Pete the Cat creator has humble Alabama roots
Story by Allison Law, Photos by David Haynes
Nestled in the valley between Sand Mountain and Lookout Mountain, Fort Payne is probably best known for music (home of 1980s country supergroup Alabama) and industry (“the Sock Capital of the World”).
But the first weekend in August, this small city embraces its groovier, artsy side, when native son James Dean comes back home for the “Pete the Cat Festival” – dedicated to the bright blue, laid-back, guitar-playing feline who’s delighted young fans for almost 20 years.
A larger-than-life mural, painted by Dean himself, greets visitors to the downtown area. On a rainy Saturday in August, Pete the mural – with his oversized football-shaped eyes and red, high-top sneakers – watched over the crowd of fans gathered to meet Pete’s creator, who happily returns to the place he calls home (despite being a Georgia resident now).
Dean was born here, but the family moved around and returned when he was in high school (he graduated from Fort Payne High School in 1976). All the kinfolks on his mother’s side are from the mountain area, which he calls “home.”
“Lots of wonderful memories as a child up on Sand Mountain,” he recalls today. “My ties here are strong.”
About a hundred lucky ticket-holding Pete fans waited in the morning drizzle for the doors to the historic Coal and Iron building to open. Some authors push through book-signings, limiting the number of items to be signed and having handlers move eager patrons through the line. Dean took his time, chatting with families and especially the children, giving each book a personalized Pete drawing. The event took hours, but no one seemed to mind the wait.
One of the organizers of this event is Connie Fuller, who works with the Fort Payne Main Street program to promote downtown economic vitality. She’s also a friend of Dean and is not surprised at his popularity here, nor his willingness to spend time with fans.
“He is a very humble but amazing artist and man,” Fuller says. “I’m always amazed at how smart, funny and talented
he is.”
An engineer … and an artist
After high school, Dean went to Auburn and earned a degree in electrical engineering. He took a job with Georgia Power and had a choice of places to live. He settled in Athens, which at that time – the early to mid-1980s – had a burgeoning music and arts scene. “I think that really affected me, because my plan was, I really wanted to study art, even at Auburn.”
Even as a student in the engineering school.
“I have this strong memory of seeing the art students sitting out on the grass drawing pictures of the buildings, which, I loved to draw buildings, and I walked by there carrying my engineering books, and I was just so sad that I couldn’t be out there sitting on the grass drawing pictures with them,”
he recalls.
“I used to sit on the steps of Samford Hall at night and think about the future and how I was going to get to art someday. So, it was my plan in college. Had no idea it would end up. I wasn’t thinking about children’s books at all, you know?”
He was making a good living with Georgia Power, but like many who have a heart for art, the job left him unfulfilled. His wife had a good job and encouraged him to pursue art full time, so he left engineering in 1997, “to my mama’s dismay.”
“I felt like I had to go out and try, and that first year my income tax said I made zero, but I was so happy.”
He started traveling and painting in different places, experiences that helped him hone his craft and gave him visual inspiration. “Every painting is a story.”
The real Pete the cat
The inspiration for Pete the Cat was a real Pete the cat, a little black shelter kitty who captured Dean’s heart and became his muse, albeit reluctantly. A friend kept bugging Dean to draw a picture of Pete, but he didn’t want to draw cats. She kept after him, and Dean finally gave in. She loved the painting, and Dean kept creating.
Originally, Dean created Pete to appeal to adults, but he found that kids loved his paintings of Pete. A chance meeting in Atlanta with a singer/storyteller forged a collaboration that eventually led to a series of children’s books, based on Dean’s drawings of Pete.
Much like Dean himself, Pete the character is approachable and laid-back, and the themes of the books please parents and kids alike: positive attitudes, self-expression, the importance of friendships and inclusion and overcoming fears.
April Pritchett brought her son, Hank, to meet Dean at the August event. Hank, 11, has sort of aged out of the books, but he’s still a big fan. His favorite book is Rocking in My School Shoes, one of the older titles that follows Pete as he starts first grade and discovers that the lunchroom, playground and library are – like Pete himself – pretty cool.
Asked what he likes about Pete, Hank says, “Just that he’s always positive. He gives positive vibes. He’s groovy.”
Mom April says her kids always read Pete the Cat when they were younger, and she didn’t realize Dean was from the area. The Pritchetts live in the Horton/Guntersville area and are members of Marshall-DeKalb EC.
“We learned later, when we came to Fort Payne and saw this mural out there, that he’s from here. That’s awesome.”
‘Best advice’
After creating the first book, I Love My White Shoes, Dean worked the art festival circuit, selling self-published books from a tent and his car, and the books and his paintings attracted a following. He stumbled onto another marketing ploy: He gave away paintings for charities and auctions, and in the artsier neighborhoods, towns and cities, art lovers took notice, extending a brand Dean didn’t even know he had created.
As he says about the different trajectories his career has taken, as well as the success of the Pete the Cat franchise, “you can’t explain it.”
Besides the books, there are lots of Pete-themed products, including action figures, plush dolls, activity sheets and printables, shoes and slippers, pillows and – fitting for a cat who was featured in some of Dean’s early paintings sipping a cup of Joe – a Pete the Cat coffee blend called “Surf’s up,” in partnership with Jittery Joe’s Coffee in Athens, Ga.
“The best advice I ever got from a successful artist was to take every opportunity that comes your way, no matter how small,” he says.
Dean and his collaborator were doing well with their self-published books, and he wasn’t looking for more. But on his 51st birthday, he got an unexpected call from a book publisher in New York, interested in making a deal for Pete the Cat. The books have since sold millions, and many titles have topped The New York Times best-seller lists.
He’ll be 69 in December, still creating and drawing.
The call of home
He still works collaboratively, now with his ex-wife, Kimberly, on the books, which he says take up most of his time. Dean is the illustrator, and she writes many of the stories; the latest book, published in September, is centered on cookies. His experiences growing up in Alabama seem to find their way into his work, even after all these years.
The engineer in him is always thinking about building things. “Pete’s sort of doing stuff that I might do, so he builds this cookie machine, and it goes haywire.
“I realized, I used to work at the bakery here in Fort Payne, and one night, they let me run the dough divider, which is the main part of the breadmaking process, right?” Dean made a mistake, the divider completely quit and broke the whole line down.
“I was so embarrassed. (But) I realized, as I was writing the story, it was really sort of my experience working in the bakery.”
And he’ll continue to create new adventures for Pete and his menagerie of friends. There’s also Pete the Kitty – Pete before he grew up, with books geared for toddlers and littles – and a seemingly endless amount of fun and trouble for the Pete gang to get into.
He’s moved most of his family to be near him in Athens, Ga., but his ties to the mountains in Alabama will always remain.
“I would like to have a home here, maybe up on the mountain. I wish I could buy my grandfather’s old place and live out there on that land. The house burned down, which I’m still sad about, but this is God’s country right here.”
