Mike King's work is well known in the Portland area.

Want to get a bit closer to your cat? Husband and wife team Jason and Tara O’Mara of PDX Pet Design are raising money on Kickstarter to bring their next big idea for cats and cat fanciers to market. It’s basically a big silicone tongue called a LICKI Brush that lets humans simulate the “licking” that cats adore.

Sounds bizarre but this is not a Jimmy Fallon sketch.

“We wanted to find the next way to improve our cats’ lives,” says Tara. “We have three cats and we spend a lot of time watching them groom each other.” Experiments rubbing a kitchen sponge under their cats’ chins lead the O’Maras to believe they were onto something.

Cats who live with other cats groom one another to show affection. It’s a social as well as a practical function of keeping clean. A cat’s first experience, O’Mara explains, is being licked by its mother. So LICKI Brush lets us humans become cat-like by mirroring feline behavior. In a cat’s eyes, we are actually just big cats after all.

The Southeast Portland residents launched a successful previous Kickstarter project called Shru, a battery-powered smart toy for cats that raised $170,000 in backer money. Manufactured in China, Shru is sold directly online through pdxpetdesign.com and on Amazon for $99.

“It was our first experience on Kickstarter. Even though Shru is selling really well, we’re just breaking even,” Tara explains from the road on her way to — where else? — a cat show in Seattle. They’ll also be at CatCon in Los Angeles on June 25 and 26, an event attended by 12,000 people last year.

The LICKI Brush will be less expensive to make and to sell, and could be the next big thing at pet stores, selling for an approachable retail price.

Kickstarter backers can own one for a $19 support pledge. The “Crazy Cat Person Pack” is for pledges of $124 and up and includes 10 brushes.

Right now the O’Maras have a 3-D printed prototype. The final product will be made of silicon rubber and should be ready to deliver in January of next year.

“We were late delivering Shru, and that can be really stressful,” she says. Like Portland’s most high-profile Kickstarter project, the Coolest Cooler? “Yes, that could have been us. The pressure of that could really break your spirit,” says O’Mara, referring to the often tricky part of keeping up with demand once a crowdfunded product takes off.

But in spite of the risks there is plenty of support out there, O’Mara says.

“We’re hooked into a network of entrepreneurs and crowd funding folks who support creative ideas. It seems like anything is doable if you have a good idea.”

Campaigns to Watch

“Maximum Plunder, the Poster Art of Mike King”

On: Crowd Supply

Goal: $18,000

Deadline: July 7

So far: $9,630

Anyone acquainted with Portland telephone poles knows King’s work. Locals ogled it while waiting for a bus, standing on a corner for the light to change or while eating Souvlaki at Satyricon’s Eat or Die Café. Now Portland poster artist Mike King is raising money on Crowd Supply to publish a retrospective of his design work that amasses a deluge of posters between its covers. The book includes 1,100 collage-based posters that span the better part of three decades and includes regional and international bands. The artistic outpouring comes from one who has cranked out posters at a breakneck speed with no signs of slowing. An “unrepentant freelance hustler,” King currently resides in Manhattan. “There are very few projects I won’t do,” he says. Text by King includes “quotes and thoughts about shows and little bits of things to read.”

“Mine’s not a high-profile world,” Kings says, “even though it may be seen by a lot of people.” His first poster, as best he recalls, was one he made as a student at MLC in Northwest Portland, where kids were taught screen-printing. “It was for a Couch Park cleanup.”

He mines the “stuff we’re bombarded with daily” to create exquisite posters that promote bands, yes, but also pinpoint a particular place and time.

Pulp & Deckle Mobile Papermaking Studio

On: Kickstarter

Here’s a creative solution to disappearing artist space: Portland’s Pulp & Deckle Community Studio wants to hit the road with their low-cost papermaking workshops, keeping the art of papermaking alive in a food truck turned studio.

Goal: $10,500

Deadline: July 22

So Far: $95.00

Campaign Updates

DIY Dairy-Free, Vegan, Paleo Cheese Kits

Result: Success!

Raised $22,437 of $15,000 goal.

Rufflective Dog Apparel, reflective jackets for dogs

Result: Success!

Raised $2,886 of $2,000 goal.

Etc…Eatery

Result: Failed.

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mbancud@poofmagazine.com