San Diego Union-Tribune (Sunday)
With a little help from his ‘Frens’
San Diego aerosol artist and author Dave ‘Persue’ Ross expands his Bunnykitty universe with a second book
It wasn’t so long ago that Dave Ross had a tough decision to make. Already highly successful in the skateboarding industry, he recalls that he could either keep plugging away at designing custom, graffiti-inspired skateboard decks and clothing, or he could leave it all behind to follow a passion that had been brewing in his mind for decades.
“I always wanted to do a brand that was all my own because I was always helping to build other people’s brands as the hired artist. I never had a stake in any of those companies,” says Ross, who did design work for big-name companies like Osiris and DC Shoes. “I always had this ability and was well-known for being able to conjure original characters just out of my imagination.”
To hear Ross tell it, what was forming was an entire universe of characters. At the center of this universe was Bunnykitty, a magical creature that Ross had been using in his graffiti and murals since 2001. Working under the artist name “Persue” — pronounced persway — Ross estimates that Bunnykitty has appeared in “thousands” of artworks all over the world.
He says he first sat down around 2003 and wrote a first draft of a backstory for the character, but he ended up sitting on it for 13 years before a series of circumstances inspired him to revisit it. First was the fact that he found himself creatively stifled by the skateboarding apparel industry he’d worked so diligently to help grow. Second, and most importantly, his mother, Diane Satenstein, was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. His mother had always been a champion of his creativity and was a fan of the Bunnykitty character. Looking back on it now, Ross recalls not wanting to waste any time when it came to working on the book with his mother.
“I was racing against the clock to get it out before my mother passed away, because she was losing her battle against Alzheimer’s,” Ross remembers.
The resulting book, “The Origins of Bunnykitty,” came out in 2016, just before his mother passed away. She is credited as the person who created the “magic spell” that turned an otherwise normal cat into the enchanted creature on the cover of the book. Ross had also moved to New York City around this time and says that his promotion of the book not only kept him busy, but helped him in many ways to get through the sadness over losing his mother.
“I feel like Bunnykitty and the cast of characters do a really good job at making those connections about community,” says Ross. “While I was touring the first book, I found myself hugging strangers and shedding tears with them. The book dropped as soon as she passed away, so I really used the book and its promotion as a way to grieve and mourn my mother’s passing. I really had to hit the ground running.”
‘Intense imagination’
If “The Origins of Bunnykitty” was a family affair, the recently released “Bunnykitty in the City” was created in the same spirit. The second book in what Ross is now calling the “Bunnykitty -N- Frens” series, the new story features familiar and even some new characters from the world Ross has created. He credits his brother and sister-in-law for helping him edit the story down from hundreds of pages of notes to a book filled with poetic language and elaborate illustrations.
“I have such an intense imagination. I didn’t originally have all the characters in place, but a majority of them I had in mind before I wrote the first book,” says Ross. “I knew who they were, and a lot of them were connected to my family and friends.”
While his sojourn in NYC might have inspired much of
“Bunnykitty in the City,” in many ways both books feel like an extension of Ross’ own life growing up in San Diego. Both stories touch on themes of self-acceptance in the face of being different, with the new book focusing particularly well on an antibullying message. Of course, the author’s signature style of graffiti-inspired illustrations pop off the page throughout, a style he began over 30 years ago while still attending Poway High School and Mt. Carmel High School.
“I think it all really started when I was a young boy and my mom and grandma recognized that artistic spirit of my work,” recalls Ross, who added pictures and a written tribute to the two women in the back of the new book. “They saw that in me early, and I was lucky in that they nurtured it.”
Expanding his brand
Ross says he’s building a world that could be seen as an extension of his own lived experience — a “Bunnykitty universe,” as he puts it — and hopes that the books resonate with enough readers to where he can continue to build and expand. He’s already branched out into Bunnykitty merchandise, such as plush dolls and keychains. He even wants to collaborate with his musician brother on music for the Slugganauts, a fictional band in the Bunnykitty universe.
“I believe a lot of the characters can stand alone and have their own adventures,” Ross says. “There’s about 28 characters in the new book, some more popular than others. Some people like the bluebird more than they do Bunnykitty.”
At this point, Ross says he’s grateful that he’s been able to do something all on his own. He says in the early days of planning out “Bunnykitty in the City,” and before recently moving back to San Diego, he would visit the historic Green-wood Cemetery in Brooklyn to find some quiet and frame out the new book. When asked whether he did this in hopes of channeling that same sort of fatalistic enthusiasm he had when he wrote the first book, Ross agrees that the spirit of his mother is still with him.
“I feel that I’m still really connected to my mother and, through Bunnykitty as a vehicle, it’s still sort of a collaboration between the two of us,” Ross says. “She told me before she passed that people were going to love Bunnykitty, and she was right. People do love Bunnykitty.”