Wanna read an interview

Yeah it's with me... I did this awhile back and forgot to post a link. The very nice Stoopid Preacher over at Dark Obsessions was kind enough to take time and ask me stuff. My verbose replies can be found here. I crap on, so ye have been warned...

Monster Art Rally in San Francisco

The new branch of the awesome Gallery 1988 (responsible for such things like Plush Week) in San Francisco is having a monster themed show in October. At the moment I'm working on a Classical themed monster quintet of plush, based on Greek mythology. I'm playing around with ideas like a little Medusa girl, a drunk faun kid etc etc. Been having a super fun time with the prototypes so we'll see if it changes as I proceed!

Monster Invasion

If anyone happens to be in Sydney in August, Ruban Rat Gallery is having a fun little show called Monster Invasion. I've got a new Yeti piece to go in it, who happens to be riding an insane mountain goat. I've got a cute little bomber monster character with a huge beanie on it and some of the new Poltergoosts going in. I'll post pics soon.

Poltergoost expansion

Poltergoosts have definitely been one of my more popular pieces. Intially I created the 'goost to fit in with my favourite plush, Kit the green haired dolly thingie that started this blog. I wanted her to have a variety of crazy pals and some of the pieces I've created in the last year have been about that. The Poltergoost is striking out on his own now though. he's too much a ghost to play second fiddle to any girl and is moving like some kind of cute virus through technology old and new.

Here's an image of a black and white tv that's on it's way to Gallery 696 in Melbourne. It's my first attempt and I intend to make one of those old 50s style wooden cased TV's using the same fabric.

I've also started to make an arcade game Poltergoost, the PolterArcade. For some reason the bloody camera wouldn't take a full size shot of the image, so there's only a close up. Perhaps the camera is haunted as well!

If I get my hands on dye sublimation technology I'm going to redesign the screen to make it more detailed and better. This was me using some fabric I was able to find online.

And we have a Poltermac or an iGhost as my darling boyfriend suggested. It's based on a certain well designed computer from the late 90s that was available in some lovely colours. am making a keyboard and mouse to go with it.

Intending to make a PolterPSP, a PolterSNES, a Polter Mp3 player and a Polterphone. Will obviously have to redesign so as to not comprimise the exisiting copyrights for the things but will see how I go. Try not to be disturbed by the fact that the PolterArcade is playing with his own joystick!

More packages!

Just sent a huge box of Bad Bunnies off to Uncle Festers in Victoria. They're a cute horror themed shop three quarter of an hour's drive out of Melbourne ( I wonder how that goes down with the Sunday drivers out looking for Devonshire Teas). They also have these cute little guys, the Boneyard Bears. Zombie looking bears with nooses around their necks get kudos from me. They're made by Victorian artist Daisy D'eath (cool name). If you're interested in twisted plush of any kind, you can get them online or in person of you happen to be driving by Woodend Vic.

Another bunch of stuff is going to Kismet Gallery in New York. It's interesting how the same pieces work differently in different galleries. I think Kismet is just getting into the whole toy thing, they had a big toy show at Christmas. They have quite an interesting "art activist" philosophy. Anyway they seem to be selling my stuff at a steady pace, so if you're in Troy in New York, drop on by and have a look

Plush It

This is a new show Rachel Coleman and myself are organising and curating. Like many of the vinyl custom shows, we will be sending out templates to the participants to customise and make their own for a plush toy exhibition.

Details are below if you are interested

Looking for plush artists, toy designers and those wishing to wet their toes in the stormy seas of plushiness

Ruban Rat, an exciting newcomer in the Designer Toy scene in Sydney, Australia, along with plush designer Serena Kuhl are holding a custom plush show, November 12th, 2008. The show will be a collection of international plush artist’s interpretation of a template provided by the organisers, with an emphasis on ingenuity and creativity in the interpretation of the template’s basic shape. A documentation of the process will be recorded on the Plush It blog leading up to the show, giving a bit of an insight into plush artist’s creative process.


Think you’re interested? Please send no more than three small jpegs to plush.it@hotmail.com and a link to your site/Flickr page/blog/showcase of your work along with an email address you would like the template sent to as a file. Once artist’s have been selected we will contact you and provide you with a copy of the template below so you can start work!
Blog: http://plush-it.blogspot.com
Applications end by April 1st and hopefully we should have made decisions about who’s in by the 24th

Evolution of the Poltergoost

The Poltergoost was the kind of piece I really love. It cracks me up, it was based on an aspect of popular culture (..The Ring still freaks me out...) and people seem to like it! My relationship with the outside world with my work is a little odd. I made a little gingerbread man for the Stuffed art show at Munky King. He's cute and looks like a typical gingerbread man. He has the signature "Kuhl" eyes but other than that, nothing to distinguish him from all the other gingerbread plush out there. Yet when I post him on Flickr I get bazillions (more like five...) of responses to him. This always confuses me as surely we have been desensitised to the ordinary cute by the sea of kawaii imagery...but I digress.

So Poltie is great for the opposite reason. Whilst I am willing to bet there are other plush Poltergoosts out there, in TVs on different parts of the world, there aren't many and it is a kinda left of centre kind of idea. Creativity kids, I guess is what I'm talking about. Not great gobs of paint, drinking in bars in New York Artists as Hero kinda wank, I am a PoMo gal meself. No one would even be able to recognise what the plush was without the original idea coming from the inventors of Poltergeist and The Ring. Nope it's more that weird pleasure you get out of making your brain stretch in directions other than where you usually go. Anyway here is the original Poltergeist in all his zigzaggy glory

This was Poltergoost, original series. A few people got one in his present form. Then the faric ran out. I don't know if you can see it, but this fabric is an insane woven lycra from Italy that has a mix of lime green, purple, dark blue and yellow running through it, it's amazing. I got it back in '97 when I was doing postgrad and have subsequently found out it's alllll gone. Shop closed, stock sold, no more. This has led to the evolution of the Poltergoost

The next stage was altering the form a bit, I like how the original looked but soon lost the pattern that makes up the little guy in the centre of the TV. Not to worry says I, I'll make another. I made about five and none looked the same and I wasn't happy how the one's I made looked. Hmmmm..time to go back to the drawing board.

This is when Poltergoost evolved into Poltergrab. The little hands with the tiny fingers work in any fabric I use. He looks a little more "gonna getcha". So overall, happier with him. but still, got no new fabric. (This particular plush is at Plush you in Seattle right now)

So here's a lycra I picked up of Flea Bay. It's a print made for Speedo I think. It's kinda swirly and inter-dimensional looking. Yeah... I don't like it much either...

My next trial was to try a different colour swirl (there was a comment about green fabric being kinda dark) and with grabby hands to see if it worked. I like it better, but still...This one's going to Rivet Gallery for their Stuff This! show

Which brings me to the current piece. Poltergoost: the Next Generation. He is zigzaggy (didn't reaslise how much that made a difference until I used a zigzag fabric again), wish it was a little crazier colour wise but still.. He has grabby hands and a wide shit eating grin, which was supposed to be part of the original design. I wanted him to be the ghost of a Guy Smiley type of character. I think it works...and hopefully you do too. This little guy is making his debut at the MF Gallery Toy Show in New York

tinyshop

Yep the lack of capitals is deliberate. Antoinette Celes is putting on a showcase of very very small works at Double Punch in San Fransisco on the 17th of November called tinyshop. I was faced with the challenge of making plush no more then 3" high. It was a lot of teeny, teeny sewing and using the littlest buttons I could possibly find for eyes. I actually like shows that have a set theme, I find riffing off the themes posed can be a great opportunity to develop new ideas and force a bit of creativity out of the ol noggin. Well, lo and behold me hearties and see the majesty that is Tiny Bunny (I like capitals..)

Is he not cute? Do you not want to rub your nose on his cute little face that in sum total is probably smaller than your nose. He's cute as a button, and the same size as many buttons.

Tiny will be in strictly limited release at tinyshop (there's one) but if you can't get to San Fran for a little baby bunny action, check out my Etsy store, I'm makin them to order over there. Tiny...you know you want some

MF Gallery Toy Show

Yeah there's a bit of toy-showness happening around my place at the moment. MF (Martina and Frank) Gallery has a toy show in New York around this time each year I think. Apart from being toy makers themselves, they allow the rest of us plebian toy makers to put our stuff on their walls. I'll be sending in a green haired Kit (see below post) a Poltergoost and a Siamese Bunny.

Siamese Bunny has a weird history. He is a part of the Bad Bunnies series and was really just a prototype that i didn't like much. here's a pic of the original on the left. The new Siamese came about as he was really really popular at the show I had at Happy Yess. So in the face of popular opinion I have resurrected the little guy with a few changes and here he is! Check him out if you're in New York around November 10th.

Stuff This!

No, not a response to all Year 12s requests for help even though i have told them all year to get their work done early (I keep waiting for them to fear my wrath..they kinda laugh instead), Stuff This is a plush show happening at the fairly newish Rivet Gallery in Columbus, Ohio. I am a bit time poor at the moment, and the request was for one of a kind pieces if possible. I did the Claytons version of a one of a kind piece, I produced a new colourway of an exisiting piece! Yeah, lame, I know... Anyway here's magenta haired Kit!

In comparison to the green haired original that started this blog!
There will be a Mariot cactus and a Poltergoost in one of the fabrics I'm trialling, so again, new colourway, old design. Does it help that these are designs I really really like and think are my better ones. Jeez, excuses, I'm just like the kids

Stuffed: Food Plush at Munky King!

The lovely Sarah Jo of DKE Toys accepted some of my onions and other food related plush even though I was very late in getting in contact for a show called "Stuffed: a plush food extravaganza" at the very cool Munky King on Melrose Ave, LA, USA. The brief is as suggested in the title, to collect together a whole lot of plush food creations together and create the lowest calorie buffet anyone could ask for this close to Christmas (I wonder what the calorific content of fake fur is anyway?) Anyway as i'm just about to go back to teaching for the worst four weeks of the whole year (Year 12 students getting ready for handing in the work I have nagged them all year for...grrr!) I haven't had an opportunity to make anything new, so I have revampred and redesigned one of my first creations: Rotten Egga

At the top we have renewed and reinvented Rotten Egga, with growly expression and a teeny safety pin in his nose and below we have old Egga. He may actually be the same one that's in this pic! Anyway I tried to make him look a little more punk as Egga's story is a sad one

Anyway, if you'd like to see some plushy food and perhaps pick up a new and improved Rotten Egga, check out Munky King on the 1st of November!

Piece for the Mega Gwin Show

The very nice people over at October Toys asked me to be part of their Mega Gwin Show in October. This entails customising a 11 inch vinyl Gwin, or in my case making an 11 inch plush Gwin.

Did I ever mention that I had difficulties following instructions? When I was a highschoolie and wanting to pursue a career in the arts (silly, silly girl...) I refused to do anything design based, as at the time at my school it was all about doing what the client wanted. Me, the raging egotist, wanted only to pursue the unique and wonderful vision I knew I possessed inside me. I got a very bad tattoo at a dodgy tattoo parlour to commemorate this certainty.

Well now that I am old, I thought I could get past this. I no longer believe that all art of quality in the world will be made by these two hands. I recognise my place in the world, I've gotten over myself, I can now, freed of teenage arrogance, make something based on someone else's work.

Yeaaaah. About that. See below my interpretation of a Gwin

Sooooo, where's the penguin you might ask? This bears no resemblance to the Linux mascot you say? How in anyway does this relate to the Gwin project you might point out. Hmmm, it appears my inner 17 year old is alive and well and not wanting to do as she's told (she never did.) I tried Dear Reader, I could post you some very very ugly prototypes that were sincerely based on the Gwin vinyl figure. In the end the deadline came, I didn't want to pull out of the project and I had to make something. And the stupid thing is, I like it! If you've seen Takashi Murakami's work

You'll see where I get my inspiration from. Oh well.... not what I was asked to do but cool yes?