Born an only child in the small town of Breese, Illinois, Jerome Schmidt lost most of his hearing at an early age. Despite his lack of formal education, art quickly became his outlet for expressing his feelings and observations about life. As an adult, he ventured daily to his local library, where he would create beautiful sketches, paintings, and collages from outdated magazines and scraps of paper, all of which he signed with the mysterious pseudonym Adoni Chevez. These works, kept largely hidden until his death in 2005, betray an artistic sensitivity far more advanced than anyone who knew this reclusive yet extraordinary artist.