Rebuild Rikki & Tavi's Studio

Rikki Simons is organizing this fundraiser.

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I'm Rikki Simons and I work with Tavisha Wolfgarth-Simons. We've been making and publishing art, comics, and illustrated books for 25 years. I'm also a voice actor. I was the voice of GIR on Invader ZIM.

We met at Disneyland in 1990 and we were married on Halloween in 1994. We've been working together professionally since we met. We've always judged our success as artists on our ability to make enough money to live in a small apartment and pay our bills, and in the peace and quiet that this simple life offers we can create more stories and art. In doing this, we’ve been pretty successful. The real challenge the past few years has been trying to make our lives a little better.

In 2003, Tavi's wonderful mom was stricken with dementia and we became her conservators. This involved night-and-day coordination with caregivers, doctors, psychologists, lawyers, judges, hospitals, psych wards, dementia care facilities and social workers (and police, when on one occasion she walked away from a facility and vanished onto the streets for four days). We cared for her for 9 years, until her passing in 2012 when she was 66. When it was over with, we were heartbroken and mentally exhausted. Several things also happened as a result: during the course of those nine years I stopped voice acting and our art studio slowly fell apart.

This GoFundMe champaign is here to help us do that, make things a little better, and since everything we do is connected with our art and our studio, it’s just that: our studio is what we need help with.

There are several things we need to do to improve ourselves. The first is:

A new Voice Over Demo. I haven’t recorded a demo in a decade, and if I want to find new work it’s essential that I have something to show other than GIR and Bloaty the Pig. A good professionally directed demo is expensive, because I will be making it with professionals who who should be paid for their time.

Two desks. A computer desk for Tavi and an art desk for me. I haven't had an art desk in two decades. This is mostly because we live in small places, and since Tavi does most of the drawing in our books, and I usually do the writing and painting, it seemed logical that she should have an art desk while I would use a computer. But recently, after a series of nervous breakdowns, I started drawing again. That may sound like a horrible way to get back to one's art, but it's actually really great. It's so wonderful to be able to look at a blank page again and realize something can be done with it. I've been drawing at the kitchen table but my 44 year old back tells me this probably isn't a great idea.
Tavi's computer desk is her old art table from the 1980's, which wasn't a very suitable art table and is an even worse computer desk.

Two chairs. We've had the same two chairs for ten years now. They're held together with packing tape and creaking hope.

A reliable scanner and more computer memory.

Two pairs of glasses with eye exams, one for Tavisha and one for me. We haven't had eye exams since before tavi's mom passed away, and these pages we're working on aren't getting any less blurry as we get older.

A new Mic, headphones, and a portable sound booth. All of these are needed for me to make professional auditions at home or on the road.

We would like you to have something in exchange for your help. As a reward for anyone who gives at least $20, you can request either an autographed print of one of the characters I voiced (like GIR or Bloaty) or a small signed sketch by either myself or Tavi (please specify if the sketch should be of GIR or Bloaty or of one of our own characters, whether you would like it drawn by me or Tavi). This reward is limited to 150 people.

Thank you everyone!