Jordan Green | WeINSPIRE Journalist

• Heather Rogers challenged herself to read one book about every U.S. president.

• She then started a blog where she updates with recent facts she’s learned but makes them into drawings.

• She is working on a book with fun facts and drawings. 

Read Time –  6 minutes

MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Learning about the presidents is something that seems reserved mostly for history buffs and students studying before an exam. However, 20 years ago, Heather Rogers made a bet with herself to read a book about every president. She ended up creating an online platform called Project POTUS Pages, where she shares drawings of the presidents and interesting facts about the mundane parts of their lives. Rogers is working on releasing a book full of her drawings and fun facts.

The whole reason why Rogers even challenged herself to read about the presidents was because of a conversation she had 20 years ago between a colleague and her husband, then boyfriend at the time.  When the topic of presidents came up, she realized she couldn’t keep up with the conversation at all. So, she announced to her colleague and husband that she was going to read one book about every president. Her husband said there was no way she was going to go through with it, so it became a “little bit of a spite project.” 

“He was totally right,” Rogers says. “If he hadn't said that, there's no way I would've done it.” 

Rogers never intended to have an online presence with her artwork. When she first started reading books about the presidents, she didn’t even really doodle – she mostly took notes. After a while, she realized that she couldn’t remember most of the stuff she had taken notes of. So she did what every person does when they can’t remember things they had studied — she started drawing her notes. 

Rogers says, “My early sketchbook was just basically, it was like taking notes. You could hardly call it a sketchbook. And sometimes I was writing verbatim different chunks. So it must have just been percolating back there that maybe this could be something, but that was kind of not a realistic thought I had.” 

Rogers got her start with art when she was a child, however, she stopped when she got older because she didn’t have the time. She took drawing up again when she noticed that she wasn’t able to remember most of the notes she took on the biographies she read. 

She originally had no plans of sharing her notes or her journey with anyone else, but a woman she met at a design conference was the final push she needed to go ahead and give it a try. Even though she had that push, she was still hesitant about starting. 

“I kind of went about it kicking and screaming if I'm being honest,” Rogers says. 

Rogers emphasizes most of this project has come about through play and experimentation. She makes sure to take all of her notes in pen so she is not focused on all of the little imperfections. This can be seen all over her website and Instagram page where there are large arrows. (Hint: they are covering up errors.) 

“I want to get the material out there as quickly as I can without worrying about being super precious about it,” Rogers says. “And I think you can see in my sketchbook sometimes the words look pretty good and then they get smaller and smaller and smaller as I'm running under their page. Don't let perfection be the enemy of the good.” 

Rogers just ended her three-month sabbatical dedicated to her book. She decided to take a break from working as a graphic designer to dedicate some time to writing her book and reading more about the presidents. She discovered that the most enjoyable part of this entire process is not drawing or learning but the combination of the two. There is no way to get the entire life of a person from just one author, so she is trying to read from multiple perspectives about each president to see who they were as people. 

“I never got stagnant, but I think ultimately it was just time,” Rogers says. “I just needed to be able to dive in on this for a little bit before I figure out what's next. I still wanna keep learning, and it's gonna slow me down on creating my own book, but I still just can't get enough.”

As for the near future, Rogers is going to continue working towards getting her book published. She is also going to continue working on her blog and reading as often as she can. There is hope that her work will inspire others to continue with their passions and to not be afraid to take a leap of faith.  

“I am hoping that my work educates and entertains enough to spark people to want to learn more about history,” Rodgers says. “It's so important to learn where we came from to make sure we're headed in the right direction and we're not repeating mistakes of the past.”