who we are

bearchilde is a team of highly motivated professional artists who each specialize in multiple artistic disciplines. After many years of honing our skills, we’re transforming our single bear units into one giant megabear, joining forces for multimedia projects big and small.

what we do

We bears are especially adept, between the four of us, at visual arts, lighting, music, writing, sewing, tech, video editing, and physical space building.

our mission

The bearchilde mission is simply to make art that encourages play and participation.es. (more on Mary coming soon)

the individual ‘childes

Jess Estes

I’m Jess, the artist also known as Pookie McNoodles, and I’ve been making art and hustling since the day I was born. My professional work includes co-founding an independent record label, working as an illustrator, designer, app and web developer, kid’s educational content and program developer, and writing for network television and big screen.

I’m into playing with light and color, as well as cats. Mostly cats.

I’m the one behind the t-shirts around this joint.

Let’s party.

 

Tyson Estes

Tyson would like to entertain you. A former producer, art director, set dresser in the television and film industry, Tyson has spent the past decade working as an abstract artist. He has developed several techniques and processes with which he makes his beautiful organic, large-scale abstracts, and is known for his texture work and use of unconventional materials.

His pieces can be found around the world in homes and professional buildings, and galleries in California and Texas. He specializes in ethereal, transcendent colors, textures and compositions, and excels in creating spaces designed to build a mood. Tyson and Jess love building light sculptures.

 

Rob Waz

I love music and sound and have been a musician my entire life. I grew up as a trombonist in high school (were there really no saxophones left when we were picking instruments???) and went on to write music in all types of capacities from songwriting for bands I’ve been in, to scoring films, to producing records. I currently run a music production company (52nd Street Productions) with co-producer and musician Mark Rodriguez, in addition to producing music with my bearchilde friends.

I first went to Burning Man two years ago and was captivated by all of the large scale art. So many things you could climb on and interact with! I also loved the inclusive community. This started me thoughts churning about a way to mesh my love of music and sound into an immersive art piece that would break down a sonic composition into its individual elements in a way that also really highlighted how they fit back together. I wanted to highlight themes of community and the dynamics of tribe interaction and how it plays against individuality. Like all great works of art the piece came together on the back of a napkin over a few beverages between me and Mary.

I couldn’t be more excited about putting the Sound Gestalt project together and am particularly looking forward to continuing my composition of the music and sound, as well as collaborating with so many good friends in bringing the physical and visual aspects of the project to life. I won’t sugar coat it: There is also some apprehension in taking on such an ambitious work, but it’s always exhilarating to aim high and dream big. I’m grateful for all of you who are following and supporting our progress. Being surrounded by such a great community means the world to me!

Mary Kirmo

This is Mary Kirmo, and in addition to being an adept and creative seamstress, she helps run Extraordinary Artists (artist management) and Extraordinary Records. She’s a marketing and promotions master, activist, artist wrangler, and social media maven who enjoys producing artistic projects. As a member of the Burning Man organization art department, Mary is hands-on with all the Burning Man installation piec