Blog / 2019 / The Inspiration Behind My Animal Alphabet Book Collaboration

We’re getting down to it now, just two weeks left in my crowdfunding campaign. It’s time to get real about the three main motivations for making an animal ABC book with your input:

I need to feel connected to you artistically.

There’s a kind of numbness that I’ve been feeling, both in my private life and in my art, largely due to 45 and his band of criminals. While I mostly know how to handle the personal stuff, my artistic depression is harder to navigate. For a while now, it’s felt like nothing I create matters.

That’s where this Kickstarter comes in. It’s why I am asking for you to help shape the book by telling me what animal to paint for a given letter. Because I don’t want to make another project thinking I know who the audience for it is. Right now, I need to know for sure who is on the other end of my art. I need that connection to be real and tangible, embedded in the work itself.

My partner and I haven’t had any savings since we moved across the country.

In 2015, David and I left Portland for the east coast. The move was way more complicated than we anticipated. By the time we’d settled in New Jersey, our savings were wiped out. For the last four years, we’ve been able to make ends meet, even as two freelancers who arrived with zero contacts in a new location. I am proud of us. Still, that’s not the same as having the peace of mind that two months’ rent in savings would provide.

Reading saves me. (Spiritually, I mean. Books are my religion.)

I read to feel less disconnected. I read to be comforted and to be challenged. I read because it makes me a better human.

And, like your typical true believer, I want every person to adore reading as much as I do! If this project can spark a lifelong love of literacy in even one child, it will mean the world to me.

There are lots of fun rewards for this Kickstarter—things like integrating first names into the images and getting a special deal on original art—but my favorite part of this ABC collaboration is represented in the graphic above. I cannot wait to find out what animals you will have me paint for all 26 letters!