by Amelia G : June 24th, 2008
I interviewed Kristin Tercek back in 2006 when she was first starting her Cuddly Rigor Mortis line. Since then, she has had a number of her designs mass-produced and distributed. She currently has a series of one-of-a-kind voodoo plushes available and going fast. We’ve got a gallery of her amazingly spooky-adorable voodoo dolls and I caught up with her for a quick chat about talismans for animistic deities.
Amelia G: What was the inspiration for your voodoo doll series?
Kristin Tercek: An awesome collector of our plushes wanted a voodoo doll (in our style) for his wife for Valentine’s Day. After a bit of sketching, Ed [Mironiuk] and I (well it was all Ed, really) came up with a basic pattern — mismatched button eyes, feathers on head and stitching. Then I spent a couple of days putting together different combos of colors and fabrics until one just hit. I liked having some freedom to not have to worry about whether or not I could source enough fabric or buttons for a lot of one specific character, but simply go and buy what I liked. Besides, who can resist a rainbow of feather colors to choose from?
Amelia G: Who are your voodoo dolls most suitable for torturing or do you not recommend sticking pins in them?
Kristin Tercek: I did some research on voodoo dolls and found that the ‘real’ ones are not for torturing or seeking revenge on anyone. They are really good luck charms and there should be 7 different colored pins representing different things like spirituality, health, repelling negative engery, etc. I put actual 3″ needles with different buttons on top into each plush so you can ’stick them’. But it makes it a bit …
Read more » | 2 Comments »
by Amelia G : October 1st, 2006
So I’m recuperating from the corisone shot I mentioned last week. I asked my BlueBlood.net friends, my 60,000+ Blue Blood MySpace friends, and my LiveJournal friends. Apparently I have a lot of different site-specific friends. I was surprised to only get five responses on BlueBlood.net. In my personal journal, I received eleven responses, ten of which were from people I have interacted with extensively, ranging from interfaced with digitally a whole lot to stayed up late with at science fiction conventions to lived with, and nine of which were from people I know in real life in different cities. It is nice that the journaling service helps me keep in touch with people from different places and times in my life, although sometimes the chasms between the different folks on there seem odd, given that they all intersect with me.
I would have expected my personal journal to have had the most responses, given that it seems most likely that the folks on there would be the most interested in what is going on with me personally. Not how it went. More than 250 people on MySpace responded, including people I have known for many years, people I have just met, people I have made art with, people I have worked with, people I have partied with, people I’ve met once, people I hope to meet someday, and people who seemed interesting but I’ve never chatted with before. More than 250 MySpace friends were generous enough to share their experiences to make mine a more informed one. I was both stunned and touched. MySpace sure has gotten to be about 680 million times cooler since FOX bought it. At any rate, it …
Read more » | 6 Comments »
by Amelia G : July 14th, 2006
I met the talented Kristin Tercek through Ed Mironiuk who has been doing artwork for Blue Blood projects since 1995 or 1996. But Kristin wouldn’t need nepotism to be covered here because I love love love her Cuddly Rigor Mortis doll collection. Kristin is also an accomplished illustrator and completely self-taught. She explains her fairly organic creative process, “I basically sketch out a design and then go to the fabric store and wander around, touching everything, holding it up to the light, stretching it out to see if it might be the right fit.” She generally has an idea what she is looking for. For example, the artist was sure her Pulp Fiction-inspired fetish plush Gimp “needed to be black leather or vinyl” and was pleased when she found just the right soft, black pleather. Some of her creations, however, such as the Tiki plush doll and matching purse came into existence because Kristin found a cotton wood grain print velvet fabric which just begged to be made into something cool.
Although Kristin Tercek’s Cuddly Rigor Mortis plushes have only just been launched, they have already appeared in Frontiers Magazine, been a Yahoo New & Notable and Daily Pick, and been part of the Plush Rush show at Acme Art Gallery in Ohio. Kristin even did an exclusive one-of-a-kind cuddly piece for Plush Rush called Gorbot. The seasonal Gingerbreadman plush was a featured item on Etsy the fast-growing online marketplace for all things handmade. Seasonal means that you can only order Gingerbreadman which his deliciously chewed-on head or the very cheerful Snowman between now and January 31, 2006, although this article will be archived to tease you after the moment of opportunity passes.
Here is our exclusive Blue …
Read more » | Post a comment »
