We chatted with Kate Peterson of The Dapper Jackalope about her education, her inspirations, and her future artmaking plans for the next year. It was so fun to hear she’s a fellow Hunger Games fan, and Team Wintry just can’t get enough of her swoony IG posts. Check out what she told Amy about this past week.

How long have you been working as an artist?

After years and years of margin-doodles, I graduated with my Master’s in literature in 2013 and found myself working awful job after awful job. Finally, a dear friend and I were standing in my house looking at a couple pieces I’d hung on the wall, and he turned to me, handed me a twenty dollar bill, and said, “Well, if this is what it’s going to take to get you to do this, I want prints of these two and I want them within a week.” (He’s a good friend.) Something clicked, and I met that deadline. That was in April of 2014, and since then, I’ve put on an artist-jetpack of sorts and positively launched into the respective worlds of Etsy, retail, wholesale, shows, commissions, and more in my first year and a half of professional art-making. It’s been a wild ride and I’m completely smitten with my new daily grind!

Are you self-taught or school-taught?

The only art classes I’ve ever taken were a cartooning class when I was ten and a standard art class in high school. During that high school class, my teacher pulled me aside and told me I should take AP Art the following year. At the time, I thought, “They even have AP Art?!” and went on my merry way, focusing on languages and literature. I got a Bachelor’s in English and a Master’s in Literature, and though I eventually decided that academic life wasn’t my forever life and ended up somewhat hilariously right where my teacher predicted, I wouldn’t change any of my choices. On top of the intrinsically amazing experience I had in school–especially while writing my graduate thesis–I see my literary background creeping into my artwork all the time. I think most of my pieces have a “thesis” of sorts, and expressing ideas through shapes and colors ends up being surprisingly similar to expressing them through words.

What artist(s) are your greatest inspiration? Or what else inspires your work?

I adore children’s books. Some of my favorite children’s illustrators are Carson Ellis and Jon Klassen, and I hope to write and illustrate my own someday. I’m constantly inspired by my community of fellow artists, both here in Boise and in various pockets of the virtual art world, especially the handmade community on Instagram. For the ideas behind my own pieces, I’m often inspired simply by curiosity. Boise’s own Anthony Doerr is one of my favorite authors and, in an interview I read, he likens being curious to “being in love with the world.” Ever since I heard that quote, it’s been dear to my heart and my work. Being completely enamored with the natural world, inspiration often pops up unexpectedly when I’m looking up a certain creature or place just out of curiosity–after reading about it, for example, or seeing it in a film. Once I’ve identified something worth exploring (which is everything, it turns out), my job as an illustrator is to ask, “What if?” and bring that possibility to the page. (It’s an awesome job.)

What is your most favorite piece/commission you’ve made?

Of course, it’s nearly impossible to choose–but one of my very favorites is a piece called “Tidepool Life.” It’s a birds-eye view of a person looking down into a tide pool with the tail of a tiny whale rising up from the surface of the water. I love it because I think it’s the clearest example of the kind of art that I want to make–art that delights, and excites, and twists reality just enough to get people of all ages thinking like kids again. To imagine that a tiny whale could be in a tide pool somewhere in the world is to momentarily say yes to delight instead of rationality; and while rationality is important too, I’m a big fan of delight.

Where are you from?

I’m from Bozeman, Montana, went to college in Oregon, and, of course, I now live in Idaho, so you can pretty much see and hear the American West all over my clothes and idioms and artwork and business name–and I’m so good with that. I love to travel, and at this point, I’m convinced that part of the fun of traveling is learning more about your own home by comparing it to someone else’s. I’m in love with the West and will happily spend the rest of my days gallivanting around the world and coming home to draw mountain goats, wear flannel shirts, and sip whiskey.

How old are you?

I will be turning 28 the day before the Wintry Market this year! Should you need to find me on my birthday, I’ll be in the line for the midnight showing of the new Hunger Games movie.

How long have you lived in Boise?

I moved to Boise for graduate school in 2011 and stayed because I fell in love, both with the city and with a marvelously dweeby musician & recording engineer. We live an old house in West Downtown and are lucky enough to both have in-home studios, mine in the second bedroom and his in the crazy now-finished basement that he’s converted from a damp disaster to a first-rate recording studio. Working at home has its ups (lunch breaks together, pajama work dates) and downs (tiny scraps of paper everywhere, and oh my word, the drums), but the pros far outweigh the cons and we feel really lucky to work for ourselves in a lovely house in a really, really lovely city that supports the arts!

What can we look for in your Wintry Market booth that might be new/exciting to you?

I’ve made a ton of new pieces in the past year, and I also have two new products I’m really excited to share with you: a coloring book and some hand-painted necklaces! The coloring book has slowly become one of the top five coloring books on Etsy, which has been a crazy and busy and exciting ride, and the necklaces feature hand-painted animals on wooden pendants with little tassels. I love them because each one is completely one of a kind!

What are your future art plans for 2015-16?

This coming year, one of my biggest goals is to branch out into even more new products. I want to make a second coloring book, but I also want to try my hand at making mugs, tees, totes, and more with my designs. It’s daunting to think about, but also really exciting. I love all my frame-able prints and originals, and they’ll be around forever; but ultimately, I want to make things that are usable too–things that hold other things, or keep people warm, or make them smile while they sip their coffee!

Thanks so much, Kate! We’re excited to have you back at Wintry Market again this year and look forward to what you have in store! Check out Kate’s website, or follow her on Facebook and Instagram.

*all photos courtesy of Kate Peterson.