Maggie Pearson is a busy mom, wife, and occasional construction-crew supervisor (she and her husband are still tweaking the renovation of their stunning CWE home), but no matter what else happens during the course of a day, this talented artist carves out some time to draw. Now that her second son Auggie has celebrated his first birthday (the elder, Jack, is almost 5), Maggie is ready to get back to her design business creating art for invitations, birth announcements, weddings, and corporate clients, etc.
Maggie’s artistic talents can be traced to both her grandfather and her mother who strongly encouraged her three daughters in their creativity. Though Maggie wanted to become an urban planner after graduating from SLU with a degree in public policy, she found herself on a different bus after she and her husband Alex moved to San Francisco—in Maggie’s words, “right after the bottom fell out in 2001.” While working for Condé Nast in San Francisco, she learned technical drawing and design, and lost her heart to illustration.
After the couple returned to the CWE ten years ago, when Alex took a job as Director of the Solution Center at Express Scripts, they lived in a condo on Laclede. Maggie worked for Alive and St. Louis Magazine and ran her design business on the side. They bought their 3-story house on a large lot a couple of years ago, just across the street from her sister Katie and her husband Tim O’Connor.
Front and center in the photo above is the imaginative holiday card Maggie designed for Circus Flora’s FloraDora. Design work is squeezed into small bursts of time when Auggie is sleeping or after the children have gone to bed for the night. Her design services, which cover the whole process from beginning concept to finished product, are very reasonable, starting at $50 an hour. Maggie was eager to note that she sources local printers for her invitations and announcements, everything is done right here in St. Louis.
Maggie also enjoys writing and illustrating children’s books, which are as yet unpublished. She describes her illustrations, above, as having a “spirit of Halloween” feeling, and finds inspiration from the late author and illustrator Edward Gorey and illustrator Gris Grimley whose drawings lean toward the dark side.
Give this clever woman a pen and paper and she will quickly sketch your home or business, see examples above, which would make a wonderful gift too. One of our favorite drawings from long ago is a sketch of our former Lenox Place home that an artist who lived on Pershing Place gave us.
To contact Maggie Pearson for more information about her design and illustration services, email her at maggiehpearson@gmail.com.
Ms.Maggie’s creativity far exceeds what IS present here. Please consult her for all of your needs; from creative illustrations to home decor designs to what craft cocktail to serve for your soirée. Call her, pay her extra and know that your are now above solid ground thanks to Maggie.
Illustrations are a tiny piece of her creative genius. Maggie’s ability to create inspired designs over multiple mediums regularly blows me away. Great post Nicki!
This is my girl right here! I love this woman and her family and all of her extreme talents!