Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Amy Grimes. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Amy, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. We’d love to hear the backstory behind a risk you’ve taken – whether big or small, walk us through what it was like and how it ultimately turned out.

Many years ago, I was in the car with my family when I said, “Someday I’m going to write and illustrate a children’s book.” My oldest daughter, who was about 12 at the time, piped up from the backseat and said, “You always say that, Mom.” She was absolutely right. I’d said it countless times. Later that day I found myself wondering if I would ever actually get around to creating the children’s book I’d been dreaming of. I’d written lots of stories, but how would I get them out into the world where other people could read them? The publishing industry seemed so daunting—I felt tired even thinking about it.

Seeing my gloomy expression, my husband asked what was the matter. When I explained my problem, he said, “You want to make a book, let’s make one.””But won’t that be really expensive?” I asked. He said, “Yeah, but your book will sell. You write and illustrate it, and I’ll design it and get it printed.” My husband is a graphic designer so he knows how to do that kind of thing.

To this day it’s one of the kindest things anyone has ever done for me—the way he spoke up so confidently and was willing to take a risk on my first book. It helped me to realize that I was willing to take that risk too. We had a launch party where I offered the original illustrations for sale and by the end of the night we’d sold almost all the paintings and hundreds of books. We were overjoyed!

Amy, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I began selling my artwork in my early twenties—highly detailed black and white portraits. I loved the challenge of drawing faces but after a while the process felt so familiar, start to finish, that I began to grow a little bored. My favorite art form had always been children’s book and fairytale illustrations. I’d been poring over big books of them since childhood, and I wondered if anyone other than myself would want fairytale illustrations hanging on the walls of their house. Most people I knew opted for landscapes, still lifes and abstracts. I painted a few of my own fairytale illustrations and entered them in an art show. Happily, they sold—it turned out there were other people like me!

For a number of years after that I continued offering my illustrations for sale at art shows. I hung little stories beside each of my paintings and found such joy watching people read them while studying my illustrations. Naturally I began calling them story paintings.

Today I’m still selling my story paintings, both originals, prints and books. I sell them on my website, storypaintings.net, where I launch new paintings and prints a few times a year. I also have the great privilege of illustrating other people’s books. This past year I illustrated Ann Voskamp’s lovely story, “Your Brave Song” for Tyndale Publishers. Currently, I’m illustrating Melody Trowell’s wonderful book, “The Girl Whose Frown Shook the Ground” for Calla Press.

My hope is that my artwork will stir people’s imaginations. The most common theme I create around is the idea of light shining out of the darkness. I believe beautiful artwork and good stories have the power to encourage and brighten people’s lives.

Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

Once I heard a sermon where the preacher mentioned that so many religious paintings had been destroyed during the Reformation. He said that those paintings had been created to share the gospel with the common people who were largely unable to read. For that reason the artists had attempted to make their artwork too beautiful to ignore. That phrase jumped out at me and I wrote it down in my notebook. Too beautiful to ignore.

I believe God cares about people and that He is accessible—that we can run to Him and be comforted wherever we are, whoever we are. I’m always wanting to reflect that idea in my artwork—hoping that it comes through. God is more beautiful than I can ever hope to paint or write but the idea of His goodness inspires me to try to reach farther toward beauty, wanting to share His comforting and hopeful presence with others.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

I learned from two professors that I wasn’t good at painting.
One semester in college I took my first two painting classes. One of my art professors stood behind me as I painted and said, “I am not impressed.” The other professor told me that although I clearly loved art, that didn’t make me an artist. I was so discouraged that my creativity dried up—something that had never happened to me before.

It took a few years for my imaginative ideas to flow freely again. I had to block out the negative voices of my professors, and even my own self-doubt, and focus instead on the beauty I was reaching for. As I painted, I would say out loud, “This is a beautiful experiment” and “reaching for something beautiful is never a waste of time.” I believed these statements were true, and found that as I held onto them, I was able to reject the negativity that had held me back since college.

Contact Info:

• Website: storypaintings.net
• Instagram: amygrimes_storypaintings

Image Credits
© Amy Grimes • Story Paintings