It was in the dark backalleys of MySpace that I first encountered Ryan Myers. In my desire to network myself into oblivion, I’d befriended hundreds upon hundreds of artists who seemed to be working in the same vein as myself. I also befriended pretty girls, because you can never have too many pretty girls aware of you. Mr. Myers grabbed my attention, though, from among the sea of creatives and pierced young thangs.
I’m a fan of plush items, most notably those bizarre little items that are hand-made, unique and completely out of the ordinary. ‘Plush’ has the automatic connotation of being for children, cute and soft and bedtime-huggable. I sleep with my fair share of plush cthulhu dolls and Spider-Men and octopeds well beyond an acceptable age to do so, and I’m not ashamed. Midwinter nights in upstate New York are frigid, and a little stuffed Hellboy might be just the right size to plug that hole at the bottom of your blanket. It’s purely for survival, you see.
Plush figures, especially those made by artists, are recently finding themselves highly desirable. We’ve gone far beyond the Beanie Baby obsession of yore and entered art and craft territory, populated by the Uglydolls and Shawnimals, and the countless creations of other mad sewing geniuses. Ryan Myers has found his way among these folks with his Melancholia mini-plush figures. These are handmade in small quantities, and packaged in mystery boxes, and completely sucked me into their charmingly morose world. For a mere eight dollars each, I couldn’t let myself miss out on them, and I wanted to know more.
Collin David [for CQ] : I suppose that the first question I should be asking you is exactly WHAT it is that you do. So what is it that you do?
Ryan Myers : I’m an artist trying to make himself known, I suppose.
David : Well, I came across you on MySpace and totally was blown away by your Melancholia mini-plushes.
Myers : Thank you, I appreciate that. I actually did a lot of foot work with them before I put them on MySpace.
David : Where are these coming from?
Myers : Well, initially the idea was derived from a reappearing figure in some of my paintings, which was a dead bunnyman. The first versions were quite larger, more of the uglydoll ilk. I gave away a few to friends and such. I thought about marketing some that way… they had x-out eyes and numbers on their chests.
David : X-eyes are the bomb.
Myers : Yes the bomb, but a pain in the ass hand sewn. They were metallic red, and it was quite cool, but I evolved them out of necessity, unfortunately. [Produces images of the original plushes]
David : Nice! Where did the face get changed to a painted face?
Myers : Those were about 10 inches tall, so when they got smaller. I think it was for sanity purposes.
David : These Melancholia are the first example of a semi-printed plush I’ve seen. It’s really innovative.
Myers : Yeah, I got a little inspiration from a friend of mine on that. He figures all this crazy art stuff out, then passes it along to me. We figured out a way to get my paintings onto Zippos at about the same time I was working on the smaller versions of the bunnies, and I think the idea kind of carried over. That, and the sullenness is more subtle with an alive face opposed to x-eyes.
David : It’s wonderful to innovate on these mundane and unusual processes and make totally unexpected things out of them.
Myers : Either that, or it’s art whoring. Haven’t decided yet. [laughs]
David : I like to think of it as dissecting what exists and making better things out of it!
Myers : I’m a ‘glass half empty’ guy.
David : I think that my glass is half full of hypersensitive bees and old milk. For real.
Myers : No, but seriously… since the shape is so basic, I like having inlaid detail, not reinventing the wheel. Just adding the bling rims.
David : There you go! You’re more adept at the hip analogies.
Myers : Either that or I watch too much ‘Pimp My Ride’.
David : These Melancholia mini-plushes are about 3 inches tall and also seem really intricate and labor-intensive.
Myers : I actually hand sew them. I am not handy enough with a sewing machine for the type of curves and things that need to be sewn. I’ve got it down quite well - I figure I’ve made about 50 to date, maybe more. All I know is I am running out of boxes.
David : Do you find that consistency is an issue with mass-production of this nature, or are the possible inconsistencies part of the inherent awesomeness?
Myers : I like the fact that each one is a little different…. Even though I guess I am sort of mass producing them each one is a hand made art object. I have spoken to some other more prominent plush people and they were aghast at how inexpensive I price them…
David : I admit I was also!
Myers : … but that was part of my reasoning for making them to begin with. I wanted people who liked my paintings but didn’t want to spend the sort of money - they deserve to be able to still have something hand made by me.
David : Who are some of the big-name plush people you spoke to? I met Jenny Harada (who is semi-plush) at Renegade and all of those people are incredibly kind.
Myers : Yeah yeah, I like her work quite a bit. Mainly it was Heidi of mypapercrane fame. We had some MySpace correspondence, [and] then we were in a show together. Strangely enough, I had some bunnies at Renegade but never have been to one myself. The gallery that sort of reps me in Philadelphia took some along with them and wound up selling them all. I would like to think of myself as semi plush too. That’s well on the way to my childhood dream of a nerf world.
David : So you’ve found yourself involved in that whole crafting subculture now.
Myers : Exactly - its weird, straddling the line. I think stores like KidRobot, amongst the many others, helped to blur the line of art and consumerism.
David : Do you shop there? What do you find yourself collecting for inspiration?
Myers : I was just there this past weekend, I love that place. I don’t really go there for anything specific… the Dunnys of course are always in the forefront, and they are fun. I have bought, painted and sold a bunch of the 8″ Munny. I have 3 in my closet waiting to be painted.
David : I totally have one ready to go also.
Myers : So now to answer your question which I avoided - umm, I don’t really gear myself towards any one artist or figure. There’s some Japanese guys or ladies who are great. I find a lot of stuff just surfing and browsing names, like Toki Doki. His Bastardino is great - the little dog in a cactus outfit. I tend to favor things in suits, I guess cause its similar to what I do.
David : Yeah, I dig the whole masquerade face-stickin’-out thing. It’s a subtle theme in the whole pop-surrealist world right now. And tentacles.
Myers : Yeah, my work gets compared a lot to Kathie Olivas, who works with a lot of those themes. She’s borderline-big reputation wise so I don’t mind the comparison. P. S. : I love that you said ‘pop surrealism’ instead of ‘lowbrow’. You just stepped up in my cool book.
Stay tuned for Wednesday, when I drop the rest of this man’s heavy, Melancholia soul all up on you.
I’m a bit of a purist when it comes to ‘designer’ toys. There needs to be a name attached to them - some struggling artist who’s managed to produce an interesting, unique product using their rent money, or through amazing happenstance, because they were noticed by a larger company who assisted their efforts. ‘Designer’ also means that the item’s price might be a little inflated, because each item is made by hand, and in limited numbers. Of course, the word ‘designer’ is also abused, slapped onto things that might be a little quirky so that a price inflation might be lexically justified.
The Deglingos come from France, or Montclair, NJ, depending on which part of the literature you read, and there are ten characters in the basic set, each one assigned a personality and a little back story. Each plush has eight or nine different fabrics stitched together, creating a very varied and textured surface that’s probably really fascinating to young minds and hands. You don’t really get the impression that the dolls were sewn together out of whatever was left in the rag bin, but there are enough intentionally loose threads and the occasional tatter to evoke that aesthetic.
Each Deglingo also has a ‘Baby’ iteration, made of less parts and simpler construction, suitable for infants, as well as ‘Discovery’ versions, with beads and interesting shapes to stimulate tiny little baby brains. Or very simple adult brains. Four Deglingos come in giant form, also, in case you want to bury your face in the quirkiness.
