Her Words, My Pictures
It all started with my parents…
When my mom and dad married, neither of them knew they were both artists.
That always surprised me.
Years after they were married, in 1994, my dad got his bachelor’s degree in Fine Art at NIU. When my mom saw my dad’s drawings of trees, she was surprised because she didn’t know he could draw.
My mom is a poet, she's been writing poetry since before high school. After my dad got his degree, my mom decided to go back to school. She took writing classes for her poetry at Kishwaukee College.
Then one day, a friend visited our home. When she saw my dad’s pencil drawings on our walls, she asked my mom,
“Why don’t you put your husband’s art with your poetry?”
Wow…*light bulb* That thought had never crossed their minds.
So they started creating a series of twelve pieces with my dad’s pen illustrations. This was before they had a computer. My mom typed on her typewriter, and they attached my dad’s drawings to it. Then they made copies at a print shop that he colored by hand.
This piece below is one of my favorites. My dad heard my mom’s poem, “Alone,” and then he drew this beautiful tree with one lonely leaf.
People were loving their pieces. At a craft fair, a customer stopped by their booth and said,
“I love your poetry. But it was the drawing of the tree that drew me to your booth."
They eventually had a collection of 20 pieces, and their business was called “Line Upon Line.” Lines of poetry, lines of art. In addition to craft fairs, my mom would speak for events and do poetry parties in homes.
10 years later…
When my dad got tired of illustrating, and exhausted from the craft fairs, my mom felt like she needed to change the look of the poetry pieces.
She turned to me, since I always had my camera in hand, and we started putting my photos with her poems. We've been creating together since 2004.
I didn’t know I’d become an artist like my dad. I started with photography, and later came drawing and painting. I also do digital art and video.
My mom’s poetry is for those in grief, for those who are hurting…for people who need encouragement. To know that God is always there.
People sometimes tell my mom, “You know, I’ve never liked poetry. But I like yours.”
My mom always tells people, “I have to write. Writing is breathing for me."
We sell matted prints, plaques, and cards. (Pictured below) To see more, click here to visit our shop.
A New Challenge
Fast forward to 2014, I worked at Ear in the Envelope--a jewelry supply shop in Peoria, IL. Lizz Barnes, the owner, offered a challenge to her employees for anyone who wanted to create a children’s book. The book had to be finished and printed by August for IGNITE, an arts event.
My mom and I decided to take that challenge. All I had was a little drawing of a crooked house in my sketchbook, and my mom said, “I bet I could write a story about that house.”
Of course, she wrote the story in a couple of days. That came easy... And then it was my turn. It was the first time I had ever tried to do illustrations for a kids book.
As I started working on it, I wondered if I’d able to finish it in time.
I said to my mom,
“I wish we could do something with the art I already have."
I had a large series of charcoal drawings and some oil paintings.
"Let me look at your art for a while, and I'll see if something comes to me,” she said.
And the next day, Emma’s Wish was born.
Soon after came The Crooked House. Within a year, we also created art books: StoryLines, Make Believe, and Chills: The eerie side of poetry. In these art books, my mom writes the poems after looking at my pictures.
When Preston Jackson, a renown artist in Peoria, looked at some of our books, he wrote an endorsement:
“Two lights become one in order to shine more brightly. Collaborations such as this one stand alone. It is evident they care deeply about each and every line - both drawn and written."
—Preston Jackson, Professor Emeritus, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Illinois
My Dad's Art...
Although my dad stopped illustrating the poetry, he is still doing his own art. In fact, he has three books now— Sonny Follows His Heart, and Crazy Mazes Volume One and Volume Two. (All available on Amazon.)
Sonny is about a blues guitar that kept getting opinions from everyone. He loved playing the blues, but he started playing other kinds of music because of what others said, and he wasn’t happy.
My dad had painted all the pictures with a computer mouse back in the ‘90s, before the Apple Pencil or any stylus existed.
My mom compiled his art and then wrote the story of Sonny.
This book was a good fit for my dad since he’s also a musician—he was the lead guitar player of The Dirty Wurds - a blues garage band in Chicago in the mid ‘60s.
In Crazy Mazes, my dad drew and colored each maze by hand, without any plan. He just let the lines lead him.
Having served as a U.S. Army artillery surveyor, he says the mazes remind him of the maps he used to sketch each day.
There are millions of mazes in the world…but none like Mike Peterson’s Crazy Mazes.
Crazy Mazes Volume One and Volume Two are both available on Amazon.
