Posts Tagged ‘ Ainsley Sturko art ’

GRUMBLE TOY, November 20th, 2009 from 6pm – 9pm
Grass Hut Gallery ~ 811 East Burnside, Portland OR 97214

Chris Bryan and Ainsley Sturko, from Grumble Toy will bring you handmade plush, precious paintings, custom toys, and even a Grass Hut exclusive Manmorah!
Bwana Spoons put together a short interview for Hungry Eyeball with Chris and Ainsley:

How did you and Ainsley meet?
Ainsley: Chris and I met at the video store that I worked at. He would come in every Tuesday for the 2 for 1 deal and suspiciously he always ended up at my til. haha

Chris:

Was there any one thing that steered you in the direction of making monster art?
Ainsley: I always like to paint animals and little creatures but the monster art is definitely inspired by the toys that Chris and I collect.

Chris: Most of the art I still do is minimal audio works… Ainsley is the one with the visual skill. I’m always thinking about monsters, we get excited about ideas and she is able to bring them to reality. I feel better about my own drawings than I used to, but I much prefer Ainsley’s. If we count the custom toys.. well.. toys brought me there.

Is Grumble Toy a studio, brick and mortar shop or a web village?
Ainsley: Grumble toy is more of a web village. We run the business and do the art making right from the comfort of our home.

You now have two of your very own grumble creations Wormrah and Manmorah. What’s next for Grumble Toy?
Ainsley: Chris and I are hoping to put out some more toys in the future. Wormrah and Manmorah were both sculpted by Amapro in Japan. We feel very lucky to be able to work with Amapro and hope to collaborate more with him. Chris and I are also planning on producing toys that we have sculpted ourselves. We also hope to make vinyl toys based on a few of my characters such as Mookie and Ookie and the forest gremlin.
Chris: Yes, I think you can count on some more minis from the same world as Wormrah and Manmorah soon… that and some vintage inspired dinosaur toys.

Your favorite toy maker and why.
Ainsley: I have many favorites! But I guess I will just name two.
One of my favorite doll makers is takiyaje from Russia.? Her dolls are very well crafted and her attention to detail is amazing. They have a sort of surreal, spooky quality to them that I like.
One of my favorite kaiju toy makers is Elegab. I love his designs and his sculpting style. His toys are very textural and have great facial expressions. I really like that his designs are original. It seems many of the kaiju toys are tributes to movies, television or vintage toys.

Chris: Akk… I can’t name just one favorite! Amapro for sure, for so many reasons. Butanohana is great. I would love to see him do more original figures from his drawings. Yamomark is so much fun… ahhh… the list would go on and on. Dream Rocket and Siccaluna-Koubou for amazing paint applications… If you just look at the Grumble Toy shop.. those are all my favorite.

Tropical seas or big trees?
Ainsley: I dream of tropical seas but I am happiest in the prairies where it is hot in the summer and brutally cold in the winter. I think being cooped up in the winter forces us to be creative and make art. If the weather was nice all of the time we would probably spend all of our free time outdoors and not get much done. Haha!

Chris: Big Trees! I’m scared of tropical weather. We don’t have any seas here, or really big trees for that matter. I’m with Ainsley on our winter.. so cold, but we get a lot done, and don’t feel bad about staying in and playing video games for hrs on end.

Ok i think that’s it.