**Our Story: How We Met and Were Inspired to Create Together**

 

John Bing  and Christian Pierre's partnership began serendipitously at a local watering hole in their beloved Capitol Hill neighborhood in Denver. Sparks flew instantly over their shared love for art, nature, history, anthropology, and music. John, an anthropologist with a PhD from Emory, charmed Christian with stories of his father, a professor of ancient history, and his mother, a descendant of generations of Colorado farmers. Christian’s phone, full of her art, prompted a visit to John’s magical basement room, brimming with hundreds of books and artifacts. His sketchbooks, filled with gorgeous sketches and surrounded by passage after passage in perfect cursive, won Christian over. It felt as if their meeting was destined. John’s father had grown up in Jacksonville, as had Christian, along with many other strange coincidences.

 

With so many shared interests and styles, they vowed to create something wonderful together. Many long walks in beautiful places fueled their inspiration, leading to the creation of  Taming Wild Horses. The story, along with all the illustrations, was crafted collaboratively. Each piece of multimedia artwork was drawn, painted, and photographed by hand, then meticulously edited and combined into stunning graphic formats. The typesetting and the text were an equal part of the artistic process, requiring two sets of eyes to perfect. Every painting and graphic was a perfect collaboration, laced with the very same struggles our hero, Hugo, faces. Writing and illustrating this story brought John and Christian in touch with many buried struggles and also shared victories. 

 

John and Christian are very proud and excited to share our book, Taming Wild Horses,  with families and children, libraries, and schools to encourage everyone to be patient with themselves and to connect to the things around us.

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