john g. frey

This series of 15 drawings centers on the life and death of John G. Frey, a man who died of a heart attack while working as a janitor at the Michigan Union in 1943. Using Frey’s obituary as a starting point, I attempted to find traces — however faint — of his life through public records and local news archives. I then visited sites around Ann Arbor where he lived and worked, as well as his gravesite at Forest Hill Cemetery. 

These drawings are compiled from the stories and images I encountered during this research process. Using incomplete records and loosely associated images, I attempted to create a portrait of someone whose image is likely lost to time.