Cuddly Rigor Mortis collection

In 1992, the year after Kristin Tercek graduated NYU Film School, she met her husband, Ed Mironiuk. Eleven months later they started their own company, Cha-Pow! Digital Ink and Paint, coloring animation for Coke commercials, Cartoon Network pilots and Saturday Night Live, to name a few.

In late 2005, as a hobby, Kristin started Cuddly Rigor Mortis LLC, hand making plush dolls of her own creation. She had never sewn anything before in her life. Her Cuddly characters quickly developed an international following and they were included in gallery shows (Gallery 1988, Rivet Gallery, etc) and magazines and fans found her from all over the world.

But after 3 and a half years of sewing the same patterns over and over again in her spare time, Kristin felt the need to expand her set of characters. She decided to put away the sewing machine and pick up a paintbrush. Self-taught at the age of eleven, painting has been a constant calling. No longer limited by the constraints of plush design, the range of Cuddly characters quickly grew to include food, real and imaginary animals, and charming plant portraits. Again, Kristin considers herself lucky that her paintings have been featured on top design and food blogs like Moco Loco and Eat Me Daily and exhibited in shows from artKitchen in Amsterdam to Gallery Nucleus in California to La Gaîté Lyrique museum in Paris.