Danamarie Hosler makes art for the young and the young at heart. With her cozy, colorful art style, Hosler brings to life scenes of children playing, fantasy creatures and animals. A common muse for her is the humble pigeon, which serves as the namesake for her social media presence and online shop, mightyPigeon.
Readers may have seen Hosler’s art without realizing it. In addition to several murals throughout the Baltimore area and artwork on cans of Charm City Meadworks’ beer, Hosler has created official art for the true crime podcast “My Favorite Murder,” and her illustrations appear as interstitials in the “Muppets Haunted Mansion” special on Disney+.
And she often illustrates picture books, with two of her latest projects, board books “The Clean-Up Monster” and “My Dinosaur Shoes,” having been released in November. Hosler says she was always passionate about picture books as a child, and illustrating them was a lifelong dream.
“I don’t think I can remember a time where I ever thought of doing anything other than being an artist for a living,” Hosler recalls. “I remember being six and knowing I wanted to be a children’s book illustrator. I was really picky about the children’s books I read. If I didn’t like a certain illustration, I’d take that page out of the book or draw something I thought was better onto the page.”
Hosler is a Miami native, but she moved to Baltimore to attend the Maryland Institute College of Art. She initially attended MICA for its painting program, but shifted her focus to the school’s newly developed illustration major. Hosler now teaches illustration at MICA, and her solo exhibition “art/work & color/play” was held there in January and February 2025.
Much of Hosler’s body of work is focused on accessibility and diversity. Many of her pieces that are not meant for children’s books or other clients center on her experience as an autistic artist.
“I spend a lot of time focusing on how to make art that explains what it’s like to live with my brain, so people with different brains can look at my pieces and get something out of it,” she says. “I make work that tells [that] story from the inside out as much as possible. I don’t want to alienate anyone, either, because feeling alienated or like you’re too different is a big part of the autistic experience.”
Her personal work often features characters with blank expressions or missing facial features, a stark contrast from the happy scenes of her children’s book illustrations.
“I think it’s an autistic thing, but I like blank expressions, or expressions that can be interpreted by the viewer,” she notes.
Hosler is also a fiber artist, with her plushies serving as the focal point of her “art/work & color/play” show. The show was meant to serve as a career retrospective, though she notes that it was also in part about the difficulties of putting together an art show while neurodivergent. The show’s centerpiece was the “Rumpus,” a wall installation featuring an array of colorful handmade plushies.
She first started making plushies when she was in college, starting with a knitted cat to keep her company while she was sick and alone. Hosler initially kept this stuffed animal a secret, but it’s actually what started her online business.
“I had this idea that it wasn’t fair that I felt sick and didn’t have a stuffed animal to cuddle, but that as an adult, I wasn’t supposed to have stuffies anymore,” Hosler says. “I made this doll and kept it a secret for the rest of the year, until a friend found it and encouraged me to make more. I don’t hand-knit dolls anymore, but I’ve made hundreds of them over the past decade.”
That initial stuffed cat was even on display at Hosler’s art show, alongside many of her more recent plush creations.
One thing Hosler is particularly passionate about is advocacy through art. Causes like the Black Lives Matter movement and transgender rights and representation have always been important to her, with her art often depicting diverse groups of people. She’s received pushback for this commitment to diversity in the past, recalling an instance when one of her murals was criticized for being “too diverse,” but that pushback only made her more determined to better represent all different kinds of people.
“It’s really important to me that my work is representative of the world we live in,” Hosler says. “I draw children who look like the children I see in the community. You’re going to see diverse races, you’re going to see people with wheelchairs, people with cochlear implants. … We still very much need artwork that teaches and represents.”
Ultimately, Hosler hopes that her art can educate as much as it can brighten people’s day. Making people happy with art may seem like a humble mission, but Hosler says that it’s been more important than ever over the past few years, which have been filled with tragedy for many.
“We have to be vigilant and keep protecting ourselves and our fellow citizens,” she adds. “But if you can take a moment to take a breath and care for yourself and feel some joy for a moment, that makes me feel like I’ve done my job. I feel pretty small in the grand scheme of things, but if I can make a piece of art that makes you feel better in the moment, that’s a pretty big ask.”