(bright, gentle music) - I was five.

I knew I wanted to be an artist.

I was the kid that believed when adults would say you could be anything you wanted to be.

It was the touch of construction paper.

The smell of the crayons, that it was hypnotic.

By the time I was six, because when you're a kid, most of your artwork that you see are in books.

I said, "Well then, I'm gonna make children's books."

"Strega Nona," I checked out that book, I think for the entire year of first grade.

It would be due on Friday.

I would bring it in, resign it back out, and just, I was enamored by the pictures in it.

"The Funny Little Woman" was a book by Blair Lent, and I say by Blair Lent, he illustrated it.

But I remember being captivated by what was going on in the page, and believing that this was a real world.

You knew it wasn't real, but because you saw it in a book, it felt real.

And I took those books out so long that I remember the librarian, Mr.

Green actually pulling me aside at one point saying, "You gotta check out other books."

(laughing) I've done about 40 books.

I've been fortunate that I get about one or two books a year.

My first hardcover book, "Babu's Song," it's still in print.

I think that came out in 1999.

And the kid, the little boy in there that I used as a model, he's a college graduate now.

That came out beautifully, came out as beautiful as I hoped that it would.

And over the years, as I maintain relationships with a lot of people that show up in my books, that one comes back a lot.

The John Lewis book was probably one of the most joyful moments I had in a book assignment.

It wasn't a big book, it didn't, you know, it wasn't about a paycheck or anything.

It was John Lewis.

The fact that they chose me for John Lewis, I mean, all people are equal.

But if I had a choice of any person I could have done, it would've been John Lewis.

I was so excited to do the book that typically I will spend about a week on a painting.

I did the cover in two days, but just because I wanted to paint him.

He did not seek popularity or the hero title or anything like that.

He just did it.

I thought about it and I looked back at John Lewis' younger life.

He didn't know that he was this big, he was just doing what he thought was right, and he was doing it consistently.

And I'm sure he never thought of himself as that big hero.

And so it really, I learned a lot from that book, 'cause I remember thinking, our next heroes are already here.

They just don't know it yet.

The "Acuity's Storybook Year."

Such an odd request, right?

Like it's a storybook for an insurance company about their yearly earnings statement.

And then it ends up in the Smithsonian.

A popup book has three times the amount of paper in it than a regular book does.

You're not just painting something's front, you're painting their back.

It was the most work I've ever done on a project.

Specifications were down to the millimeter, 'cause parts had to fit through holes.

About a year and a half, we worked on that day and night, day and night.

I don't remember a lot about that year other than I was painting all day all the time.

With a lot of my work, once it's done, it's done.

And I'd forget about it.

But then you start getting these things in the mail, you start getting these emails, "Oh, you won a Hermes Award."

"You won a Gold ADDY award."

Oh, great.

And then Clio, that was the big one.

The Clio is like the Oscar in advertising.

We didn't win it in the end, but the coolest thing to me was the Smithsonian calling.

It's like, okay, I care more about the Smithson- A museum where they will keep it in their rare books collection for all times, because you're probably never gonna get a pop-up book like that again.

I love games.

I love games.

And one of the games that I did hook up early with was Magic The Gathering.

I did about eight cards for them.

To this day, and that's gotta be about 20 something odd years later, I will still get mail from people who I played this when I was 10 and I'm married now and I have kids and I wanna show it to them.

Can you sign my cards?

And they will send me cards in all different languages.

When you get to do art and people are excited about your art and they want you to sign it, it is the best job in the world.

I'm looking to tell the whole story, and that is to write and illustrate those books.

There's a really beautiful story I did where it was talking about a tear rolling down a little boy's face, and he had just faced a terrible loss.

And I really was working with the publishers, like, I wanna show that tear going down his face.

And they're like, "Oh, that's kind of too heavy."

But that's what he's going through.

And we forget that kids experience those same things that adults do.

And so when I tell my stories, I want to honor the kids and honor their feelings because I know that when I was a kid, when you could see another friend go through it or that it could express it to you, it took away some of the pain.

And so that's really where I'm going with my work.

And there's no turning around from it at this point.

- [Announcer] Thanks for watching The Arts Page.

Please like, subscribe and turn on notifications for more stories of art in our community.