at least in my experience, is that it involves a lot of hands-on science projects. Sometimes, in memory, my childhood feels like a long string of kitchen chemistry slimes, Diet Coke and Mentos explosions, and, of course, vinegar and baking soda volcanoes. Being a perennial history buff, I had to take one of these model volcanoes to the next level by making it erupt over a model Pompeii.

I did this demonstration at a homeschool meetup when I was about nine. Note the “Roman” costume I’m wearing for the presentation, and the script I’m clutching for dramatic narration purposes. I vividly remember playing with those wooden blocks months after the Vesuvius demonstration: they were still stained red from all the food colouring that went into this setup!

1. My Demeter Costume

Finally, here’s one of the happiest moments from my childhood. The Halloween when I was seven, I dressed up as Demeter. The torch, tunic, jewelry, and flower crown are all homemade: I remember thinking I looked so cool and so Grecian. Not even the copious underlayers I had to wear to survive the Vancouver fall could dampen my spirits! My mum says I had this smile plastered on my little face the entire night.

Thank you so much for joining me on my ongoing adventure through ancient Mediterranean reception in the modern world. As you can see from the pictures here, it’s been going on for decades…

I have lots more exciting material queued up for the winter, and I can’t wait to share it with you all here on A Reception Collection. Here’s to the year we’ve spend together so far, and to many years in the future!