LAKE PLACID, N.Y. (WCAX) – A Lake Placid artist is reflecting on his work featuring former President Jimmy Carter, who was laid to rest last week.
For almost four decades, Lake Placid native Nip Rogers has spent his days putting his ideas onto canvas.
“It’s basically telling a story — short form,” Rogers said.
He says he’s spent most of his life as an illustrator, telling stories with each stroke of his brush.
However, he says he started to pursue a new path in the 2000s. “I do pretty good portraits. Let me see if I can venture off into that world,” Rogers said.
He started a series of portraits that depicted famous figures in the 20th century. His resume eventually landed him a dream opportunity with the late former President Jimmy Carter’s nonprofit, the Carter Center. “I always loved Jimmy Carter as a president. He was actually the first president I ever voted for,” Rogers said.
His first work was as an illustrator on the nonprofit’s 2007 annual report. “It went so well that years later that the same art director was like, you know, we had so much success with them, with him as the illustrator, they hired me to do a second one,” Rogers recalled.
Rogers went on to do the cover of the 2022 and 2023 annual reports, the latter a portrait of Carter and his wife Rosalynn. Depictions of a former president who he says was a force of nature inside and out of the White House. “I feel like he thought his community was the world. It was all peace-related, helping people that were suffering and helping people to thrive,” Rogers said.
Portraits he hopes to continue with the nonprofit.