ABOUT THE AUTHOR: PATRICK ATKINSON
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Patrick Atkinson was raised in Bismarck, North Dakota and graduated from Minnesota State University–Moorhead. After college, Patrick turned down lucrative corporate job offers to work with runaways, prostitutes, and gang members in New York City's Hells Kitchen. Two years later, Patrick moved to Central America where he began a 25-year career in international war-zone reconciliation and post-war reconstruction.
He is the recipient of numerous human rights awards (including the Guatemalan Congres-sional Medal) and is the subject of The Dream Maker, a biography by Monica Hannan. He is most proud of having been named Father of the Year by his son, Ernesto.
Patrick is the founder and executive director of The GOD’S CHILD Project and the Institute for Trafficked, Exploited & Missing Persons (ITEMP). He holds a Masters degree from Regis University in Denver CO.
When not being shot at, knifed, caught in car-bombings, or traveling worldwide advocating on behalf of abused, abandoned, or human-trafficking victims, Patrick resides in Central America and at Hippo Wallow Pond, his family home outside of Minneapolis, Minnesota.
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ABOUT THE ILLUSTRATOR: ERNESTO ATKINSON
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Ernesto "Neto" Atkinson was born and raised in Antigua Guatemala. Even as a young boy, Ernesto expressed a great interest in art, and over the years his artistic influences grew with tremendous passion.
After graduating from El Gran Moyas High School, Ernesto traveled the world where he explored the arts and understanding of the human existence. He attended North Dakota State University where he began an architectural career but later focused more on the arts. He graduated in 2007 with a degree in visual arts.
He has been called "an artist who truly sees art as an active agent of change"; his work represents a contemporary movement which observes his experiences with everyday life, political and religious concepts, and philosophies.
Ernesto’s art is a mix of different media that represents the different faces and dissimilarities of society with her incomparable and multiple textures and colors.
Ernesto resides in Chicago, Illinois where he is earning a Masters in Art Therapy from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He volunteers with high-rish youth in the Chicago area, and displays his art through galleries and online at ErnestoAtkinson.com.
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Watch now the powerful life story of
Message For My Child book illustrator Ernesto Atkinson's personal journey through the street's of Guatemala and into the world of professional art therapy.
3 minutes
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