Liverwurst

The process of transplantation is a grueling one- demanding physical participation in a battery of tests and procedures as well as an emotional commitment to oneself and acceptance of the unknown. This is a beautiful catalogue of stories photographs and drawings that tell Ella's story of chronic illness and her journey towards transplant. Throughout this process she demonstrates a remarkable spirit and strength despite loss illness and ever present chance of dying. Through her art and words she provides a window into her soul as she faces her own mortality with grace maturity and humor. ---Ariana Rose Nurse Practitioner The remarkable hospital sketchbook of artist Ella Watson chronicles her two year crisis battling end-stage liver failure. A young woman in need of an organ transplant with no insurance no money no parents no safety net: in drawing after luminous drawing she tells the story. It is a graphic tour de force. Her body inside and out breached and cut open perforated with tubes and pumps fever dreams in emergency rooms portraits of fellow patients life-giving nurses latex- gloved hands monitors pills syringes clocks (above all clocks): a gurney-eye tour of intensive care. She wins passage through the disintegrating U.S. social welfare system through the veil of pain and time doing the thing she knows best: drawing and writing for her life. Her eye and steady hand miss nothing. Ella captures -- for her doctors for her brother and sisters for us and for art -- the misery and triumph of the life urge. ---Elizabeth King Sculpture Department Virginia Commonwealth University