First some background... Ava Rosemeyer was a super princess. She loved pink, she loved to dance, she loved wearing dresses and flowers and birds and butterflies.
Ava died last month after she crawled into her parents' car to look for some candy, and once in she couldn't find her way out. The heat of the Australian summer overtook her while her family frantically looked for her. It was a terrible accident that will reverberate through the Rosemeyer family forever.
Ava's mother, Sheye, belongs to an online group of professional photographers called Grow. The people at Grow surrounded Sheye with love and compassion and did everything they could to help her through this dark time. They put together a car safety awareness campaign. All around the world, they released pink balloons in a tribute to little Ava. Somewhere in their brainstorming, someone suggested writing a book. A memorial, a celebration, something to capture the essence of Ava.
I'm an illustrator, and I do a lot of custom work for photographers. I'd done all of the original graphics for the Grow website and so the leader of Grow, Barb Uil, contacted me about commissioning me for artwork on this project. She invited me into Grow to see what I thought.
Once I got there, I was blown away by the group and by the grace and beauty of Sheye and her little girl. Through the words and photos of her mother, Ava came to life for me. Here I'd never met her and I felt completely rocked by her death. I told them I couldn't take payment for this project... it just needed to be done.
My baby and I were sick, in bed for days. Together we watched a slideshow that was played at Ava's funeral, and at the end of it Graham shrugged his hands up in a question and said "Baby?"
Where'd she go? Oh what a question.
Then I wrote this story. In bed, hugging a feverish toddler to my side, I wrote and sketched out the concept for the book.
And away we go...
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