Dery first applied her talent in the early days of the famous Avirex Corporation, creating designs that helped establish their flagship New York store, "The Cockpit," as the premier provider of high-end leather wear. She started with patches and then tried her hand at "nose art," designs taken from the noses of warbirds during World War II.

Dery graduated in 1982 from The School Of Visual Arts in Manhattan and has worked as a freelance artist since then in New York City, St. John in the US Virgin Islands, San Francisco's Russian Hill, Flagstaff, Arizona and, most recently, in Prescott, Arizona.

While she's known among friends and local media outlets for her personalized, witty sketches and cartoons, she's made her most distinguished mark on hand painted leather jackets and canvas. She says her favorite part of her work is the process: the time spent with clients before she ever picks up a brush.

"It's very interactive," she says. "I start to form the design in my head while I'm talking to them."

In her paintings for children of war vets, she frequently enriches those pictures with her own thorough research, sometimes uncovering information about the subject's enlisted service that the families never knew. She often travels for that research and to meet with customers so she can get a sense of who they are and get the ideas out of their head and down on paper.

"There is definitely a relationship that occurs as we work together to bring about a piece of art," she says.

By the end of the process, each painted design has become a unique and personal way to commemorate a veteran's place in history. The art is deeply meaningful to the vets and their families -- and that makes the pieces profoundly rewarding for Dery.

"Serving veterans has been an honor," she says. "I feel grateful to be able to repay them in some small way a debt I owe them for my freedom today."

Whether she's painting for war vets, motor buffs, athletes or entrepreneurs, Rosemary Dery hand paints with brushes and acrylics -- never an airbrush - in a many-layered technique whereby the paint seeps into the leather like a tattoo on skin. She tailors the finish to her customer's preferences, so it looks well-worn or brand new. The method results in designs that start out looking like they belong on the leather. The finished pieces are startling in their detail and will last for generations.