SNAPSHOT
…the memory book was different. It was like all his sketchbooks compressed into one — an impressionistic retrospective stretching back to early childhood. There were stories of long-lost friends next to struggles at work, moments of historical significance flowing into prosaic family vignettes: kaleidoscopic portals into moments of my grandfather’s life. (via Laughing Squid)
When my granpa died almost twenty years ago, I, like so many people before me, realised that I didn’t know anywhere near as much about him as I wished I did.
We’d talked sure but I still didn’t fully appreciate the length and breadth of the life of a man who was warm, rich, friendly, funny and talented at baking, a man who talked to me like I was his equal at an age when few people did.
So I can well understand the joy of artist and filmmaker Colin Levy when he came across his grandfather Byron’s series of memory books in which he, a talented artist like his grandson, had chronicled and illustrated so many key parts of his life.
It opened not only an unexpected and much-valued window on his beloved grandfather’s life, but helped Colin to understand better his own life as an artist.
As treasured gifts go, they honestly don’t come much better.
My Grandfather’s Memory Book from Colin Levy on Vimeo.