My daughter, Alex, started drawing her version of stick figures at age 2, as soon as she could grip a pencil. Born with Down syndrome, Alex never once drew the standard “refrigerator art” that most kids create, with beaming suns and puffy clouds. Instead, she drew the same humanoid figures over and over, year after year. She called them "My Peoples". Her earliest drawings filled the margins of her nursery books and the pages of old magazines, but eventually she started using spiral notebooks she calls “journals.” Over the years, Alex —now a young adult — has filled hundreds if not thousands of these journals with "My Peoples" drawings. 

 

I had never picked up a paintbrush when I hatched the idea of creating a platform to showcase Alex’s "My Peoples" drawings as a means for her to support herself. During the pandemic, I taught myself how to paint in the abstract in order to provide unique backdrops for Alex’s figures, which are all endearingly alike.

 

As a body of work, our collaborations incorporating Alex’s drawings with my acrylic paintings make a statement that becomes truer by the day, as more and more people discover "My Peoples" Art: Our own uniqueness as individuals doesn’t erase our underlying alikeness as “peoples.” We are all precious and wonderfully made in God’s eyes.