When Sarah Booz and Kyle Kirwan decided to leave their apartment in Bushwick and travel the country by RV, they did not expect to be still be doing it two years later. But they’ve been able to adjust to life on the road and find time and space to work on their respective crafts.
Booz explains how she and her now-fiance Kirwan got into RV ownership in the first place: “When we first met, Kyle started joking that we should move into an RV and run away together. It was never something I took very seriously since our relationship was so casual, but the next thing I knew we were living together.”
Sandwich, as the RV is lovingly called, came from outside of Philadelphia and has a bedroom, a full bathroom, a kitchen with more counter space than what you’d normally find in a cheap Bushwick renovation, and an all-purpose space perfect for writing, working, eating, and everything in between.
Kirwan is a designer toy maker specializing in one-of-a-kind resin sculptures. One of my favorites is the Willo, a kind of forest creature with antlers, a rounded back, and a tiny penis protruding from its underbelly.
His most recent creation is a plush Willo, a pink and cuddly version of the original, sans penis. He launched a Kickstarter with UVD Toys earlier this month to fund the initial production run of the toys and has already raised a little over 30 percent of his goal.
Booz explains that “the idea for a plush Willo has been floating around for years. It just took a push from UVD Toys to make it a reality. The original plan, years ago, was that I would make them, but then we moved into an RV and the sewing machine went into storage and here we are.”
Only $30 will get you the cuddly creature to give as a gift or keep for yourself. But the bonus rewards are equally enticing from pins to mini figurines all with the same kind of enigmatic faces as Willo itself.
And Booz’s work? That can happen anywhere. Her writing, knitting, and jewelry making don’t take up very much space at all, and regular blogging only requires internet access, which we are all lucky to have on our phones (or unlucky, depending on who you ask).
You might imagine that working on an RV, especially at intricate work like casting and painting highly-detailed resin figures might be a bit of a challenge but Booz says: “If Kyle is casting resin he’ll set up a table outside, but all painting and everything else happens inside. RV living makes you really good at putting things away when you’re done with them. Everything has its place and because it’s so small it only takes about 15 minutes to tidy up.”
If that doesn’t already sound like heaven, imagine no roommates, not having to put on pants to go to the bathroom, and never having to pack when you go on vacation.
Do they plan on returning to Bushwick? Eventually, but for now, you can follow their adventures on their blog.
All images courtesy of Sarah Booz and Kyle Kirwan.