(upbeat music) - Will you consider this?

You never know what you're gonna be when you grow up.

You never know what you even wanna be.

And this guy, Robin Raymer, he's known as the Plaster Man, I think is how I first met you 30 years ago, but he's also an artist and he's also an author.

But we're gonna find out a little bit from him.

Tell me about Robin Raymer.

- Well, I was born in Waukegan, Illinois.

I would say I'm a Illinois boy.

And then we moved up to Round Lake, Grayslake, Fox Lake area, Antioch.

People might know those areas.

And that's just above Chicago.

And then when I got a little older, I came down here and got married to my wife in 1984.

So, this year will be 42 years that we're married.

And we have three daughters, raised them in Canton, Illinois.

- Yeah.

So what brought you then?

Is she from Canton?

She's Canton native, or?

- She moved there probably 50 years ago.

You know, it's been quite a while.

Her father was a plasterer, so when I got to know him, that was kind of an unusual coincidence and very good for me.

- Right.

Exactly.

- 'Cause I got to learn plastering and work with him for many years.

So it was really nice.

- Now, and plaster is, I mean, so your hands are above your head a lot, right?

Doing all that stuff.

And then, so in your downtime, literally downtime, that's when you were doing your artwork.

- Yeah.

So I've been here in Peoria for many, many years.

I just wanted to take this opportunity too, to just say thank you to everybody in Peoria.

It has been absolutely wonderful.

You have customers over those 40 some years, but they really are my friends.

- [Christine] Friends.

Yeah, that's good.

- And get to know them, their stories.

And so I was doing the plastering, which people call a dying art.

- It is?

- Really, it's getting to be something that's not known much.

And so during that time, I really loved drawing my whole life.

That was kinda my first love.

And so, yeah, I would doodle.

And a lot of times, early on, I started to draw greeting cards and little posters and notes to people, you know, and they seemed to like it.

- Well, okay.

So let's back up a little bit.

Yes.

So you would do your artwork as your downtime, but you started when you were a little boy.

You liked to draw and your grandma encouraged it.

And then tell me about the veterans that you had, who inspired you too.

- Yeah.

So the Veteran Administration, even to this day, has a program where individuals, maybe they're displaced or they don't have a family to come back to, they can place those individuals into families and have them live in those homes.

And that happened with my parents and my grandparents.

When I was two years old, we had Cliff, who was in a wheelchair, and Frank.

And then my grandparents had three ladies, Mary, Dottie, and Eleanor.

And Eleanor really took a liking to me.

So I was told, you know, I was just two years old.

But she really loved my grandmother, and with me there.

She decided, she was rather ill and she died shortly after this, but she did something special for us and she painted a picture.

- [Christine] Here, take a look at this.

- And that mama elephant and the baby.

And as I grew older, it really had more meaning to me.

That's a 63-year-old picture, so it's been around a while, but it kind of reminded me of, that was a long time ago, but it started the whole thought of this book that I wrote.

Because starfish, people who are in need, who need help or assistance.

Isn't it interesting though, in her situation where she was so ill and had done so much, she was able to draw and paint me this picture?

And what a gift to me.

And that inspired me along the way, you know, when I get discouraged.

This picture has been with me my whole life, so it's, I think everyone can relate to that, I think, a special picture.

One thing I think that really stands out to me, the whole time I've been plastering, I go into really literally thousands of homes here.

Everyone usually has the same thing in common.

The refrigerator is covered with drawings.

- [Christine] Oh, I've got a gallery.

- That's it.

- I've got a gallery.

I got seven grandchildren.

And people come in and they don't know where to look in my kitchen.

Yeah.

- That's it.

And so these simple drawings, now, the kids grow up and they always go in and they say, now, "Mom, what are you doing, putting that picture up?

You know, I'm embarrassed."

But the mom loves it.

And it's just, you know, with plastering, you use your hands and your mind.

But with drawing and writing the book, I kind of use my hands and my heart in order to tell the story.

And the story of the book- - Yeah.

So, let's see, this is his new book.

It is called "Pete and Peaches and the Starfish Club."

So it's pretty special.

And I've had a one of your original drawings of Pete and Peaches.

I've got it framed and hanging up in my house.

So tell me about the book.

So "Pete and Peaches."

- Yeah.

So the setting is a grandmother and she's a retired school teacher.

And then she gets a little poodle, a cute, adorable little teacup poodle.

And that was Peaches.

- With the taffy colored ears.

Peaches colored ears.

- The little peach, yeah.

And then we have Pete comes to live with her as well, the grandson.

Everything's going great until one day he gets sick.

And that kind of draws on my real life story with getting sick at a young age.

But then grandma takes him to a hospital far away and she has to get him back.

So that's an interesting way that she brings him back.

- I will say.

- That's an adventure.

And then when she brings him back, he's wondering, you know, I can't just play outside all day.

What am I gonna do with my life?

So the grandmother tells him a story finally, the starfish, and many people are familiar with it, some aren't.

- So tell us again, because it's a great story.

- Yeah.

So it's short, but so powerful.

It's about a storm that brings all these starfish and puts 'em out on the beach.

And in the morning, little boy's putting them back in the water, and someone says, "What are you doing?"

He says, "I'm saving the starfish."

- [Christine] And there's thousands of 'em.

- There's millions.

Yeah.

It was by far the hardest picture I had to draw for the book.

- I bet.

- It took a long time.

But somebody comes along and says, "Listen, there's millions.

Why are you wasting your time?

And what matter does it make anyway?"

And he holds one up and he says, "It matters to this one."

- [Christine] To this one.

Yes.

Exactly.

- So the individual, you just think about, and I've been thinking a lot about it lately.

I've had friends who, yeah, there they are.

- [Christine] There's the thousands of 'em.

- There we are.

And the next page shows the one.

- I love it.

- There we go.

So you just think today, how many challenges we are facing.

Ill health.

People get up early in the morning and they drive to work a long distance just to keep the family fed.

Caregiving is huge.

My wife and I are involved right now with helping with three relatives, and her dad now is 95.

So I'm just really grateful to him for what he taught me, and so we're trying to keep him at home as long as possible.

But let's say someone's in a nursing home, that's a challenge in itself.

People try to stay positive.

So the lesson grandma's trying to tell him through the starfish is people are like the starfish.

They struggle, they get stranded, and they need some help, just some assistance, encouragement.

And I've always been big over the years on drawing greeting cards.

I was discovered maybe 35 years ago by a company, you may remember this, and some of the listeners and friends here today, it was called Successories.

- I do, that's the store.

- It was a store in the mall.

I was down in St.

Louis, appearing as Plaster Man.

And I said to my wife, "This looks like the kind of store my stuff should be in."

- [Christine] Exactly.

Yeah.

- And I went up to Chicago, Aurora.

We signed a deal on the spot.

It was just perfect timing.

They were looking for some really nice encouraging cards, that commendation kind of cards that- - [Christine] There's another one.

- (laughs) There we go.

And so they had it at that time that the overseers or bosses at work could give these cards out.

Super job.

Nice job.

So I draw up about 90 drawings for 'em and some posters, and we worked together for years.

But then I started to think about the book itself.

This is, this year, 2026 is 45 years I've been drawing them.

So I've been drawing them more than- - For "Pete and Peaches."

- Yeah, yeah.

- Wow.

That's interesting.

And everything is always so uplifting and you've always been that way, but then when you get down, you could cheer yourself up by doodling a little bit or what?

- I think so.

You know, we have become so complicated today with so much information that comes at us, the amount of texting and emails and you know, "Hey, I'll send you a text."

- Screen time.

- "Hey, I love you.

You're doing great.

So great to see you."

You know, nothing replaces a hand drawn or handwritten card.

- I think you're right.

But we're definitely old school.

- Well, and that's what I'm kind of trying to have as a lesson at the end of the book, that basically you can start so simple.

You just take a piece of paper, fold it in half, you got your card, and now you can draw it.

And many times, with the plastering side of things, I go to a lot of disaster relief in different states.

For instance, I went about two times down to Texas.

And when I go, we also have a "Pete and Peaches" party.

So then we have all the kids get together and they all draw an encouraging card to bring somebody up.

- That's fun.

Show us some of your other drawings.

You have your big posters over there.

- Oh sure, sure.

- Let's see those.

And then we'll talk about the book a little bit more too.

But, so these are examples of- - So this is something I'm drawing up on my website, peteandpeachesart.com.

We're gonna be making these available soon, just to have posters and prints.

But that's one, "Friends lift one another up."

- And they do.

- There we go.

And then we have this one.

- That's one we just showed you that card.

Yeah.

- Yeah, there we are.

So that's one of my very first ones.

And that goes back a long way that I drew that up.

And a nice message.

And then this is one that... - Very cute.

And then each drawing now, later on, has the significance.

Let me help you.

Okay, go ahead.

- So there's always five birds, as you see.

Wendy and I are over there, my wife and I. And then I have my three daughters.

And then around every flower, there's five petals in the drawings, and that stand for my three daughters and my mom and my grandma.

And then when I was 16, I really wanted to be a cartoonist.

And so around the sun, every time, there's 16 dots and dashes.

- I love it.

- Yeah.

And how I got into cartooning in the first place was- - Yes.

Tell me.

- My grandfather worked at National Lead down in Chicago.

And so he would take the train in from Fox Lake every day and he would have coffee with a cartoonist.

So that's kind of a neat coincidence.

- [Christine] A little twist.

Yeah.

- So the man, of course, at that time, maybe I was six, maybe five, and I would just do stick drawings.

But he encouraged me and it was amazing.

He was so kind to me.

He just spent a little time, sent home.

He had done a comic strip in "The Chicago Tribune."

And so he would send home originals to me.

- [Christine] Wow.

Do you still have them?

- No, I don't.

(Christine gasps) I know.

Wouldn't that be nice?

And so what I found from that is, isn't it just about time that kids get encouraged to just do a little drawing of their own?

I always tell kids when I go to schools, I'm doing Lincoln School in Canton in May.

And I just tell them, you know, you don't have to make a lot of money.

It doesn't have to be a lot of fame.

Seems like the world around us, that's what's big.

Enjoyment and bringing sunshine and happiness to other people.

Really practice giving.

That's such a good motto.

- And that's a good lesson.

It is.

Alright, so, okay.

So would you draw us a little picture and then tell us, while you're talking a little bit more about your book now, it's an interactive book, which is interesting.

- Yeah.

Yeah.

So I tell kids, it's really important to come up with the eyes that you're gonna have.

And I'll just draw this so you can kind of see it.

Can you see okay?

- I can see fine.

- Great.

So, once the kids get the eyes down, that's half the battle of getting a cartoon.

I usually tell 'em, even in the book, I tell them, why don't you think of maybe your pet or a relative or a friend and turn them into a comic?

And some kids have really done a good job on doing that.

So he's very simple.

Something else that stands out with my cartooning is I'm kind of stubborn.

I'm like the Walt Disney artist.

I don't do anything by computer.

It's all hand drawn.

- There you go.

- And people say, "Why don't you just save time?"

And some of these pictures, it took a little bit of doing because with doing this, you're halfway through and you goof it up.

And- - Right?

You figure out how to make it- - You either make it a part of the drawing.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And then we have- - So he just drew Pete.

See, now my stick figures, my grandkids sometimes have a hard time even figuring out that it's a stick figure.

So I think that, you know, I can paint a little bit, but other than that, not so much.

- I love balloons.

They kinda remind me of innocence and, you know, simple time.

- They're just happy.

They're happy.

- That's it, that's it.

So that's kind of how he looks.

I'll just hold that up so that they can see.

I got a little pen marks, you can see, on the paper next to it.

But lemme go ahead and just draw Peaches up real quick.

I'll just draw her.

- So then how do you get your, what inspires you for each message?

- You know, it's kinda like this.

I was working some years ago on one.

I would go into the store and I'd see cards for sympathy.

Wow.

They're so syrupy, kind of?

Sometimes they're big and scrawly and there's a lot to 'em.

And I was thinking, how do you say to somebody that I feel what you're feeling?

And so I have Peaches on top of a big heart and it says on the outside "My heart," and inside it says, "feels your pain."

- Aw.

- So what my challenge, I think of a lot of different things at one time.

So the challenge is to take a big concept and just boil it down to just a few words.

That's my challenge with the cartoon.

So that was one I thought that, so there's Peaches.

- There's Peaches.

Can you get it?

- So that's how it comes together.

- And then in this, so in this book, in your story, and we've talked about the starfish and talked about the fictional way that Pete gets home.

But then, so this is an encouraging, this is the interactive part.

You encourage some of the readers, the young readers and blooming artists, to try their hand at finishing these photos or coloring them.

- It is, it is.

So some of them, I thought, you know, it's nice to have a little help along the way.

Some kids need a little help to just develop their style.

So I sign it and then I have an "and" area where the kids can sign it.

And it doesn't have to just be kids.

Probably 25 years ago, we did a little, like a drawing contest with Mid-American National Bank in Canton.

And they helped me with this book and printing it, and I'm so grateful for that.

But that's where I put that first how to together.

And it was a hit.

In fact, I'm gonna admit it, the kids did better than I did at drawing the cartoons.

There was every kind of adventure.

I was like, "Man, these kids should draw the book."

So, but it was just fun.

- How fun.

- Yeah.

Yeah.

And then, because at two, you remember, Eleanor gave me that picture.

At three, I got very ill.

I had mono and double pneumonia, so I was in St.

Trace Hospital in Waukegan for 45 days.

At that time, your parents didn't stay with you.

So at eight o'clock at night, they were just gone.

The nights, I will tell you, I remember to this day, I was kinda lonely and a little scared.

But there were people who helped me and that's why we put this in there.

And that is... - [Christine] "Nurses are spectacular, kind, and caring."

- That's it.

- And they are.

And you remember that from three years old.

- That's it.

And even as I got ill, sometimes I ended up in the hospital, maybe as an adult, and just the amount of tireless effort that they put forth, it's just amazing to me.

You know, there's so much behind the scenes that they do, very unpleasant jobs, and sometimes they're not thanked all the time.

And sometimes they have a lot of work to do.

It's a tremendous amount of responsibility, but I thought it really deserved a thank you in there.

- Good for you.

And so, from what I understand, you would like to go into hospitals and read to some of the kids and even almost home kids, where those kids, you know, they don't have access to a lot of things.

- Yeah.

And it's something that was on my mind, especially since I was in the hospital so young.

I thought, you know, so I was just last week was able to visit the hospitals and that was very nice.

They welcomed me very well and we had a nice discussion about it.

So that's something I'm planning on doing.

Yeah.

The book itself, you know, it's such a big world.

We just printed the book.

Right now, we printed 3,000 copies.

And so it's kind of like a first step.

People ask me, "Is it on Amazon?"

Right now, we just have it on peteandpeachesart.com.

So that's the one place that they can get it.

But I think my hope is to get a publisher.

What they do is they get it into stores and mass distribution, you know?

- Right.

So when you were plastering, it's kind of a quiet job.

And then you're thinking of all these things that when you get home, you're gonna whip these up?

- [Robin] That was exactly it.

- And it's so, everything is uplifting.

So did it ever, when you were plastering and made a mistake, you had to figure out how to fix that, right?

Before you could get down off the ladder or whatever.

- I say, you know, houses are a lot like people, right?

We're broken into several pieces sometimes and they have a lot of cracks, you know, and it's just really a lot of comparisons to homes.

And some of them, it's a minor repair and some, it's a major remodel.

And people are the same way.

If they're stranded, sometimes it really takes almost a lifetime of encouragement.

So people have come to me who are very depressed.

In my own life, I've had five very good friends who have stopped living, have taken their own lives.

And it's a serious and sad topic, but if anyone has experienced that, it's like you carry a wound, an arrow in your side.

- You do.

- And... - The Native American proverb, - My father, my own father, took his life.

- Oh gosh.

- And it was maybe almost 30 years ago.

But you don't forget it.

- No, you don't.

- And so having that kind of background, you try to encourage people to go on.

And many people have written me and talk to me about how the... It was, it did make a difference.

- Yes.

Yes, it does.

It really does.

I think I told you, I had, I just used one of your cards, and I had it for 30 years in my drawer of cards.

And I just sent it to somebody who needed a little bit of pick me up.

So thank you for that.

And this book is gonna be so exciting for the youngsters 'cause they can finish the picture, or they can color the pictures.

- There's something I thought that would be kind of fun here.

In the very back, we were trying to figure out, I had like 40 pages to... And so at the end, I was gonna have them draw another picture of Pete and Peaches, but I thought, you know what really is on everybody's heart?

Please draw a picture of your favorite pet.

So on Facebook, I have Robin Raymer Art.

So I just say, for the fun, you don't have to, but if you want to, draw your favorite pet and then send a picture of that.

That would be great.

- And then they're supposed to sign it and date it.

- Date it.

Because the reason I have kids date it is, you know, you're five years old and- - It's kind of rough.

- Actually, just to show you the very beginning, I am glad, I'm really glad that I dated this.

In this book, I actually, we found, I only have two pictures of Peaches.

And this goes back to about 1977.

This one right here, you notice I signed it and then I dated it, and it's 1979.

So it's kind of nice because you say, "Yeah, I was really a rough artist back then.

It was not the greatest."

But you know, you improve with time, and so dating things is so good.

The other thing is, I hopefully one day soon, I can do a book signing, some here in Peoria.

But it's not so much for hero worship or trying to have a celebrity's autograph.

To me, it's a moment in time.

Your heart was over that book for just a brief moment.

And you got to sign it.

- And you're sharing part of your heart with them.

- That's it.

- Well, that's awesome.

Robin Raymer, thank you.

- It was great to be here.

- Plaster Man, author, artist.

- We go way back and it's just been a pleasure and such a privilege that you allow me to come on your show.

I really thank you.

- Well, we're very privileged to have you, aren't we, guys?

Everybody?

Yeah.

Okay.

Thank you.

And thank you for joining us.

Until next time, be well.

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