Charleston artist finishes illustrating grandmother’s story nearly 100 years later

CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCBD) – Memories of our grandparents help make up important family history. Their stories and life experiences passed down through generations help us not only learn more about who they were but also teach us about ourselves.

Nearly 100 years later an artist is not only illustrating his grandmother’s story, he’s also helping finish it.

“Whatever she set her mind to apparently, she did, and I don’t find out about any of this stuff until later in life because she was just grandma to me,” said artist Larry Moore. His talents are shared with his grandma, Helen Bixby Moore, who he recently discovered was an artist herself.

“I think somehow, magically, I got something from her indirectly because I didn’t know she did any of the stuff she did, and I think it sort of manifested in my life because of her,” Larry explained.

In 1929, Helen wrote and illustrated a children’s book called ‘Jackie Boy and the Sea Folk,’ which is based on her children.

“The main character Jackie Boy is my father. He modeled for all the art. The mermaid is his sister and it’s sort of this unusual little story about nature,” he shared.

Rumor has it that she wrote the story for an English class and later created the artwork.

“So, she lived in Coral Gables, Florida, and in 1935, about six years later, a category five hurricane, it’s on the books, came through and just destroyed everything, took out you know, everything she owned,” Larry said.

Nearly a century later, Moore’s grandchildren, Larry and his cousin Holly Barbo are bringing the artwork back to life.

“This is what I had to work with. The original black and white art, which I transferred to watercolor paper from the original images that my cousin sent me, and then we moved. I had all these printed out like this and a couple, just in case I messed up and this is what the final looks like in color,” explained Larry.

Each illustration takes about a week to complete.

“As I’m working through this project, I’m kind of always asking, you know, Grandma what do you have in mind here? You know, and so she’s not around, but I could have this conversation with her, my memory of her and it’s you don’t really appreciate people as much as that until they’re gone, you know,” shared Larry.

A labor of love, a year and a half in the making, Larry’s main focus when working on the project was to maintain what he felt his grandma was going for.

“It’s one thing to draw something accurately, but it’s another to do what we call anthropomorphizing, which is to give it humanlike features and still maintain the integrity of the actual fish and everyone, every little fin is in the right place and it’s nothing that certainly not a child would notice, you know, but me as an artist and as an illustrator, seeing how she managed all this stuff, every time I got into a new one, I was like well, this is remarkable,” said Larry.

Helen’s legacy is living on through her grandchildren who are following in her footsteps as an author and artist.

“In some ways I would hope that she knows, you know, I’m doing this for her,” he added.

You can order a copy of the book on Amazon. It’s expected to be available by the end of September.