Arts on the Square Spotlight: Meet Lisa Glover of Kit Rex

At this year’s Arts on the Square, be prepared to make friends with a 15 foot walking DINOSAUR!!! KitRex will be bringing this magical creature to the square to entertain the kiddos and adult alike. You can also take home and assemble a 3 foot KitRex dinosaur of your very own! We can’t wait!!

What
exactly is a KitRex?

A KitRex is a flat-packed kit of paper board pieces
that, when folded and tabbed together, becomes a 3ft long dinosaur. It’s the
first product line of my brand, Kit&Co, which will be making all sorts of
imaginative cardboard and paperboard creations.

Have
you always been a maker?

I’ve definitely always been a maker- when I was 5,
my mom and I would make baking soda volcanoes and paint pasta to make
necklaces. In 3rd grade, I remember being super excited about creating ‘simple
machines’ using cardboard, and made an elevator system for my Beanie Babies.
I’ve made many Halloween costumes and would always go above and beyond on class
assignments that involved creating something physical- I even made a functional
cardboard Guillotine for French class in high school- though it didn’t cause
any heads to roll!

I
saw that you had a wildly successful Kickstarter campaign. Can you tell
us about it and about your experience with crowdfunding in general?

I think the Kickstarter campaign’s success was a
random stroke of luck. While I believe my googly-eyed dinos are really awesome,
there are a lot of people who have just as cool creations that don’t get the
love. I was lucky to have this sudden tidal wave of interest- a feature on the
Kickstarter home page, a highlight in their weekly newsletter, and being the
top post on reddit- all within about two days. Going viral helped me soar past
my $8000 goal to a mind-boggling $110K.

Crowdfunding is a fantastic way to test your ideas,
and it’s the reason I was able to launch my business- but it can be fickle,
too. My second campaign, I raised $30,000, despite doing a lot more ground work
for publicity. Yet, I can’t wait to do another campaign. They’re a wild
ride.

Your
gigantic dinosaurs are such a neat piece of public art. How do people
react to it?

People from all stages of life seem to be
mesmerized by the giant dinos. From children to sharp-suited businessmen,
everyone stops when they see it. It’s so much fun, walking around in my
costume- people want to take pictures of it and with it. I chase children
around and they can’t get over the fact that they’re being chased by a 15ft
long dinosaur. I think it opens up people’s minds to what is possible with
something as cheap and simple as cardboard.

What
type of work will you be featuring at Arts on the Square?

I’ll be featuring my KitRex Velociraptor Kits as
well as some partial costumes, for anyone interested in being a dino
themselves. I’ll also have some little crafts for kids, and of course, the big
dino. You can be sure he’ll be walking the square, making new friends!