I have always been an avid listener of Public Radio and when I came across Studio 360 during my morning constitutionals to Bagel Boy when I was living in Bay Ridge, I knew I had discovered something special. After a few months of soaking in the program on the weekends, I decided to take action and wrote the staff of Studio 360 that I thought I had an interesting job where "art and life collide". Months went by with no reply and then out of the blue, I was contacted with an offer I couldn't refuse-- Could I make an action figure of the host, Kurt Andersen in exchange for a short segement on the nationally syndicated public radio show that focused on the creation of said action figure? Could I? Could I ?!? Roll sound and follow me!

The taping occured on two different days during two different seasons of the year, the latter being the unveiling of the figure Kurt to the real Kurt in my Greenpoint Studio. The fluorescent lights above and table fans made too much background noise for the microphones so Kurt and I, along with two technicians sat in my sweltering, dimly lit studio trying to mine at the meaning of minature vanity while beads of sweat trickled down everyones temples. It was a great day.

I'm very happy with the folds in the clothing sculpt and texture on the sweater. That was achieved by 'stamping' the clay with a piece of coarse fabric while the clay was still slightly soft. I also had a blast creating the alternate Kurt's on the back of the packaging, done almost entirely in Photoshop. Two things to point out there--the rocketpack on the back of Kurt 3000 is actually the tips of two ICBM's taken from Google and the silver helmet comes from an old Visionaries figure. The 1989 Kurt, or "Springfield Kurt", or copyright infringement Kurt, comes from a tracing I made in Illustrator and then adjusted to more closely resemble Mr. Andersen. 10 points for anyone who can identify the Springfield citizen I based it on!!

I'd like to thank Kurt Andersen for his generosity, geniality and insighful questions. I'd also like to give special thanks to Eric Molinsky for championing my cause month after month until a spot on the programming schedule opened up and for making me sound both giddy and compassionate in the final edit of the segment. If you have not listened to Studio 360, then I heartily encourage you to check out your local public radio stations or go to www.studio360.org for airtimes, archives and info.

" Russ Tucker is a great craftsman and a delightful human being." -- Kurt Andersen

If you would like to listen to the Studio 360 interview with Russell Tucker talking about Highly Flammable Toys, please click on the link here and then click on the headphones icon next to the phrase "Action Figure".

Please click on the thumbnails for a larger picture. The picture will load into a new window.