Christopher Darling, Writing and Illustration
Apr 2007 to May 2007, Downtown Kalamazoo
Introduction:
A little over a year ago I took a road trip with my family to a nursing home somewhere in Iowa. We were visiting my grandfather, my father’s father, our last remaining grandparent. My grandfather gave me a photograph of his father the first night I saw him. He could hardly speak, so one of his friends explained between slow gasps and wheezes that my grandfather’s father, Eugene Drennan Darling, had died in a sanitarium when my grandfather was only eight. The remaining family was split up after Eugene’s death for financial reasons.
Two days later I was back home in Michigan and had pinned the photograph my grandfather had given me on my wall… I would sit and stare at it. I soon decided that I would write to my great-grandfather, Eugene Drennan. The Following is a compilation of these letters, notes, poems…
Some of the original illustrations are being exhibited at the Downtown location through the end of May. Books of the entire collection of illustrations and letters are for sale at the Downtown location for $12.
