Over the moon
Teacher-turned-artist works with musical hero on new children's book

When Mancos artist Katie Terrell Ramos shot for the moon on her latest project, little did she know how quickly and literally she would hit it.

This month, Terrell Ramos, 29, a music educator-turned-children’s book author/illustrator (who also runs a lavender farm in her spare time, a story for another day), launched a Kickstarter for her fourth and latest book, “Who Built the Moon.” The book is based on a song by the band Shinyribs, led by colorful frontman Kevin Russell, former co-lead singer of dearly departed Austin, Texas, super group The Gourds. Not only has Russell given his full blessing for the project, but he stars prominently in the book, albeit in colorful block print form.

“I’m so grateful,” Terrell Ramos said this week from her lavender farm, northwest of Mancos. “This has been a dream come true to be able to illustrate one of my favorite songs by my favorite artist.”

The dream took seed in 2019 when, at the urging of her husband, Travis, Terrell Ramos took a block printing class. With a background in music, up until that time, she had worked as a music educator for high school and grade school children. The thought of being an artist was something she had never even considered.

But all that changed when the art teacher took a rubber stamp, carved it and dipped it into ink to produce an image.

“I was like, ‘What is that?’” she recalled. “I just carved stamps the rest of the time. I probably have 5,000 of them at this point. So it stuck!”

Eventually, she married her two passions, combining her block prints with children’s books on musical theory. She published her first book, “EGBDF the Musical Yak,” in 2021. Pronounced “Ee-Guh-Buh-Dif,” the yak was a tool to teach children, particularly those with learning disabilities, the notes of the treble clef with a snappy jingle.

As luck would have it, that snappy jingle also caught the ear of Russell. On a dare from her father-in-law, a huge Shinyribs “fan boy,” Terrell Ramos (also a member of the “Shinytribe”) reached out to Russell about possibly singing the jingle.

“I messaged him, ‘You are one of my heroes. If you feel like singing this, it would mean the world to me.’”

Russell soon messaged back: challenge accepted.

“I was freaking out,” Terrell Ramos said.

As a thank you, she wrote Russell into her second book, “FACE the Musical Flamingo” (again, an acronym for notes on the musical scale.) Once published, she sent the book to Russell, along with the stamp of him that she used in the book.

Turns out, the admiration was mutual.

“He started using the stamp as a signature,” she said. “He posted on Facebook that he had finally made it, because he was in a children’s book.” 

But the collaboration didn’t end there.

“People kept saying I should do a book for ‘Who Built the Moon,’” she said, referring to one of Shinyribs’ most popular songs, a whimsical fairy tale of a pilgrim with a dream to build the moon.

Again, a message went out. And again within minutes, Russell gave his blessing.

“Ever since I wrote the song … I’ve had a dream to turn it into a children’s book,” Russell said in a video on Terrell Ramos’ Kickstarter page. “I wrote it about 15 years ago. It took this long to meet the artist to make the dream come true.”

The book contains 100-plus of Terrell Ramos’ hand-carved rubber stamps to accompany the lyrics of the song, each one printed and then digitally painted and collaged together. 

“It’s like magic to me,” Russell said in the video. “She has created a wonderful book far beyond my dream of what it might be.”

And so far, the Kickstarter has also hit far beyond everyone’s dreams. Since launching at the beginning of the month, Terrell Ramos has hit her $6,000 goal – and then some. With 23 days to go in the campaign, she had already earned more than $26,000.

“I blew my goal out of the water,” she said. “It’s really exciting.”

Terrell Ramos said she opted for Kickstarter over traditional agent/publisher channels to give the platform a try and to give folks the product and allow them to be part of the project. Rewards range from a signed hardcover copy of the book to a “Who Built the Moon” custom-printed bandana made by Terrell Ramos.

“People are excited to be part of the process,” she said. “It’s a new way for indie publishers to get their book out.”

She said once the Kickstarter ends Nov. 30, she will be a “crazy Christmas elf” trying to ship out the books and rewards. After that, she plans to release it to the general public through local bookstores like Maria’s as well as bigger outlets like Barnes and Noble.

As for her next project, suppose you could say the moon’s the limit.

“It’s so odd, I always thought I’d be a music teacher, but I’m now an artist,” Terrell Ramos said.

In hindsight, though, growing up on the Front Range with a mom who was a teacher and a dad who was a drummer in a band, perhaps it was destiny.

“If you put those two together, it makes sense,” she said.

And there’s a good chance this won’t be the end of her collaboration with Russell, whom she finally got to meet in person at the 2022 Pagosa Folk ’N Bluegrass Festival. 

“He told me, ‘I don’t care what you do with your art. I love what you do,’” she recalled. “He’s been such a mentor and such a good human. As an artist, sometimes, we need another artist to take us under their wing.”