A Father’s Dream.
The artist.
My cousin, Tim Engstrom, is that artist. He and his brother, Tom, have written and illustrated some of their own comic books. I’ll link them below. Tim listens to my crazy ideas, helps me to think through them a little better, and just look at the beautiful art that he creates.
How?
I have no idea. I can barely upload pictures.
The scene.
I grew up in a log house in the woods of western Washington in the foothills of the Cascade Mountain Range. These are evergreen trees, and they feel like home to me. I still live in the foothills of the Cascades, and we do have evergreens on our property. In fact, my husband said recently that he looks out onto our property and often sees the image of my book cover in our trees. Tim got the fog, the weather, the colors, and the under growth of the forest just right.
The tree.
This is a picture that my mom painted in the 1970’s. I remember it up on the wall of our log house. I have the painting now.
Beautiful and nostalgic to me, feels like home. Do you know that feeling? It might not be a home that we knew, but a picture or a memory or a place that feels peaceful, calm, quiet. Home. Or, maybe, what home is supposed to feel like.
The Cover and the Story.
As with many people in this area, long ago my family were loggers. And, yes, some were from Sweden and Norway. In A Father’s Dream, Johanna’s family comes to America to open a sawmill and continue in the line of work that her family knows. But in Sweden, she remembers people saying that there are trees in the west of America that are so big that it takes ten men to stretch their arms around.
Have you ever seen a tree like that? There are a few here in the PNW (the Grove of the Patriarchs is a nice summer hike to see trees like this) and for sure down in the Redwoods and the Sierras.
Beautiful giants.
And that is the story of a book cover and a tree. 🌲
Heidi xoxo