Love Story 1937 - 1980

Since I am using this blog as a place to record some of my work, I thought it might be nice to include this book I made as a project for my lithography course. Although, the images are okay they are not as good as they should be even though I did my etching plates twice. I only found out the following school year that there was a problem with the printer on which I made the films I used to etch my plates.

The subject of my book came from a stack of love letters my father wrote to my mother in the years 1937 to 1939, for theirs was a long-distance romance. Combined with pictures from my mother's photo albums, I created Roméo à Cyp as a tribute to their lives together. This August 23rd would have been their 70th Wedding Anniversary. Sadly, August 5th marks 30 years since my father, Roméo, passed away, and October 6th will mark 29 years since my mother, Cyprienne, passed.

This book was for them.

I made six copies, of which I kept three.

The title page, created by combining the cover my mother had created for the letters and the marks left by glue and paper on the back of one of her pictures.

A print created of one of the letters.

Various pictures of my father with a note he had written on the back of one. Basically he said the X on the gable indicated where his bedroom was.

My mother at her childhood home in Baie-St-Paul, Quebec.

A Valentine from 1938 which my father translated from English to French, the only language my mother would ever speak.

A small letter written inside in which he asks Cyprienne to write to him often as it will help make the days away from her so much easier.

A letter from my paternal grandfather to my maternal grandparents in which he assures them that my mother will be well financially and will lack for nothing.

The Bride - My mother and her family justaposed over two family trees she had created in her photo albums.

The Happy Couple

August 23, 1939

Since my parents passing, I have read most of the letters my father wrote as he courted my mother. I could only imagine her replies for he had not kept the letters she wrote. It is a very strange thing indeed to see your father in the role of courter and his letters certainly earned him the name he was given at birth, and which is synonomous with romance, Roméo.